Entrepreneurial officers:|Examining the commercial enterprises of the Algerian, Turkish, and Indonesian armed forces

Abstract

The role of the armed forces within any given polity has been maintained by a sovereign state for the explicit purpose of the application of violence. The Cold War and decolonization provided new opportunities for militaries to step out of their security jurisdiction and undertake roles that would nominally be reserved for civilian administrators. In the mid to late twentieth century the militaries of many developing societies adopted a materialist-economic character, institutionalizing their presence in the corporate economy. Conflating national security with the military’s interests, military generals sought to create intricate networks of pension funds, army foundations, and military-aligned businesses whose aims were to serve, protect, and perpetuate the interests of service officers. This study explores the disparate experiences and issues surrounding the corporate activities of the militaries of Algeria, Turkey, and Indonesia, tracing their evolution as anti-colonial, independence forces to their roles as significant stakeholders in their national economies. Building on the “corporate-materialist” claim, this thesis will seek to argue that the Algerian, Turkish, and Indonesian armed forces initially engaged in economic activities as a military necessity to guarantee a steady supply of war matériel but then soon morphed into economic surrogates to institutionalize their privileges, bolster their economic portfolios, and insulate their corporate interests from unstable domestic politics and sclerotic international conditions.