The Defense University (Unhan) is set to develop a disaster management program in response to the country’s vulnerability to calamities.
Unhan, run by the Defense Ministry, is also planning to develop a postgraduate program in defense economy in addition to its two existing study programs: the National War College and the Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies; as it commemorates its first-year anniversary this month.
"This year Unhan will develop disaster management and defense economy study programs," Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said in his speech that marked the university’s first anniversary at the Presidential Palace on Wednesday. "Then in the coming years we will open other study programs in line with the need of the country's defense sector."
He said the university, which has 70 students with military and civilian backgrounds, would also strengthen partnership with both domestic and foreign research institutions to help produce more research-based strategic policies in the defense sector.
Deputy National Education Minister Fasli Jalal told a press conference after the ceremony that a disaster management program was necessary, given the frequent natural disasters that struck Indonesia.
A defense economy study is expected to answer questions such as how to finance the defense sector and maintain it amid the country's push for economic growth.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told the audience during the gathering that the university to emerge would have an institution with a specialized area of expertise to differ it from other institutions alike abroad.
Yudhoyono suggested that it should include guerrilla war tactics, conflict resolution, counterterrorism, Islam and harmony among civilizations, among others, in its study program.
"Indonesia is rich in doctrines, theories and practice of guerrilla warfare as has been recorded in the country's long history of fighting to gain independence," Yudhoyono said in his speech.
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