Democratic military reform, following the fall of a military-backed authoritarian regime, involves a series of conceptually distinct steps although in reality they often overlap. First, the military must withdraw from its political role as a dominant or major force in the government and concentrate on its professional military functions. Second, the civil government has to establish control over the military which should loyally carry out the policies determined by that government. And third, if “democratic civilian control” is to be achieved, the military must accept its obligation to be accountable through the government to an elected legislature and public opinion. As Muthiah Alagappa argues, “Ultimately, success in democratic civilian control will hinge as much if not even more on the consolidation of democracy and development of state capacity than on the specific measures instituted to control the military”. The actual path towards military reform, however, is always affected by the specific circumstances of the country undergoing reform.

The collapse of Soeharto's New Order and the launching of Reformasi posed huge challenges for civil-military relations. How would the post- Soeharto regime deal with the military and, no less important, how would the military adjust to completely new circumstances? Advocates of military reform often envisage a Western-style professional military that takes its orders from a democratically elected civilian government and is primarily concerned with the defence of the nation against foreign military threats. The Indonesian military, of course, with its origins among the nationalist fighters who conducted the successful guerilla war against the Dutch colonial power in the late 1940s, had never conformed to the apolitical Western model. Like the Dutch colonial military, its main purpose was to maintain order and put down rebellion within it own territory. It was also structured in such a way as to provide political support for the incumbent president. During the New Order, the military was closely integrated with the Soeharto regime and served as the ultimate guarantor of its longevity.

Democratic political reform required that the military be dislodged from the position it held during the New Order. Unlike military-dominated governments in countries where the military had acquired power in a relatively recent coup, the New Order regime had been thoroughly penetrated over several decades by active and retired military officers who occupied key positions at all levels of civil government, stretching from the national cabinet to provincial and district administration.