The development of the army in Indonesia is unique in its own way. The main special features of the functioning of the army in the society and economy of the country were laid during the Second World War. And if the colonial armed formations did not have a significant impact on the creation of the army in the 1940s and 1950s, then the armies recruited by the Japanese from among the locals, the largest of which was the Army of the Defenders of the Motherland (PETA), became the core of the armed forces of the already independent Republic of Indonesia and brought with them a number of features characteristic of such formations: elitization the army, the factionalism of officers, as well as the involvement of the army in the politics and economy of the country.