STRONG WEAPONRY NEEDED TO SUPPORT DIPLOMACY: ANALYST

Jakarta, Dec 27 (ANTARA) - A strong diplomacy must be supported with a strong defense system with weaponry strength, defense analyst Yusron Ihza Mahendra said.

"For me, defense does not necessarily mean only for defense itself, but also serve as an important means of supporting diplomacy, both politically, diplomatically, and economically," he said here on Sunday.

The former chairman of the House Commission for defense affairs discussed a defense of that instance in his new book which was launched early last week.

"There are several interesting ideas which I tried to explain in that book, which I hope could be offered a paradigm in the national defense system," he said.

This paradigm has the message that defense should not mean for the defense itself. Mahendra who is a graduate of the Tsukuba University in Japan, said that defense should serve as an important means of supporting diplomacy.

"It should serve as a means of a strong diplomacy," he added.