EduAsiaNews, Jakarta – Rector of Universitas Pembangunan Nasional “Veteran” Jakarta (UPNVJ), Prof. Dr. Anter Venus, M.A., Comm., says the concept of national defense (bela negara) must adapt to the changing nature of threats in the digital era. National resilience, he said, no longer concerns only physical or military threats, but also cognitive warfare, battles over narratives and ideology, and the challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI).
Venus made the remarks during a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) between UPNVJ and the Gerakan Bela Negara Indonesia (GBNI) at the UPNVJ Pondok Labu Campus in South Jakarta on Saturday (August 15, 2026).
The FGD discussed strategies for strengthening national defense education, including developing educational models that can reach communities in rural areas, remote regions, and border areas.
Venus said the changing strategic environment requires national defense to place greater emphasis on non-military threats.
“The approach is a non-military approach. Non-military means it is not about conventional warfare. Warfare has changed. It is now cognitive warfare, narrative warfare and ideological warfare,” Venus said.
According to Venus, the digital space has become an important arena for strengthening national resilience. The rapid flow of information, competition between narratives, disinformation and advances in AI can influence how people receive information, form perceptions and respond to issues affecting the nation.
“Challenges in cyberspace, particularly the challenges posed by AI, can also mislead us. That is what we want to discuss,” he said.
National Defense Enters the Digital Space
The changing nature of threats, Venus said, requires a broader understanding of national defense. Awareness of national defense can no longer be built solely through conventional concepts of security and defense. It must also strengthen critical thinking, ideological resilience, digital literacy and the ability to verify information.
The approach is consistent with UPNVJ’s identity as a National Defense Campus. Through its Center for National Defense Studies, UPNVJ has developed the Aktualisasi Bela Negara (ABN) framework, which is based on five core values: love of the homeland; awareness of national and state identity; loyalty to Pancasila as the state ideology; willingness to make sacrifices for the nation and state; and basic capabilities in national defense.
These values are not limited to physical activities. They are also incorporated into education, digital transformation, entrepreneurship, public health, literacy, local wisdom, diversity and community empowerment.
Venus believes that strengthening national defense therefore requires the involvement of multiple stakeholders, including central and local governments, universities, schools, youth organizations and communities.
“Everyone agrees that we want to spread these ideas, including building a national Gerakan Bela Negara. One way to do this is through training and national defense education,” he said.
Cognitive Warfare Targets the Way People Think
Venus placed particular emphasis on cognitive warfare because such threats do not necessarily target physical territory. Instead, they can target how people think, assess information, perceive events and understand values and ideology.
The challenge has become increasingly relevant as people rely more heavily on digital platforms as sources of information. Technology enables information to be produced and distributed almost instantly, while people must have adequate skills to distinguish facts from opinions, manipulation and misleading content.
For this reason, national defense education must evolve with the times. Strengthening national resilience needs to go hand in hand with people’s ability to respond to disinformation, narrative manipulation, polarization and the various consequences of AI development.
This orientation has also become one of the foundations for UPNVJ and GBNI in developing guidelines and curricula for national defense education that can be systematically implemented across Indonesia.
“We have been asked how GBNI and UPN can design guidelines and curricula that can be implemented throughout Indonesia—not only in higher education, but also in rural communities and other regions,” Venus said.
The proposed guidelines will cover objectives, learning materials, program duration, instructor qualifications, implementing institutions, partnership models, networks and funding mechanisms.
“The output will be guidelines and a curriculum for training in the regions. Naturally, the guidelines will cover objectives, duration and so on. In terms of the broader strategy, we also need to determine who the partners will be, how cooperation in the regions will work and how the funding will be arranged,” he said.
National Defense Built Through Collaboration
In practice, national defense education will require a broad collaborative ecosystem. At the regional level, offices of the National and Political Unity Agency (Kesbangpol), schools, universities, civil society organizations and youth groups can contribute according to local conditions.
At the village level, organizations such as Karang Taruna can also be involved, ensuring that national defense education is not delivered through a single standardized model but adapted to the needs of local communities.
“When GBNI eventually goes to the regions, it will partner not only with government institutions, but potentially also with schools, universities in the regions and others,” Venus said.
The FGD was attended by GBNI officials, including Chairman Drs. H. Abu Hasan, M.Pd.; Executive Chairman Prof. Dr. H. Mansyur Achmad KM, M.Si.; Head of BACADNAS Lt. Gen. TNI Gabriel Lema; and Secretary-General Agung RC Prabowo, S.E., M.M., along with academics and other stakeholders.
For Venus, UPNVJ’s identity as a National Defense Campus must be translated into knowledge, education and empowerment models that remain relevant to changing strategic conditions. National defense, he stressed, should not stop at symbols or conceptual understanding but must equip people to respond to the real threats of their time.
Amid cognitive warfare, battles over narratives and ideology, disinformation and the rapid development of AI, UPNVJ is encouraging national defense education to focus increasingly on cognitive resilience, digital literacy, Pancasila values and citizens’ ability to think critically. Through this non-military approach, national defense is expected to remain relevant as an instrument for strengthening national resilience in the digital era.(www.upnvj.ac.id)
