Indonesia is geographically located along the Ring of Fire, averaging between 200-300 earthquakes and tsunamis a year. In 2004, a big earthquake occurred followed by tsunami in Aceh and surrounding areas, resulting in more than 230,000 fatalities throughout fourteen countries. This disaster became Indonesia's cornerstone to disaster management. From it, the country learned the Indonesia Military (TNI) is the most reliable institution to respond to natural disaster emergencies. Nevertheless, to conduct disaster response tasks, TNI faced limitations to its effectiveness. The purpose of this study is to discover gaps in the deployment of the TNI as a quick response task force to natural disasters in Indonesia using the qualitative research methodology of case study analysis to compare and contrast the Indonesian models of the Aceh tsunami of 2004 and the 2018 earthquake, tsunami, and liquefaction in Palu-Donggala to the US Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Indonesian law and policy for disaster management played a large role to leverage TNI roles in disaster response. This study answers the question regarding effectiveness of TNI as the quick task responder to Indonesia disasters.

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