{"id":36767,"date":"2018-01-17T06:00:08","date_gmt":"2018-01-16T19:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=36767"},"modified":"2018-01-16T15:49:14","modified_gmt":"2018-01-16T04:49:14","slug":"indonesia-strategic-threat-strategic-partner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indonesia-strategic-threat-strategic-partner\/","title":{"rendered":"Indonesia: strategic threat or strategic partner?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Does Indonesia pose a strategic risk for Australia? The answer might be \u2018no\u2019 if one looks at the recently released Australian foreign policy white paper<\/a>. It argues that Indonesia\u2014along with Japan, India and South Korea\u2014is an \u2018Indo-Pacific democracy\u2019 that is bilaterally and regionally important to Australia. Australia, it says, will therefore \u2018work closely with Indonesia in regional and international forums to support and protect a rules-based regional order\u2019.<\/p>\n

The premise that Indonesia and Australia can leverage their relationship into a strategic partnership with regional effects perhaps follows the vision in the 2016 defence white paper<\/a>. That document shifted the bilateral tone away<\/a> from the traditional security ambivalence into a partnership based on shared geo-economic and maritime interests.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, parts of the Australian strategic community still consider Indonesia a possible strategic risk. One example is a recent ASPI report, Australia\u2019s management of strategic risk in the new era<\/em><\/a>, by Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith. The report wasn\u2019t about Indonesia as much as it was about China. It focused on key warning indicators and defence capabilities Canberra should consider, as \u2018a major power threat\u2019 can\u2019t be ruled out.<\/p>\n

The issue with Indonesia was \u2018whether Islamic extremism is entering the mainstream of Indonesian politics, and so eventually posing a direct threat to Indonesia\u2019s domestic stability and having implications for\u2019 Australia. If Indonesia becomes \u2018some sort of aggressive Islamist extremist state\u2019, the authors argue, it could pose \u2018a fundamental threat to Australia\u2019s security\u2019. After all, Indonesia\u2019s growing economy would \u2018give it the option of developing much more serious military capabilities\u2019.<\/p>\n

Concerns over Indonesia\u2019s strategic trajectory are certainly not new; they go back<\/a> to the 1960s and 1970s. But today, the argument that Indonesia could pose strategic risks for Australia (in the way Dibb and Brabin-Smith conceive it) is fundamentally flawed because it\u2019s based on problematic assumptions, not sound or systematic analysis.<\/p>\n

First, the \u2018Islamist extremist state\u2019 argument assumes that (1) the \u2018mainstreaming\u2019 of Islamic extremism will lead to a \u2018takeover\u2019, (2) the process of such a takeover will lead to \u2018domestic instability\u2019, and (3) such a state will be \u2018hostile\u2019 towards or perhaps intent on attacking Australia.<\/p>\n

Putting aside the fact that none of the key terms (such as mainstreaming extremism or instability) are properly defined, these assumptions rely on a logic whereby the entry of Islamic extremism into mainstream politics automatically leads to \u2018takeover\u2019 and \u2018hostility\u2019. Given that logic\u2019s complexities, the analysis should be empirically supported rather than conjectured through assumptions.<\/p>\n

Further, the assumptions aren\u2019t about contested strategic interests if an \u2018Islamic extremist state\u2019 arises or about whether Indonesia has the requisite offensive capabilities or hostile intentions. Instead, they\u2019re about Indonesia being \u2018different\u2019, whether defined by religion (Islamic) or regime type (non-liberal democracy). Assuming that a different Indonesia will pose a strategic risk just because it\u2019s different sidelines any effort to understand the country on its own terms\u2014a hallmark of strategic analysis driven by ethnocentricity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One could misinterpret such analysis as a variation of the erroneous myth that Islam as a religion or Islamic societies are inherently or irrationally hostile towards a \u2018liberal Western\u2019 state like Australia. While I don\u2019t believe that\u2019s what Dibb and Brabin-Smith are arguing, without a clear elaboration one could misread it as such.<\/p>\n

Second, the argument that economic growth leads to improved and offensive military capabilities assumes that (1) defence planning is externally oriented and \u2018rational\u2019 (that is, a threat-based, value-maximising assessment of the strategic environment and goals within existing constraints), and (2) Indonesia could be threatening because its intentions could change overnight.<\/p>\n

Indonesia\u2019s economic growth has indeed been correlated with the rise of its defence spending (roughly US$6\u20138 billion in recent years). But most of that money (around 65% to 75%) goes to personnel in the form of salaries, education and other benefits. Indonesia spends only around US$1\u20132 billion annually on procurement (divided equally among the three services).<\/p>\n

Indonesia also faces numerous challenges to modernising its defence forces. Planning has been erratic<\/a> and subject to bureaucratic politics and civil\u2013military contestations. The operational readiness of most of its ships and aircraft is currently in doubt too. Overall, Indonesia doesn\u2019t have the offensive capabilities to attack Australia to begin with, nor does it plan to acquire them.<\/p>\n

The question of intentions, on the other hand, is always elusive. But Indonesia\u2019s military has always been strategically defensive\u2014major military exercises, along with doctrinal developments since the 1990s, can attest to that.<\/p>\n

Even the examples invoked to paint Indonesia as a possible \u2018threat\u2019\u2014the 1960s West Irian campaign and Konfrontasi<\/em>, as well as the 1975 Timor invasion\u2014were driven by domestic concerns rather than regional expansionism<\/a>. Politically, Indonesian elites<\/a> often express annoyance about and a lack of trust in Australia\u2019s intentions. But except for the occasional political scandals, Jakarta hasn\u2019t seemed to care<\/a> much about Australia in recent years.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Dibb and Brabin-Smith\u2019s arguments are based on worst-case forecasting, which makes sense given Australia and Indonesia\u2019s turbulent bilateral history. But the assumptions that spring from such a premise could crowd out efforts to better see Indonesia in its own terms. If so, perhaps Ken Booth<\/a> is right: worst-case forecasting is to strategic analysis what the \u2018god of the gaps\u2019 is to theology\u2014it fills in for what we don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does Indonesia pose a strategic risk for Australia? The answer might be \u2018no\u2019 if one looks at the recently released Australian foreign policy white paper. It argues that Indonesia\u2014along with Japan, India and South Korea\u2014is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":36770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[285,8,25],"class_list":["post-36767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-foreign-policy","tag-indonesia","tag-southeast-asia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIndonesia: strategic threat or strategic partner? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indonesia-strategic-threat-strategic-partner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Indonesia: strategic threat or strategic partner? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Does Indonesia pose a strategic risk for Australia? 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