Australia’s long and storied relationship with Indonesia has had its ups and downs. Now as part of the broader trend towards “multipolarity”, we are being warned to prepare for a more assertive Indonesia.
At the end of the Cold War, Australia, like many nations across the Western World, were promised the “End of History”, where the ultimate triumph of liberal, capitalist democracies had been assured and centuries of ethnic, religious, cultural, and ideological disputes would evaporate in this new “globalised” world.
While for the first three decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the true advent of globalisation, this theory held true, but this beautiful dream wasn’t to last.
The mask-slip moment of China’s militarisation of man-made islands in the South China Sea during the mid-2010s, coupled with Russia’s initial invasion of Ukrainian Crimea in 2014, and continuing hostilities in the Middle East have all quickly disproved the “End of History” theory.
For Australia, this period of global stability and security prior to the 2010s marked something of a golden age, marked by three decades of unmitigated economic growth and prosperity on the back of the American Peace.
Like many nations across the region, Indonesia also enjoyed this period of peace and stability, while marked by its own internal turmoil following the Sukarno and Suharto years, the world’s most populous Muslim nation managed to hold itself together and transition towards a presidential democracy.
Australia’s relationship with its potential great power neighbour has understandably been characterised by ups and downs, from the Konfrontasi during the early days of the Cold War to the Australian-led international intervention to liberate East Timor in the late-1990s and now to the new era of cooperation and collaboration on economic, political, and strategic security in the Indo-Pacific.
However, this relationship has always typically been dominated by Australia, which, despite a significantly smaller population, enjoyed the benefits of a larger economy and access to high-technology weapons systems, providing a tactical and strategic advantage and an integral part in the post-Second World War US-led world order.
A perfect such example of this is former Indonesian defence minister Benny Meordani remarking to former Australian defence minister Kim Beazley that when Indonesian cabinet meetings got heated with Australia very much in the crosshairs, he would encourage cooler heads by reminding them, “Do you realise the Australians have a bomber (F-111) that can put a bomb through that window on to the table here in front of us?”
Today and into the future, this relationship, however, will be dramatically different, and it will, in many ways, form the basis of Australia’s relationships with other rising regional and global powers across the Indo-Pacific well into the 21st century.
Highlighting this shift in the regional power dynamic is Amanda Hodge, The Australian’s Southeast Asia correspondent, in a piece titled Brace for Indonesia to be a more global force under Prabowo Subianto in light of the President-elect’s visit to Australia.
Hodge establishes the early flavour of the soon-to-be inaugurated president Subianto’s administration, saying, “What is clear from his travel itinerary in recent months is he will be a president with a greater global outlook, likely to seek a more prominent global and regional leadership role than his predecessor, Joko Widodo. On the whole, that is a good thing for Australia, which has for years pushed for Jakarta to play a larger role in the region.”
A greater global and regional role
Already Indonesia is experiencing rapid economic growth, buoyed in large part by the combination of its geographic location at the cross-roads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, vast resource wealth, and its immense population.
Corresponding with projected stable growth over the next half decade, Indonesia, under Subianto, is expected to take a more robust role in the Indo-Pacific and more broadly on the global stage, which initially sounds promising.
Hodge establishes the long-arc of Indonesia’s emergence, saying, “Under Jokowi (Subianto’s predecessor), Indonesia’s foreign policy skewed towards the transactional as the President worked to build up Indonesia’s economy with an eye to reaching upper income status by 2045. That has led at times to Jakarta playing down tensions with China in its own waters to avoid complicating its most important trade and investment relationship.”
Shifting to what can be expected under Subianto, Hodge explained, “Prabowo, a sometimes mercurial former special forces commander, is less likely to do the same, though he too is expected to prioritise the Beijing relationship. He has insisted Indonesia will remain a ‘friend to all and enemy of none’, in keeping with the country’s historical non-aligned status that Jokowi has also upheld over the past decade, though how that pans out under a president more determined to play a global role is unclear.”
This, in many ways, remains Indonesia’s status quo approach to regional and global affairs, particularly as it relates to great powers both close to home and more broadly across the global environment; however, it remains without saying that Indonesia’s emphasis will be heavily tilted towards the region in light of the broader global economic, political, and strategic trend towards the Indo-Pacific.
Sessional academic at the University of Queensland Ahmad Rizky M. Umar, in a piece for the Lowy Institute, expanded on this, explaining, “Prabowo will offer more facetime in world affairs – a ‘personalistic’ approach to foreign policy with active presidential engagement. That will mark a big shift from Jokowi, who with some exceptions was more focused at home. But in substantive terms, Prabowo will maintain a pragmatic position with major and great powers, akin to Jokowi’s approach.”
Regardless of the speculation, we won’t know until further into Prabowo’s administration. It is also too early to tell just how proactive Indonesia will be. it is equally important to state that Australia must also be careful not to pre-empt or attach any of our own interests on Indonesia, as they will ultimately act in their own national interests, not ours.
Final thoughts
Australians seem reluctant at best or, indeed, even oblivious at worst that the world is increasingly becoming “multipolar” and our own home, the Indo-Pacific, in particular, is rapidly becoming the most hotly contested region in the world.
Declining economic opportunity, coupled with the rapidly deteriorating global and regional balance of power and the increased politicisation of every aspect of contemporary life, only serves to exacerbate the very reality of disconnection, apathy, and helplessness felt by many Australians.
This attitude is only serving to be compounded and creates a growing sentiment that we are speeding towards a predestined outcome, thus disempowering the Australian people and, to a lesser extent, policymakers as we futilely confront seemingly insurmountable challenges with little-to-no benefit and at a high-risk/reward calculation.
Taking into account the costs and implications, it is therefore easy to understand why so many Australians, both in the general public and within our decision-making circles, seem to have checked out and are quite happy to allow the nation to continue to limp along in mediocrity because, well, it is easier than having lofty ambitions.
If both Australian policymakers and the Australian public don’t snap out of the comforting security blanket that is the belief in the “End of History”, the nation will continue to rapidly face an uncomfortable and increasingly dangerous new reality, where we truly are no longer the masters of our own destiny.
All of this combines to form a rather confronting and disconcerting outcome for our long-term national security and one that requires remedying immediately if Australia is to be positioned to capitalise on the truly epoch-defining industrial, economic, political, and strategic shifts currently underway across the globe.
After all, how can we ask and reasonably expect Australians, particularly young Australians, to put the national interest ahead of their own when the nation doesn’t seem to account for their own interests, particularly when taken to the end of its logical extension, the national interest is at its core, the individual’s interest?
Ultimately, Australia and Australians face these two concurrent yet interconnected challenges, which stand as the greatest challenges of our age, so which way, Australia?
Do we want to be competitive, consequential and thriving, or do we want to be “steady and sturdy” in our managed decline?
(Source: Defence Connect)