Defining Indonesia’s need for a grand strategy

Lie Nathanael Santoso, Washington | Fri, 08/19/2011 8:00 AM A | A | A | - Klipping the Jakarta Post

The United States has identified Indonesia as a “linchpin” for security in the Asia Pacific region. Indonesia should rightly be proud.

Why? It has the largest economy in Southeast Asia, is rich in natural resources and is the world’s third largest democracy. It occupies a strategic location for key international maritime activities — bridging the Pacific and Indian oceans. The country has huge potential to become one of Asia’s leading powers of the 21st century.

However, there is something Indonesia lacks — a grand strategy. It has not clearly defined what its geopolitical interests are and has not convincingly articulated what it wants to achieve with its foreign
relations over the long term.

It needs to explain how its foreign policy advances its overall national interests. Indonesia had outlined eight foreign policy priorities in 2009, including taking the leadership role in ASEAN and strengthening partnerships with other Asia-Pacific countries.

As chair of ASEAN this year, Indonesia has shown it can play a significant role in shaping the regional architecture of the Asia Pacific.

Indonesia is setting the agenda of all the ASEAN-related meetings this year — a testing time for Jakarta due to outstanding border disputes between neighbors Thailand and Cambodia and China’s claims in the South China Sea. These security concerns come at a time when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton identifies ASEAN as the “fulcrum” of the evolving regional architecture.

By leading ASEAN to discuss these “sensitive” issues during the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meetings in Bali last month, Indonesia is taking a leadership role. Indeed, Indonesia should take heart that it was under its leadership when China agreed to the guidelines of a Code of Conduct (COC) with ASEAN.

But Indonesia’s leadership should not end there, or at the end of this year when its ASEAN chairmanship expires. The question that Indonesia needs to define clearly is — how do the successes of this year advance Indonesia’s national interests in the long run?

Indonesia’s leaders need to remind themselves that their country’s involvement in ASEAN or in other international forums is a means and not an end in itself. They should understand that the ultimate geopolitical goal for Indonesia is to become a significant economic and global power.

Being a global power gives Indonesia greater security, stability, prosperity, and access to markets and opportunities. It has the potential to achieve all of these.

But it has to consolidate its military capabilities, maintain high GDP growth and have a stable economy diversified away from natural resources. It should aim to be in the same league as China and India within the next two decades and it should take concrete, strategic measures to achieve that. Indonesia has to diversify its foreign policy and invest more time and resources engaging other powers that have strategic and economic influence in the Asia Pacific. Key pillars of a grand strategy for Indonesia could include:

Strengthening military relations with Australia, India, Japan and the United States. Indonesia’s diplomatic relationship with these countries has improved since President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took office in 2004. Jakarta has to build on this improvement and make more efforts to militarily engage these countries.

They are strategically located across the Asia Pacific, have sustained relatively strong economies and have advanced military technologies that Indonesia could acquire.

Jakarta needs to diversify its foreign policy resources and find common ground with these countries, especially as they have recognized Indonesia as part of their main foreign policy formulations for the security of the Asia Pacific.

Continue taking a leadership role in regional economic architecture. Indonesia should continue to invest in ASEAN and help establish the ASEAN Economic Community by 2015.

It has to strengthen its trade relations with China, play a more active role in economic institutions such as APEC and the G20 and consider joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). A strategic economic policy is core to a proactive and globally compelling foreign policy.

This will take courage, because it means investing in Indonesia’s future competitiveness while exposing legacy businesses to new levels of competition. Trading long-term gains in technology, education, access to markets and innovation for short-term pain to large and inefficient national businesses is in Indonesia’s interest.

Clearly articulate Indonesia’s foreign policy principle of “active and independent” in the context of
21st-century globalism. The principle of “active and independent” has been used since it was formulated in 1948 by Indonesia’s first vice president Mohammad Hatta. This foreign policy was aimed to avoid Indonesia being pulled into the orbit of the big powers’ politics during the Cold War.

At present, though, Indonesia needs to look at this principle contextually and not literally. It has to define this ideology in the context of a complex, interdependent world of the 21st century. In short, Indonesia needs to strategically define what it wants to achieve in the long run.

It should not limit its foreign policy to Southeast Asia only. It has to continue strengthening ASEAN because Indonesia’s role as an influential global power is limited if ASEAN is weak. At the same time, it has to realize that it has enough clout to bilaterally engage with other big powers.

The writer is an Indonesia researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Southeast Asia Program in Washington, DC. He has a Master’s degree in International History and Asian Studies from Georgetown University.