indon-idu-may09

8/2/2019 INDON-IDU-MAY09

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INDONESIAS NEW HORIZONS:

EDUCATION, REGIONALISM, AND FOREIGN POLICY

Donald K. Emmerson

Director, Southeast Asia ForumStanford University

[This essay is based on notes for a talk delivered on 11 March 2009 to an international

seminarIndonesia 2025: Geopolitical and Security Challengesconvened inconnection with the inauguration of the Indonesian Defense University (IDU), Jakarta,

Indonesia, 11-12 Mar 2009. The text was submitted in May 2009 for consideration as apossible chapter in a volume of papers from the seminar to be published by the IDU.]Perluaslah cakrawala! Widen your horizons! Seek broader knowledge! I am of course

quoting from the remarks made just now by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono inconnection with the launching of the Indonesian Defense University (IDU)the occasion

for this international seminar on the geopolitical and security challenges facing Indonesia.

The president meant to encourage the participants in this seminar to broaden theirhorizons.1 But if I may, I would like to extend his advice to include what I take to be a

major purpose of the IDU. For as I understand its mission, beyond providing militaryofficers with military education narrowly construed, this new University will educate

both military and civilian professionals about, and sensitize them to, the multiple contextsin which issues of national defense will arise for Indonesia in this 21

stcentury.

Much has changed here since the transition to democracy began in 1998. Not least

among these changes has involved the role of the military. The demise of the dual

function (dwi fungsi) implied a narrowing of authoritythe withdrawal of the armedforces from political life and their subordination to civilian rule. What the IDU augurs is

a broadening of knowledgethe education of military and civilian personnel alike

regarding the changing nature of security and the complex settings in which securityissues will arise in years to come. The purpose is not to warrant intervention, but to

improve understanding. By this interpretation,Perluaslah cakrawala! could even serveas the motto of the IDU.

Note the significance of the name: the Indonesian Defense University (Universitas

Pertahanan Indonesia). Not the Indonesian Security University (Universitas KeamananIndonesia). Nor the Indonesian Resilience University (Universitas Ketahanan

Indonesia).

The latter two names might be read as justifying the re-extension of the militarysentitlement to intervene freely in many different sectorsideological, political,

economic, social, and cultural, summarized during the New Order as ipoleksosbud. By

1 See Sambutan Presiden RI pada Peresmian Universitas Pertahanan Indonesia dan Pembukaan

International Seminar on Indonesia 2025: Geopolitical and Security Challenges, Istana Negara, 11 Maret

2009, http://www.setneg.go.id/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3608&Itemid=26,

accessed 12 May 2009.


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that sweeping definition ofauthority, no sphere of life lay beyond the reach of the armedforces. Broadening the knowledge of military and civilian professionals so that they can

better serve the civilian leadership of democratic Indonesia is and should be anothermatter altogether. (Interestingly, the panca fungsi of the five-part ipoleksosbudomitted

history. One can hope that the history of defense and defense-related matters will be apart of the IDUs curriculum.)

Obviously related to these distinctions was the renaming of the institution that subsumes

the IDU: from the Department of Defense and Security (Departemen Pertahanan andKeamanan), as it was called during the New Order, to the present-day Department of

Defense (Departemen Pertahanan). The IDU can and should complement this narrowingof policy responsibility with a broadening of practical understanding.

Such a broadening of knowledge could be served, for example, by including in the IDUs

curriculum the study of more than strictly military securityor to use the current phrase,non-traditional security.

2Non-traditional security threats criss-cross national borders.

Examples include infectious diseases, air pollution, transnational crime, illegal migration,human trafficking, cybercrime, global warming, and nuclear proliferation. In view of the

current global economic crisis and its possible effects on Indonesia, one may even askwhether economic security should be added to this list.

This is not to dismiss the significance of traditional security, or security between states.

But it is to put this classic understanding of security in urgently contemporaryperspective.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has long prided itself on, and

taken responsibility for, the absence of war between its member states. In the context ofthe inauguration of the IDU, two responses to this admirable record of peace occur to me:

First, to what extent have recent bilateral tensions between ASEAN states threatened thishistory of inter-member peace, and with what implications for regional diplomacy? IDUteachers and scholars might usefully explore this question. How much has regional peace

been jeopardized, for example, by Indonesian-Malaysian tensions over Ambalat and thetreatment of Indonesian migrants to Malaysia, or by the fatal clashes between Thailand

and Cambodia over the status of Preah Vihar?

ASEAN has played no role in trying to dampen or prevent conflict in these instances.Should it have? Should its never-convened High Council have been enlisted in efforts to

resolve these disputes? Or would that have made a solution more difficult by involvingmore states and making it accordingly harder to reach a consensus?

Second, how effective or ineffective has ASEAN been in monitoring, forestalling, and

mitigating non-traditional or human insecuritythe cross-border damage to SoutheastAsian lives and livelihoods done by actors and conditions more or less beyond state

2 A related subject is human security. These topics are discussed in an ASEAN context inHard Choices:

Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia, ed. Donald K. Emmerson (Stanford, CA /

Singapore: Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center / ISEAS, 2008 / 2009); see especially the chapters by

Mely Caballero-Anthony, Jrn Dosch, Michael S. Malley, and Simon SC Tay.


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control? ASEAN is a Track I organization. Does that status preclude the addition ofthese threats to its security agenda? And if not, how should such threats be addressed?

For all its weaknesses and limitations, Indonesia is nevertheless the most democratic (or,

as critics might prefer, the least undemocratic) country in Southeast Asia. Thatachievement amounts to a comparative advantage when it comes to approaching the

question of how to approach new forms of regional insecurity. For without theappropriate involvement of civil society, how can human insecurity be reduced? The

state bureaucracies of Southeast Asia, Indonesias included, cannot assume by themselvesfull and sole responsibility for the welfare of their people. Nor, absent the accountability

that democracy implies, can we assume that such states will exercise that responsibility.The initial indifference of the junta in Myanmar to the human insecurity wreaked in the

Irrawaddy Delta by hurricane Nargis is a case in point.

I have mentioned the present economic crisis and related economic insecurity as possiblesubjects for study by teachers, researchers, and students at the IDU. Unlike the Asian

financial crisis of 1997-98, the crisis we now face originated in the United States and hasassumed global proportions. But this does not mean that regional frameworks in

Southeast Asia, East Asia, or the still larger Asian Pacific zone have no role to play inattenuating its effects.

When bad times arrive, it is important neither to underestimate nor to exaggerate their

likely scope, duration, and severity. This crisis is no exception. As it has deepened sinceit first arose in the US in 2008, the downturn has nevertheless triggered some rather

apocalyptic predictions.

My favorite among these overdrawn forebodings was voiced in Moscow on 3 March2009 by the dean of the Russian foreign ministrys school for future diplomats, Igor

Panarin. He predicted that the economic crisis will cause upheavals in the United States

so massive that President Barack Obama will be obliged to declare martial law. But to noavail. According to Panarin, the US is highly likely to break apart into six differentcountries by the end of 2010.3

This is, of course, absurd. So is this headline on the cover of the 16 March 2009 issue of

Fortune Magazine: IS CHINA SINKING? No, it is not. Nor, despite the origins of thecrisis on Wall Street, the epitome of capitalism, is it true that WE ARE ALL

SOCIALISTS NOW. We are not all socialists now. Chastened capitalists perhaps, butnot socialistsat least not yet!

More serious, and worrisome, is what the World Bank predicted on 8 March 2009: that

the world economy will actually shrink in 2009 for the first time since World War II.

Clearly, the crisis we are in is global, not regional, and the future of regionalisms,including those involving Asia, must be seen in this sobering context. Asian-Pacific

regionalism generallyand the Indonesian government in particular, given itsmembership in the Group of Twentyshould and will have a role to play in helping the

3 Russian: U.S. will split apart by 2011, USA Today,

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/03/russian-us-will.html, accessed 13 May 2009.


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world exit this crisis. But that regional role can only be constructive if the relevantframeworksASEAN, ASEAN Plus Three (APT), the East Asia Summit (EAS), the

Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, theASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the proposed Asia Pacific Community (APC), the Six-

Party Talks on North Korea, and so onare geared to three criteria in the following orderof importance.

The search for a solution must come first. Will this or that prospective member in a

given framework facilitate that process? Then we must determine what concretecontribution each state or organization that might be invited to join can make toward

implementing a solution once it has been drawn up and agreed to. And only then mustwe think about mere representation, by which I mean whether to invite this or that

country to belong not because of its ability to help create, fund, or implement thesolution, but simply for the sake of being inclusive.

The trade-off here is between effectiveness and representation. The future of Asian

Pacific regionalism lies in our ability to develop arrangements, networks, andorganizations that are effective, and that means they should bejust representative enough

to ensure legitimacybut not so representative as to undermine effectiveness and ensurestagnation or even paralysis.

ASEAN itself is a cautionary illustration of the trade-off between effectiveness and

representation. The enlargement of ASEAN to include all ten Southeast Asian countriescertainly served representation. But it undermined the organizations effectiveness by

lowering what it could do toward what the least able or willing member was willing tofund, facilitate, or allow. (The ASEAN Minus X formula has been only a minor, ad

hoc, and intermittent exception to this rule.)

If we were here today inaugurating not a Defense University but a Finance University, I

would spend my time analyzing the work of ASEAN Plus Three as an arrangement thathas done comparatively well in meeting my three criteria. The members of its varioussubgroups and networks, including especially the Chiang Mai Initiative, have been

chosen not because they exist but because they are able and willing to generate solutionsand contribute to them.

The CMI of course was created in response to a regional stimulusthe Asian Financial

Crisis of 1997. Despite the substantial foreign reserves held by its participatingmembers, the regional character of the Initiative limits its ability to resolve the present

global crisis. The APEC Economic Leaders Meeting set for Singapore in November2009 can help, for example, to ensure that economic nationalism does not deepen and

prolong the current recession. But in relation to global institution such as theInternational Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the UN, the more important role will

be played by the also globally recruited members of the G20.

What is noteworthy about the G20 for my analytic purpose here is that it does at leastbring together nearly all of the largest economies. It is a fair assumption that the larger

economies will be able to contribute more than the smaller ones to actually solving thecrisis.


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Among the ASEAN states, only Indonesia is in the G20. But the Indonesian governmentshould not be satisfied merely to be represented there. In consultation with their ASEAN

colleagues, Indonesian authorities will want and need to come up with ideas,recommendations, and priorities that can help shorten the crisis and limit the damage that

it does. In this way Indonesia can justify its membership in the G20 not as a matter ofrepresentationan entitlement related to national sizebut as an able and willing

contributor in its own to the global effort to cope with and get through this recession.

In Indonesia, 2009 is an electoral year. One might therefore expect Indonesias leaders tobe focused on domestic politics and to put foreign policy on hold. On the contrary, it has

become clear that the present Yudhoyono administration is trying to raise Indonesiasprofile in the larger worldto broaden the countrys foreign policy horizons.

I lack the knowledge to explain this move, and it is too recent for any observer to assess

its consequences. But one can note the correlation between the current leadershipvacuum inside ASEAN and the increased interest of President Yudhoyono in Indonesias

becoming more proactive within but also outside the confines of Southeast Asia.

I refer of course to the prolonged domestic political turmoil in Thailand, the country thathas occupied the ASEAN chair since mid-2008 and will continue to do so through

December 2009. Thai governments have been too short-lived and too preoccupied withpolitical maneuvers and physical confrontations at home to be able to pay sustained

attention to foreign affairs. The ASEAN summit has repeatedly been postponed andrelocated for fear of its disruption by opposition activists. Thai authorities have been

unable to fulfill even the minimal requirement that ASEANs chair host its mostimportant annual event.

So far, however, the disarray inside ASEANor, at any rate, inside ASEANs chairing

country, Thailandhas not become an occasion for a muscular move by Indonesia to

take the lead inside the Association. Representing as they do by far the largest SoutheastAsian country, policymakers in Jakarta are well aware of their neighbors likely responsewere they to start swinging Indonesias ample weight around the region. Konfrontasi

may be ancient history, but it has not been forgotten.

Instead, the uptick in Indonesias foreign policy profile can be seen in proactive steps thatare designed so as not to upset the neighbors, and that reach beyond Southeast Asia to

involve other countries.

A case in point is the Bali Democracy Forum (BDF), inaugurated in December 2008.Without evaluating this initiative, let alone its future, suffice it to say that it reflects the

new characterpamorof Indonesia as a democratic country. At the same time,however, the thinking behind the BDF differs sharply from the inclination on the part of

official American democratists to reward countries for having become democratic and tocriticize that have not yet done so. The BDF reverses both of these preferences. Instead

of rewarding the already democratic, the Forum hopes to share its experience with thosethat are not yet democratic, in hopes that they too will democratize, but will do so on

their own, in their own way, without bowing to external pressure. And that requires theBDF to invite and admit regimes such as the junta in Myanmar that are still notably

repressiveengaging them in discussion not confrontation.


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Whether this strategy will work or not is a vital question that cannot yet be answered. I

mention it here merely to show how Indonesias new democratic identity has begun toinfluence its foreign policy in a way that extends beyond the limitations of ASEAN

diplomacy. Most of the delegations at the Forum in Bali in December, after all, camefrom countries outside Southeast Asia. In light of its more-than-just-Southeast-Asian

sphere of activity, the BDF bestows on Indonesia a political profile comparable to thefinancial profile implied by the countrys membership in the global G20.

That said, it is at least compatible with my analysis here to imagine that there may indeed

be Indonesians who influence or make foreign policy who believe either (a) that ASEANwith Thailand in its drivers seat is not a reliable vehicle for meaningful initiatives at this

time; or (b) that Southeast Asia has become too small a pond for a fish as large asIndonesia to swim in; or both (a) and (b).

And that comment leads me to what is being called the larger regional architectureor,

less respectfully, the alphabet soup.

In November 2008 Jusuf Wanandi of CSIS Jakarta rather famously offered theserecommendations for reorganizing regionalism in East Asia and the Asia Pacific:

First: Abolish the APEC summit and keep that forum focused on economic matters.

Second: Either absorb the APT into the EAS or clarify the presently unclear division of

labor between them.

Third: Make the APTs membership match that of the EAS by adding India, Australia,and New Zealand to the APT.

`

Fourth, regarding the ARF: Focus that Forum on non-traditional (human) security.Invite ministers of defense to its meetings and have them co-chaired by a non-ASEANstate and supported by a secretariat. Transform the ARF from a mere talk shop for

building confidence into an action-oriented institution. But above all, wroteWanandi,

there is a need for an East Asian institution as an overarching body for

strategic dialogues and for hard traditional security cooperation. Here theUnited States and Russia should be invited. And it should not be a large

group. Based on size, strategic importance and GDP as criteria, thecountries to be considered would be Australia, China, India, Indonesia,

Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA. ASEAN should be included,represented by the chair and the secretary-general, as an associate

member.

This could become the future concert of power for East Asia (the G8 for

East Asia). While the EAS will be only for East Asian countries, this G8for the region would include important strategic countries such as the

United States and Russia.


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Wanandi went on to note, with implicit approval, that Australian Prime Minister KevinRudd has given a new impetus to the idea of shaping the regional architecture through

region-wide discussions at the highest level. Wanandi presumably was referring to theidea of an Asia-Pacific Community that Rudd had proposed. The APC, wrote Wanandi,

is not likely to lead to a totally new architecture but it will be shaped by theconsolidation of existing ones plus, hopefully, a new overarching structure (East Asias

G8). Indeed, the eight countries proposed by Wanandi as members of his East AsianG8 could, presumably, constitute such an APC.4

It is thought that China and Japan differ regarding their choices of a preferred vehicle for

regional cooperation. Observers believe that China favors the APT, which is exclusivelyEast Asian and excludes the United States. Japan, it is thought, favors the EAS, which

does not include the US but does encompass four other democraciesIndonesia, India,Australia, New Zealandand is in principle open to American accession, provided the

Obama administration signs the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.

The notion of a Rudd-style or Wanandi-style APC or East Asian G8 (EAG8) has beencriticized from inside and outside ASEAN. Critics from within Southeast Asia are

worried that such a body would sideline ASEAN. Some in Southeast Asia are alsouncomfortable with Rudds and Wanandis apparent willingness to have Indonesia be the

only ASEAN state to belong to the proposed framework. I say this notwithstandingWanandis willingness to allow ASEAN as an organization to become an associate

member of his EAG8.

Note also the implication of Wanandis suggestion that the chairmanship of ARF be splitbetween an ASEAN state and a non-ASEAN one: that the Association would have to

stop clinging to the drivers seatpreeminent leadershipand share it instead.

As for China, it has said that conditions arent ripe to put this mechanism [the APC] on

the agenda right now,5 which sounds like a polite way of rejecting the idea. Notcoincidentally, China inside an EAG8 as devised by Wanandi would be able to count onfewer supporters than it can rely on now inside the larger APT.

My point is not to delve into the (de)merits of these and other proposals to reconfigure

regionalism. It is to lay these topics on the table for possible inclusion, at least inpassing, in the curriculum of the IDU. The very fact that I was asked on this IDU-

focused occasion to speak on Asian-Pacific regionalism encourages in me in this regard.

Finally, a brief note on US-Indonesian affairs. The advent of an Obama administration inWashington DC has created a unique moment of opportunity for a reconsideration and

4Jusuf Wanandi, The ASEAN Charter and Remodeling Regional Architecture, The Jakarta Post, 3

November 2009, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/11/03/insight-the-asean-charter-and-

remodeling-regional-architecture.html, accessed 14 May 2009. I wish to emphasize that these are his ideas

and not necessarily my own. I draw attention to them here because they are original, detailed, and worth

considering in light of their possible benefits and drawbacks.

5 China: Time Is Not Ripe for an Asia-Pacific Community, Singapore Institute of International Affairs,

14 April 2009, http://www.siiaonline.org/?q=programmes/insights/china-time-not-ripe-asia-pacific-

community, accessed 14 May 2009.


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improvement of American-Indonesian relations.6

Efforts now underway to develop acomprehensive partnership between the two countries are welcome. So is the prospect

of Obamas visiting Indonesia.

In this context, it strikes me as essential that those speaking for Indonesia make clearwhat they want from the American side. The reverse is of course also true, but the

infrastructure in the US for academically sound policy advice is more substantial thatwhat exists to sustain quality input from policy scholarship into Indonesian foreign-

policymaking circles.

For the sake of Indonesia and its relations with the wider world, the formation and futuredevelopment of the Indonesian Defense University will, I hope, help close that gap.

[15-5-09]

6 For more on this topic, see my Indonesias Obama, Washingtons Indonesia,AsiaTimes, 25 March

2009, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/KC25Ae01.html, accessed 15 May 2009.

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