Posted on 07/12/2015 1:50:52 PM PDT by naturalman1975
An increasingly powerful Indonesia may supplant Australia in the future as the go-to ally for the US in the Asia-Pacific region, the new report on ANZUS says.
It calls for the creation of a trilateral security process to militate against potential rifts between Jakarta, Canberra and Washington. The report, by the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, says a stronger Indonesia is likely to attract far greater interest from Washington — to the extent that Jakarta would, over time, become a competitor with Canberra for US attention. “Under such a scenario, US expectations of Australia might actually diminish,” the report says.
It also cites the concern — raised by influential foreign policy analyst Michael Wesley — that if the US seeks to build Indonesian military capabilities as a bulwark against Chinese power, Australia may feel less enamoured of the US.
“Conversely, history suggests that there is no guarantee that Washington will side with Canberra in times of crisis involving Indonesia — particularly an Indonesia whose geostrategic importance is perceived to be on the rise,” it says.
As an example, during the late 1960s the US refused to back Australian opposition to Indonesia’s annexation of West Papua for fear of driving Jakarta straight into the arms of Beijing.
In 1999, calls from Canberra for the provision of US “boots on the ground’’ during the crisis in East Timor went unheeded.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...
This is rather revisionist history to be honest. While it's true the US didn't put many boots on the grounds, the USS Belleau Woods was just off the coast of East Timor during the Australian landing operations, with the clear understanding that its force of US Marines would be available to provide assistance if the Australian Army encountered strong resistance. The US did not want to damage its relationship with Indonesia if it could avoid it, so did not want to go in unless necessary - but would have done so if it had been. And nobody can say for certain if their presence wasn't part of the reason it didn't happen, because the Indonesians didn't oppose the landings. Maybe they would have if they'd thought they could get away with it.
Indonesia is not a friend of the United States.
The world’s largest predominantly muslim country.
What could possibly go wrong?
It wasn’t true in the 1960s, but Australia probably realizes that they can’t count on the U.S. as long as Obama and his Commie-Muslim pals are in the driver’s seat.
Hopefully that will change, although it must be said that it’s far from clear that the situation will change in the next election.
Meantime, the Ozzies had better look out for themselves, I’m afraid.
They aren’t terribly Muslim, as far as that goes.
There is a fanatical traditionalist minority in North Sumatra (Aceh), and some neo-Muslim fundamentalist types everywhere, but mainly the whole Islam thing is pro-forma.Even in Java the animist stuff is more typical - I.e., don’t piss off the volcano Goddess.
And the local big bad are the Chinese. They are much bigger, closer and scarier than Israelis or any Christians.
A friend of Obama, more likely.
Eventually Australia and the rest of Asia will have to arrive at a reasonable working consensus with China, the Middle Kingdom. The US has limited power to intervene. For the past sixty years American entanglement whether in the Far East or the Mideast has been costly, has done little to enhance American security and has created bitter long term resentments. The time has come for a widespread reassessment of America’s broad involvement everywhere. The United States really only influences foreigners by its example and accomplishments. It cannot change people, beliefs and cultures at the point of a bayonet or by force.
Good luck dealing with Indonesia. Very corrupt country. Then again. Might be a perfect fit for the DC Cartel.
I surely hope this is not so. I cannot think of a better ally, a country more in line with the US people than Australia. Indonesia follows more of the east Asia worldview which incorporates “face saving” and the idea that pronouncement of a policy means that the policy actually works, i.e. the eradication of malaria in Papua by 2020. (I do not know what disease I’ll get from that gosh darn mosquito in 2021, but it sure won’t be malaria because the government “eliminated” malaria the previous year.) Australia has been allied with US since before WWI (I cannot think of any history of alliance prior) and we should not realign ourselves now.
Doubtless a source of great comfort to the maimed survivors of the Bali bombing and the families of those killed.
I guess those were the moderate muslims we've heard so much about since 9/11.
BHO2’s sister is a member of Indonesian royalty.
Australians continue to be a major part of Indonesia's tourist industry, and nothing of a similar magnitude has happened since, so it was an unusual event. The Indonesian security forces were caught napping by the Bali incident, but they have slowly, but surely, killed or imprisoned everyone involved. To the extent that extremism means the resort to armed attacks on non-Muslims, I'd say Indonesians are pretty moderate. At 20m people, there is no shortage of non-Muslims for extremists to attack, and yet there are few such incidents. That's not even counting the hordes of Australians who are a major source of Indonesia's tourism revenues.
Australia only came into existence as a nation in 1901 and didn't start exercising an independent foreign policy until 1941 (as a dominion of the British Empire, we had independence on domestic issues, but foreign relations were still handled from London - we acquired the right to exercise an independent foreign policy in 1925, but did not take advantage of that until 1941 and our first action on doing so was to formally ally with the United States.
The first time Australian and US troops fought together, however, was on the 4th of July 1918, when four American companies were incorporated into the 4th Australian Division for the Battle of Hamel - the date was not a coincidence, the Australian commander, Lieutenant-General John Monash deliberately set the date because he thought it would help inspire the American troops he'd been given (for most of them, it was their first time in combat). The Battle was a complete victory for the allies. Corporal Thomas Pope of the 131st Regiment of the US Army was awarded the British Distinguished Conduct Medal on the recommendation of General Monash, and subsequently received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle.
We are discussing a military alliance with a large nation.
The fact that they have a nasty terrorist minority is only marginally important.
Britain, India and the Philippines also have nasty terrorist minorities, but these are not grounds for objections it seems.
Ah, thanks. I just woke up a little while ago and my brain isn’t quite in gear yet.
Indonesia, with US 'support' mopped up the commies in the 60's. Indonesia is corrupt, but they respect the US and, overall the people there are very friendly to the US. Like any country, there will be pockets of hate and skid polls.
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