Obama to Connect Dots During His Visit (By: Andrew MacIntyre)

Monday, 15 March 2010

The Jakarta Pos 

Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to Indonesia and Australia is likely to be one of the less difficult and more gratifying international missions he undertakes this year. But along with the goodwill that will greet him in both countries, there will also be opportunities in partnership with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Kevin Rudd to advance significant common causes in the region and globally. And Yudhoyono’s separate bilateral visit to Canberra last week gives added weight to the moment.

With climate change sliding down the agenda in all three countries for now, the big issue on which the three leaders will find common cause is the G-20. A much more difficult issue — but important in different ways for each of them — is the challenge posed by China’s continued rise. Also likely to flow through the visits will be consideration of the need for movement to enhance regional frameworks for multilateral cooperation.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this trip is the “diplomatic dots” it invites us to connect. At least at this moment in history, there is potential for these three countries to begin coordinating their efforts in some policy areas. This is not a possibility that could have been given much serious attention previously.

Obama will want to bag some real gains, which is why the emphasis will be on forging a new comprehensive partnership. This is good packaging. It plays to Indonesia’s desire to move up a level in world affairs — to get beyond aid and development assistance. It also plays to Washington’s interest in forging stronger ties with key Asian countries in response to Beijing’s expanding influence.

What are the prospects for leveraging substantive results from the Jakarta-Washington relationship? Indonesia has made significant progress on the counterterrorism front for some years. Can it now rise to a new level in the spheres of international economics and even international security more broadly?

The shared international economic agenda relates principally to the G-20. Indonesia (like Australia) can’t quite believe its good fortune at being part of the G-20. Under Yudhoyono’s liberal internationalist leadership, Jakarta is strongly motivated to support all moves to strengthen the G-20. But Indonesia ranks low among the 20 in terms of its ability to deliver concrete results.

Surprisingly, there may be greater gains to be had from cooperation in the security sphere. For more than a decade, the Leahy Act, prohibiting the United States from training military units with a history of human rights abuse, has meant that security cooperation with Indonesia has been limited to police-based counterterrorism efforts. Both sides now want to move beyond this. Driven by China’s growing regional weight, Obama seems prepared to go further than Bush in finding ways to restart military-to-military engagement. There are signs that the Obama administration may seek to re-establish training programs with Indonesia’s controversial Kopassus (Special Forces) by engaging with younger officers who could not have participated in past abuses.

If so, this will be a significant change. While much of the fanfare of the visit will focus on the human interest side of Obama’s visit and major new American investment in educational and scholarship programs to help Indonesians study in the United States, the beginnings of a resumption of military cooperation between Jakarta and Washington may prove to be the most significant durable outcome of the visit.

The Washington-Canberra relationship is more stable and familiar. Indeed, a substantial component of the visit is routine alliance maintenance. The Obama-Rudd relationship seems to have become as close and dependable as the Bush-Howard relationship before it. But what Obama would most like from Rudd — an expanded and regional leadership role for Australian troops in Afghanistan — seems to be out of the question, especially with the upcoming Australian election. On the economic agenda of the G-20, as earlier on climate change issues in the lead-up to the Copenhagen summit, senior Australian and American officials are working very closely. But there is such strong alignment between Canberra and Washington on these issues at the moment, that this is more a matter of fine-tuning than major breakthrough.

Rudd remains strongly committed to strengthening the institutional framework for regional cooperation in Asia. Explicit support from Washington would be helpful now in accelerating this cause. While the precise institutional form for achieving this outcome remains an open question, anything that enhances America’s ability to advance its core interests in Asia is likely to find favor with Obama.