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By Prashanth Parameswaran
The country’s army chief says it wants to play a bigger role in promoting order in Asia
The Indonesian military is keen on playing the role of “big brother” within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and beyond to promote order in the Asia-Pacific, the head of the country’s armed forces (TNI), General Moeldoko, said yesterday.
In remarks delivered before officially opening a meeting of senior Indonesian military leaders, Moeldoko said that he had used Indonesia’s rising power and influence in various regional fora such as the ASEAN Chiefs of Defense Forces Informal Meeting (ACDFIM) to advance the military’s goal of making itself a “big brother” in Southeast Asia.
“As head of TNI, I have brought a strong mission for it [the Indonesian military] to be the ‘big brother’ in the ASEAN region. We are now trying to do this and everyone [in ASEAN] has recognized the military’s growing power,” Moeldoko said in his remarks, which were delivered in the country’s military headquarters in East Jakarta in the local language Bahasa Indonesia.
Indonesia’s “big brother” role – a more informal characterization of its status as first among equals in ASEAN given its heft – tends to be viewed with mixed feelings in Southeast Asia. Some see Jakarta’s leadership as useful in directing the region and logical given its weight, while others regard it with suspicion due to historical animosities and future worries about how Indonesia may use its growing power. That lingering suspicion has only been compounded by some uncertainty about the new Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s foreign policy and what it means for Jakarta’s role in the region.
Read the full story at The Diplomat