When East Asia's economic tsunami hit Indonesia, the United States pursued the goals of instant democracy and free markets there, oblivious to either history or the strategic implications of its policies. Indonesia's last transfer of power, in 1966, led to civil war which nearly destroyed the country. Previous experiments with democracy ended in chaos. In the long run, democracy is no bad thing for Indonesia. But Indonesia also needs stability.
With elections due in June, the weaknesses of Indonesia's far flung and multiethnic archipelago are all too obvious. The armed forces (ABRI) are overstretched, with religious and ethnic conflict spreading. If ABRI cannot contain the flames, it might even be forced to retreat to the main island of Java, and regroup from there. China is highly unlikely to intervene on behalf of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, who have been scapegoats for the economic turmoil. China would have much to lose and little to gain by doing so. The wider point is that maritime Southeast Asia has lost, at least for now, its main bulwark against Chinese strategic pressure.
The wobbly Southeast Asian are not yet a lost cause. But they soon could be. They have lost confidence because of their economic and political turmoil, and have much less money to spend on arms, while Chinese purchases continue unabated. Unless the maritime powers encourage resistance, all of ASEAN will be so far down the road of preemptive capitulation to China that it cannot be pulled back.
The mainland states of ASEAN are already more or less in China's orbit. While the maritime powers should not give up on the mainlanders, they should concentrate their efforts on the archipelagic states, Indonesia and the Philippines. If their cohesion and defense capabilities can be enhanced, their slide towards accommodating Chinese power can still be reversed.
Malaysia, a peninsular state, is the swinger, as such states often are. Which way Malaysia is leaning is always a good indicator of the strategic balance in the South China Sea. Although the Malaysians have capitulationist tendencies, they by no means trust China. They also enjoy the advantage of distance, and cultivate external support in low key ways.
Even before the current economic and political turmoil revealed its fragility, ASEAN was not the pole of stability that it seemed to be.
ASEAN's achievements and limitations
ASEAN's problem now is that its achievements were made possible within a global and regional order which no longer exists. During the Cold War, ASEAN made two significant contributions to regional stability.
