The AMS： A Clouded Future
Strategic logic can fall victim to politics. Indonesia's economic and political turmoil, which led to the overthrow of Suharto in May 1998, has rendered the AMS moot. Indonesia remains a black hole, the political weaknesses of its multi-ethnic and far flung archipelago having been exposed by the breakdown of 'national resilience'.
Australia has pointedly maintained its links with the Indonesian armed forces (ABRI), one of the few institutions now holding Indonesia together. The policy of the Clinton administration, driven by ideological demands for open markets and instant democracy, has been far from helpful. The US administration has seen Suharto as a Marcos writ large. While no democrat, Suharto presided over one of the most successful poverty-eradication programs in the Third World. Unlike his predecessor, Suharto was also a force for moderation in his external policies. Without the New Order, ASEAN would not have been possible.
The Clinton administration's indifference to Indonesia represents a strategic asset for China. Few in Washington now seem to comprehend how close China came in 1965 to controlling the straits of Malacca, with the Indonesian communist party as its instrument. True, China is no longer pursuing a revolutionary foreign policy aimed equally at Moscow and Washington. But China stands to benefit from the breakup of Indonesia, hitherto the bulwark against Chinese strategic pressure in the South China Sea. 21 China also stands to gain if the East Timor issue drives a wedge between Indonesia and Australia.
Towards a maritime strategy for Australia?
Australia has never developed a maritime strategy, despite its need for maritime protection. Its former defense minister, now Opposition Leader, Mr. Kim Beazley, has noted that 'despite a host of good reasons for the contrary, Australia is not a maritime nation and its people do not sustain much of an interest in maritime strategy'. 22 Traditionally, Australia relied on British and then American maritime protection, its own contribution being mainly the dispatch of 'expeditionary' land forces' which depended on the maritime capability of its major allies. The army's experience, in two world wars, of large-scale land warfare in Europe and the Middle East, has created a preference for continental warfare. 23
Despite Australia's greater willingness to consider 'out of area' deployments, the force structure also still reflects the political imperative of the Labor government in the 1980s-the need to remain 'independent' of great and powerful friends. Many of the ADF's overseas deployments, for example to Somalia and Cambodia, were also politically driven, including by the ambition of former Labor foreign minister, Gareth Evans, to become UN Seretary-General.
