As Indonesia , now under the leadership of President Joko Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla , looks to the future and reassesses its place and role in the Asean region and the global arena, the country’s leaders and major stakeholders have begun to forecast the likely trajectory that it will take in the years to come.

The publication of the book “Toward 2014-2019: Strengthening Indonesia in a Changing World”, by the Indonesian State Intelligence Agency (BIN), provides an interesting and important insider’s look at how Indonesia sees its future and what it wishes to achieve over the next five years. The fact that the book was written in English suggests that this is a text meant for consideration beyond Indonesia: Here it is clear that the Indonesian technocratic elite want their opinions to be known abroad, and taken into account.

Initiated by State Intelligence Agency chief Lt-General (Ret) Marciano Norman and edited by Muhammad AS Hikam, former minister for research and technology, the book brings together the research of several dozen prominent Indonesian specialists and academics, as well as the findings of many focus group discussions.

…Farish A. Noor is an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.