New Indonesian Leadership to Put National Interest Above All Else

TODAY

15 January 2015

Farish A. Noor

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 (Association of South-east Asian Nations) region and the global arena, the country’s leaders and major stakeholders have begun to forecast the probable 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 Jakarta 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 that is meant for wider consideration beyond Indonesia: Here it is clear that the country’s technocratic elite want their opinions to be known abroad and taken into account.

…Farish A. Noor is an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies(RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. This commentary first appeared in RSIS Commentaries.

Categories:

GPO / Print / Online