Publisher's Synopsis
The U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD's) 2018 National Defense Strategy highlights the importance of working with regional allies and partners in order to manage China's rise as a strategic competitor to the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. In this country-level report in a series, the author examines the potential for, and potential impediments to, partnering more closely with Indonesia. In many ways, Indonesia is a natural partner: Its self-defined core national security interests, including the preservation of its sovereignty against encroachment by any would-be hegemonic regional power, are in relatively close harmony with those of the United States. But U.S. planners must be keenly aware of the constraints on Indonesia's willingness and capacity to forge a partnership based on strategic competition with China. These constraints include persistent aversion to any partnership that might be characterized as "alignment"; endur
