We have all been affected by the economic and financial crisis of the past nine months, including the budget for spending and operational readiness of all services of our defense forces.
In turn, the financial-economic crisis influences the evolving security environment, where in Asia-Pacific trans-regional trade, investment, and financial flows occur. It is also impacting on future perceptions of multilateral cooperation.
In this light, I would like to contribute to the framework provided by Prime Minister Rudd and encourage that the Pacific community concept should be based on the clustering of regional cooperation in Northeast Asia, in Southeast Asia, and in the South Pacific.
It is not much different from the defense perimeter defined by Dean Acheson in 1951, when the strategic perimeter of the United States constituted the spectrum of alliances from Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia to the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) in the south.
We are now seeing the rise of economic powers in these regions and it is a question of calibrating the right role and presence of military forces in the region, both the extra-regional forces as well as the intra-regional forces.
I must say that the role of the United States has been critical for the past 60 years in providing the security provision of order in the Pacific rim that enabled the rise of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and ASEAN, right down to ANZUS down in the south.
The question is whether this clustering of Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific should be gradually delegated to extra-regional powers or should it be provided to the intra-regional powers?
In our experience in ASEAN, Indonesia in particular has been able to work together with all our fellow members of ASEAN - Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar - to provide the ASEAN security community so that security in a wider sense - political, economic, as well as military - can provide sustainable economic development that ensures prosperity is shared amongst all the countries in the region.
I am also looking at the number of younger people attending the IISS meeting here, including military officers. Most of us here are from the generation that was born in the 1950s, but I see now younger people who transcend the Korean generation, the Vietnam War generation, and the recent crisis all across the region, whether it is Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, or the South Pacific.
I would like to appeal that there should be more cooperation through institutions likes the IISS but also institutions of education provided for military officers, be it in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and others, so that intra-regional connections between younger officers from the tri-services - soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines - can connect together and be familiar with their perception of the evolving security dimension in Asia-Pacific.
In later forums, the clustering of these regional forums, whether it is Northeast Asia between China, Japan, and South Korean, or in ASEAN or in the South Pacific, can provide a new picture of the importance of connectivity of political, economic and security issues.
In this light, I would like to appeal for more cooperation to be done between military officers, diplomats, academics, as well as people from business. The security dimension is as important to business as business is to security. As Secretary Gates has said recently, failure in economics can lead to failure in security; counter-wise, failures in security can create economic crises.
Therefore, I would like to appeal to all of the defense ministers as well as heads of the defense services represented in this room to try to provide intergenerational connections between officers of all the services so that they meet and redefine their perception of what constitutes security in the broader sense for the next five to ten years.
To paraphrase some parts of the academic lingo, there must be connections between hard power, soft power and smart power - the boardroom, the classroom and the war room must connect together to provide planning ahead for what constitutes security throughout the Pacific region.
We see in Northeast Asia, for example, a problem of generation change. The government in North Korea is a very sensitive issue to be able to tackle because the governance in South Korea, Japan, and China very much depends on what happens internally inside North Korea. It is not merely a question of security in terms of power balances between the militaries of these countries; it is also a generational problem for the coming leaders in North Korea.
Can they accept eventually - eventually - the unity of North and South Korea post 1990s, post the agreed framework in 1994? It is possible for intelligent diplomats, military officers, and businessmen to see the succession problem in North Korea as part of the wider security issue in the power balance in Northeast Asia? I think it can be done and if patience is part of the dictum of the solider and the diplomat, I think it can be done.
We must be able to see this. In our experience in Indonesia, a generalist change is taking place in Indonesia. Less nationalistic, we are now much more open; younger people in government and diplomacy and particularly in business are much more open to the gyrations of the economic, financial and trade systems. We have one of the weakest numbers of professionals in running the economy in proportion to the economy.
We realize only too well that Indonesia may be the largest economy in Southeast Asia but size is not strength. Strength must be reinforced by the organized ability to run the economy based on professional lines. In this respect, the defense force of Indonesia is helping the ability of governance in government and governance in business to be able to deliver basic services to the people of Indonesia.
This is the problem that we are facing and I think we would like to appeal as a possible vision in the future that the generation born in the 1970s and 1980s can look forward to a new security environment with American presence still at a redefined calibrated role, perhaps less dominant, less hegemonic, but still predominant in defining the terms of conditions of security in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.
The article is an excerpt of Indonesia's Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono' speech before the Eighth IISS (London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies) Asia Security Dialogue in Singapore last weekend.
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