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Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Indonesia's Strategic Culture: Ketahanan Nasional. Wawasan Nusantara and Hankamrata. Griffith University: Centre for the Study of Australia-Asia Relations, Australia-Asia Papers No. 75, May 1996. x + 49 pp. $10.00 (paper).
Foreign observers are often perplexed by the somewhat paradoxical position of the military in Indonesian domestic politics. On the one hand, the Armed Forces (ABRI) is clearly the crucial political institution, and consistently intervenes in the internal affairs of other social organisations. But the ruling regime is not a military regime, for ABRI has neither the organisational wherewithal nor the ideological legitimacy which would enable it to exert its dominance over other political forces. Dewi Anwar's book goes a considerable distance towards explaining this paradox, presenting a lively description of both the opportunities and constraints created for ABRI by the values held by Indonesia's political elite.
Indonesia's political culture is marked, above all, by a strongly inward-looking form of nationalism, which is reflected in the strategic doctrines to which its leadership ascribes. Indonesia has consistently pursued policies of non-alignment, and has long been a forthright proponent of proposals to exclude...