This thesis places Indonesia’s strategic regional policy for dealing with power competition within Asia in the context of its relationship with ASEAN, China and the US. The main question this...Show moreThis thesis places Indonesia’s strategic regional policy for dealing with power competition within Asia in the context of its relationship with ASEAN, China and the US. The main question this thesis addresses is whether Indonesia, as a secondary state in the Southeast Asian region, is more likely to deal with the politics of the regional order through power balancing or institutional enmeshment. It will compare the arguments of Robert R. Ross, who argues that the balance of power in Asia-Pacific politics is affected by military power, and Evelyn Goh, who argues that the regional order is more complex and that regional frameworks such as ASEAN will also help influence larger regional counterweights such as China. In focusing on the power balancing actions that secondary states take, Ross argues that Indonesia uses military power, with the US by its side, to balance against China. Goh does not believe Indonesia can simply power balance against China, but that it will also try to enmesh China in regional entities. Both Ross’s and Goh’s arguments will be tested through a case study on Indonesia’s behaviour in the regional dispute in the South China Sea to determine which of the two arguments is more relevant to Indonesia’s strategic regional policy. This study is relevant because it provides a more detailed analysis of Indonesia’s capabilities to deal with power competition in the region. This thesis concludes that Indonesia is more likely to deal with power competition in the Asia-Pacific through the enmeshment theory of Evelyn Goh.Show less
This thesis deals with the issue of the Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb Islands. These islands are disputed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, who currently occupies them, and the United Arab...Show moreThis thesis deals with the issue of the Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb Islands. These islands are disputed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, who currently occupies them, and the United Arab Emirates, who to this day claim the islands as theirs. The strategic significance of the islands is not to be underestimated, as they lay directly in the main shipping lanes through which a significant portion of the world’s oil is transported. This paper has looked at the historical events that shaped the situation today, with a focus on the period between independence of the United Arab Emirates and the mid-1990’s. This timeframe is further divided in three parts, the events surrounding independence, the period of upheaval attempted détente during the late 1970’s and 1980’s and finally the reescalation of the issue after the First Gulf War of 1991.Using the theory of offensive realism as devised by John Mearsheimer and the associated concepts of power balancing, buck passing, off shore balancing and the role of the off shore balancer the events during this period have been analysed to answer the question whether this theory can explain the absence of warfare between the U.A.E. and Iran. Even though at times the situation seemed to be heading for war, the simple discrepancy between the capabilities of the U.A.E. and Iran resulted in a carefully balanced status quo that has been maintained since 1971 thereby weakening the key offensive realist assumption that the offensive is always profitable.Show less
