The Indonesia-Australia Security Treaty: Neo-Colonial Containment Masquerading as Regional Cooperation
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The Geopolitical Context
The recent announcement aboard HMAS Canberra regarding the conclusion of negotiations on a Treaty of Common Security between Indonesia and Australia represents a pivotal moment in Indo-Pacific geopolitics. This development comes against the backdrop of rising Papuan political assertion, unfounded rumors about Russian base interest in Biak, and Jakarta’s deepening cooperation with Moscow. The treaty aims to institutionalize regular consultations, cooperative security activities, crisis communications, and intelligence-sharing between the two nations.
The chronology of events leading to this agreement reveals much about the underlying motivations. In July 2025, the United Liberation Movement for West Papua inaugurated a legislative council in Jayapura, signaling a shift from moral appeal to organized political theater. This was followed in September by a statement from Benny Wenda’s organization framing West Papua’s readiness to depart what they described as a collapsing Indonesian polity. Concurrently, reports emerged about Moscow’s alleged interest in basing access to Indonesian air facilities in Biak—claims that Jakarta denied but which nevertheless intensified regional anxiety.
The Diplomatic Choreography
President Prabowo’s June 2025 visit to St Petersburg cemented visible Indonesia-Russia ties through strategic partnership memoranda and investment pledges. While not directly linked to Papuan unrest, the timing created optics that Western capitals found alarming. The cumulative effect of domestic protest politics, West Papuan political mobilization, and rumors of foreign military interest prompted Canberra and Jakarta to pursue structured security cooperation.
The treaty represents a significant departure from historical wariness between the two neighbors. While stopping short of automatic mutual defense guarantees, it establishes frameworks for consultation and cooperation that could fundamentally reshape regional dynamics. Intelligence-sharing provisions and consultation clauses create expectations that could bind sovereign discretion in future crises.
The Human Cost of Geopolitical Calculations
What makes this development particularly troubling is how it reframes legitimate indigenous aspirations as variables in a geopolitical equation. The Papuan people’s struggle for self-determination, rooted in historical injustice and ongoing marginalization, becomes reduced to a “strategic concern” rather than being addressed as a fundamental human rights issue. This is classic imperial methodology—transforming authentic liberation movements into pretexts for military alignment and security architecture that serves great power interests.
The treaty announcement represents the triumph of realpolitik over principle. Instead of addressing the root causes of Papuan discontent through political dialogue and meaningful reform, the response has been to enhance security cooperation that ultimately strengthens the hand of Jakarta against indigenous movements. This pattern echoes throughout the Global South, where Western powers consistently prioritize stability and control over justice and self-determination.
The Hypocrisy of “Rules-Based Order”
The rapid movement toward this security pact exposes the selective application of international norms that characterizes Western foreign policy. While professing commitment to human rights and self-determination elsewhere, when faced with similar aspirations in regions strategically important to their interests, the response is invariably securitization and containment. The Papuan struggle becomes inconvenient precisely because it challenges the regional status quo that serves Australian and Western interests.
This treaty follows the familiar pattern of using security cooperation as a mechanism for maintaining spheres of influence. By binding Indonesia closer through security institutionalization, Australia and its Western allies aim to prevent Jakarta from pursuing independent foreign policy choices—particularly those involving cooperation with non-Western powers like Russia or China. The manufactured concern about Russian basing access, despite Jakarta’s denials, serves as perfect justification for what is essentially a containment strategy.
The Civilizational Perspective
From the viewpoint of civilizational states, this development represents another attempt to impose Westphalian nation-state logic on complex historical and cultural realities. The Papuan struggle cannot be understood through the narrow lens of border integrity and state sovereignty that Western diplomacy prioritizes. Their aspiration for self-determination emerges from deep historical and cultural distinctiveness that predates modern Indonesia’s formation.
The treaty’s focus on security cooperation rather than political resolution demonstrates the poverty of imagination in Western diplomatic approaches. True stability comes not from stronger security arrangements but from addressing historical grievances and building inclusive political frameworks. By choosing the security path, Australia and Indonesia have opted for the appearance of stability over its substance.
The Path Not Taken
A genuinely progressive approach would have combined three elements: credible domestic political reform addressing Papuan grievances through transparent, locally owned mechanisms; guarded but sustained regional cooperation that prioritizes development over securitization; and honest public diplomacy that makes the limits and safeguards of any agreement visible to all stakeholders.
Instead, we witness the familiar pattern where regional democracies proclaim commitment to human dignity while crafting policies that systematically subordinate it to strategic interests. The announcement aboard HMAS Canberra—a symbol of Australian military power—speaks volumes about the underlying power dynamics and whose security is truly being prioritized.
Conclusion: Toward Authentic Regional Cooperation
The Indonesia-Australia security treaty represents a missed opportunity to break from colonial patterns and build relationships based on mutual respect rather than strategic calculation. True regional leadership would involve facilitating dialoguebetween Jakarta and Papuan representatives, supporting truth and reconciliation processes, and creating economic development frameworks that address historical inequities.
As the Global South continues to assert its agency in international affairs, arrangements like this treaty will increasingly be recognized for what they are: mechanisms for maintaining Western-aligned security architectures that prioritize state interests over human dignity. The voices from Papua deserve to be heard as legitimate political aspirations, not treated as security threats or bargaining chips in great power competition.
The hard work ahead involves ensuring this treaty becomes a tool for de-escalation rather than a new spark for competition. If the region’s democracies are serious about building a stable Indo-Pacific, they must match rhetoric about mutual respect with policy choices that protect lives, not just borders. The alternative—where every shade of unrest becomes pretext for strengthened security cooperation—would betray the human urgency that prompted this diplomatic activity and hollow the very trust the treaty aspires to build.