Vol. VI / No. 8 | December 2025
Authors:
Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto
Lecturer, Department of International Relations, FISIP, Universitas Indonesia.
His doctoral thesis analyses Australia-Indonesia relations during the Cold War
Summary
The 2025 Australia-Indonesia Treaty on Common Security (TCS) represents a “blast from the past”—a significant yet retrospective development in bilateral relations. Much like the 1995 Agreement on Maintaining Security (AMS), the TCS prioritizes mutual consultation regarding ambiguous “adverse challenges” rather than committing to specific common actions. While the treaty allows leaders to jointly meet external security challenges, it remains distinct from the 2024 Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA), which focuses on practical interoperability. However, the TCS relies heavily on the personal rapport between Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, mirroring the Keating-Suharto relationship that underpinned the short-lived AMS. Given elite trust is often transient, the TCS cannot rely solely on top-down political signals. Instead, successful security cooperation requires “ground-up” institutionalization to address concrete external threats and ensure the relationship survives beyond current political tenures.
Keywords: Australia-Indonesia Relations, Treaty on Common Security (TCS), Security Cooperation, Strategic-Trust, Institutionalization