With a relatively small amount of media coverage, foreign ministers of five nations—Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia—met in New York last week for the sixth MIKTA ministerial meeting. The meeting resulted in a joint communiqué and the creation of a special document concerning climate change. Despite some progress and new initiatives, MIKTA’s future direction remains unpredictable.

MIKTA was initiated in 2013 with some ambitious goals. At their first meeting, MIKTA foreign ministers drafted MIKTA’s aims, some of which are to strengthen multilateralism and provide creative solutions to global problems. In their joint op-ed published last year, the ministers intend to collectively play the role of agenda-setter. Different from BRICS (the acronym for the group of emerging economics comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) which often expresses confrontational stance vis-à-vis the US-led global order, MIKTA has rhetorically chosen to become a ‘bridge builder’.’

Despite these ambitions, MIKTA hasn’t developed as fast and become as institutionalised as the BRICS. Only after two foreign ministerial meetings, the earlier iteration of ‘BRIC’ was able to hold a summit level meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia in June 2009, and later became BRICS after South Africa’s joining in 2010. Despite their many differences, BRICS countries found common interests and often act as a negotiating bloc. BRICS now has at least ten ministerial level meetings every year and numerous non-governmental forums. BRICS has even created a new development bank which many perceive as a rival to the World Bank. Compared to BRICS, MIKTA has maintained its somewhat low-level institutionalisation.

There are at least three challenges which constrain MIKTA’s development. First, defining ‘MIKTA’s common interest(s)’ in conceptual terms isn’t always easy. Sharing democracy and human rights values might provide MIKTA with fundamental modalities for cooperation, but in many cases, internal politics and rivalry between domestic interest groups can constrain democratic states committing to international cooperation. The high degree of domestic crowdedness in democratic MIKTA countries is much higher than those in BRICS where its most powerful member is not democratic. Last year, a prominent minister in Indonesia, for instance, suggested that Indonesia quit the G-20 because the group couldn’t provide any tangible benefit for the country. This kind of domestic crowdedness might happen in the case of Indonesia’s MIKTA membership, too.

The second challenge is that it’s still unclear whether MIKTA countries can move beyond their traditional foreign policy postures. How will Indonesia, for instance, maintain a balance between its commitment with MIKTA and on the other hand with ASEAN, which has been the cornerstone of Indonesia’s foreign policy for decades?

Third, if MIKTA wants to become a collective ‘bridge builder’ and ‘force for good’, do they really have leverage to offer? Those five countries claim to be ‘like-minded,’ but how close are they actually? Individual MIKTA countries have positive records as constructive diplomatic actors, but to make those individual achievements collective isn’t easy, especially given divergent interests.

MIKTA leaders might be aware of these challenges, which could be a reason to maintain its informality. Informality might allow MIKTA countries to explore a wide range of alternatives and engage with countries at different levels of power and various ideologies. But, by keeping it informal, MIKTA would become merely a consultative forum without any significant global influence.

Three things are important for the future direction of MIKTA. First, MIKTA needs a summit of leaders to raise its profile as well as push for more robust interaction among its members. It needs greater political willingness from top levels of leadership in all member nations. Until now, there’s been no statement from any MIKTA heads of states/governments which endorses the importance of MIKTA. It’s unclear whether its heads of state really want MIKTA as a venue to discuss foreign policy.

Second, given variation among MIKTA members, it’s important to keep the group focused: not too broad, not too ambitious. Although it’s not a negotiation bloc, MIKTA could become an issue-based coalition, providing strategic solutions and breakthrough proposals to selected global issues which international community is facing lingering deadlocks, such as climate change, IMF reforms and UN reforms. This could signify the importance of MIKTA in the eye of other global actors. At practical level, MIKTA needs to add working group mechanism to existing foreign ministerial meetings.

The third suggestion is that MIKTA needs to be more inclusive than BRICS. Inclusiveness matters because five current members of MIKTA have relatively modest power to influence multilateral events. None of the member states are either predicted to be great powers in the near future or considered to be future permanent member of the UN Security Council. Therefore, MIKTA should set up a platform for outreach to other countries, including those which are non-G20 members, and regional organisations.

To improve its real strategic significance, MIKTA needs to hold a leaders’ summit, create case-by-case working groups, and set up an inclusive outreach mechanism. Those things are first steps to become a part of global solutions, as MIKTA foreign ministers wish.

With Indonesia’s annual growth rate now heading below 5%, President Joko Widodo’s cabinet reshuffle may have been mainly designed to revitalise the country’s flagging economy. But the political changes and what lay behind them also tell an interesting story.

Presidential chief of staff Luhut Pandjaitan’s concurrent appointment as political coordinating minister provides firm evidence he has mended fences with Megawati Sukarnoputri, leader of Widodo’s ruling Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle Party (PDI-P).

Pandjaitan replaces retired admiral Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno who was brought off the bench last October after Megawati objected to the former army special forces general and trade minister taking the post because of a perceived slight 15 years ago.

At the same time, Cabinet Secretary Andi Widjajanto, another figure on Megawati’s black list, was sacked in favour of veteran PDI-P politician, Pramono Anung, who will improve Widodo’s relationship with PDI-P and also act as an effective liaison with Parliament.

Anung has had his own up-and-down relationship with Megawati, joining the party in 1998 in the wake of President Suharto’s downfall, serving as party secretary-general and later as vice-speaker of the House of Representatives between 2009 and 2014.

Critics of Anung’s appointment have unrealistic expectations of how Widodo should deal with PDI-P, where he’s never held more than a minor post. Like it or not, party politics—and particularly coalition politics—is a fact of life that can’t be ignored, no matter how much the craving for a Cabinet of well-meaning technocrats.

Megawati would also have liked nothing better than to see the back of estranged State Enterprise Minister Rini Soemarno, once her closest confidante. But with the capable businesswoman now ensconced in his inner circle, Widodo would have been accused of being weak if he had bowed to the party leader’s wishes.

Still to be made clear is whether Pandjaitan will retain his chief of staff post or whether a rumoured second round of changes will see a re-structuring of the presidential office. Allowing him to hold both jobs would antagonise Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, who isn’t happy with Pandjaitan’s considerable clout as it is.

Still regarded as the president’s closest adviser, it will be interesting to see how Pandjaitan tackles the police, whose insubordination and refusal to cooperate with the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) is the main reason why Widodo has taken such a hit in the popularity polls since assuming office.

Kalla already appears to have lost ground with close associate Sofyan Djalil being moved from economic coordinating minister to the National Development Planning Agency (Bapenas) to make way for new chief economic minister Darmin Nasution, in the reshuffle’s most significant change.

The former central bank governor is a much stronger character than Djalil. But it has always been the case—even under Suharto’s long rule—that the coordinating minister is only as effective as the president allows him to be, particularly in directing ministers to pull in the same direction.

That hasn’t been apparent in the current administration. Baffling to many investors is the way Manpower Minister, Hanif Dhakiri, has been slashing work permits for foreigners when Widodo has been trying to attract more foreign investment to boost manufacturing and create more jobs.

Some of that has to do with the Government’s fear of being overwhelmed with skilled workers from neighbouring countries when the ASEAN Economic Community finally kicks in at the end of the year. But even local businessmen acknowledge there’s a serious shortage of the sort of workers needed to drive the economy forward.

Widodo did, however, take care of another irritant, replacing bumbling trade minister Rachmat Gobel, with a close adviser, Harvard-educated Thomas Lembong, an investment banker and senior vice-president of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency between 2000 and 2002.

Lembong has little trade experience, but unlike Gobel he speaks fluent English and is seen to be a quick learner with an understanding and appreciation of international markets. He will have to be with economic nationalism continuing to have a contradictory influence on Widodo’s policies.

A poor choice from the outset, the last straw for Gobel may have been his decision to slash live cattle imports from Australia, which has caused widespread beef shortages and led to prices soaring from Rp. 90,000 to a record-high Rp. 130,000 a kilogram.

Toying with meat and livestock imports was part of the previous government’s efforts to convince Indonesians the country could become self-sufficient in beef. But without taking any effective steps to meet that goal, it has been an exercise in deception which could rebound on Jakarta with China now entering the live cattle market.

Perhaps the strangest new Cabinet choice was one-time finance minister Rizal Ramli, who takes over as maritime coordinating minister. An outspoken critic of past and present governments, Ramli’s portfolio includes oversight of the mines and energy sector, which remains in the doldrums because of the nationalist policies he strongly supports.

Widodo didn’t use the long-awaited reshuffle to invite other parties into his administration, although insiders say at a 10 August meeting with senior officials of the National Mandate Party (PAN), Megawati expressed the view that the five-party coalition needed a broader base.

It could still happen, of course, but Widodo may feel that having 14 political appointees in his 34-strong Cabinet is quite enough when he needs greater competency—and a deeper sense of unity of purpose—to dig the country out of its current rut.

But first, Indonesia’s president has to understand that weak infrastructure spending, contradictory policies and smoke-and-mirror solutions aren’t the way to go.

In early June, Australia’s ambassador to Indonesia returned to Jakarta, five weeks after being recalled following the executions of Australian citizens Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. While the embassy and its work in Indonesia continued in his absence, public relations between our countries were frayed. The episode highlighted the tempestuous nature of one of Australia’s most important bilateral relationships. While we wonder what might precipitate the next trough in relations, we must keep exploring how to increase the robustness of the relationship and mitigate long-term damage, particularly public perceptions. One way might be to revisit the field of international crisis management for different tools and informal mechanisms outside of the traditional, formal spheres of statecraft to target issues in the bilateral relationship.

‘Track two’ or second-track diplomacy relies on unofficial meetings, private dialogues, and public programs convened by civil society organisations like think tanks or NGOs as an alternative diplomatic pathway during times of strength and crisis. Their participants can include academics, policy makers, civil society representatives and diplomats. Unlike in official government meetings, actors in these forums are less encumbered by protocol and policy because they are speaking in an unofficial capacity. They build relationships and foster new ideas for solving problems but ultimately aim to influence the official policy process. Track-two diplomacy doesn’t undermine or supplant the work of traditional, government-to-government diplomacy. Rather, it supports official diplomacy by creating new channels for communication and placing new options on the table for debate and discussion.

In the case of Australia and Indonesia, there are many strong people-to-people connections based on genuine and earnest interactions. Australian doctors assisted in Aceh after the 26 December tsunami in 2004. Indonesian students attend Australian universities, and their alumni include former Cabinet ministers and a vice president. There are many joint partnerships linking Indonesians and Australians through Bali’s tourism industry. Many of these individuals go on to be influential business leaders, academics, and policymakers in their respective countries. Apart from the strength of some defence alumni programs such as IKAHAN, what hasn’t been undertaken is a comprehensive effort to regularly convene those individuals in a track-two setting that can continue to meet even when official ties are suspended. They would meet for two purposes: one, to create an open channel of communication during a crisis; and two, to serve as a forum for these individuals to push a new vision for Indonesia–Australia relations. Civil society organisations, including universities, think tanks and community groups, in both countries are best situated to take this on a ‘second track of diplomacy.’

Such diplomacy isn’t without precedent. At its best, track two approaches have helped countries in crises move away from the brink of conflict. In the aftermath of incidents like the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1998 by a US-led NATO air campaign and the Hainan incident in 2001, foreign policy think tanks and institutes brought together American and Chinese defence officials in an unofficial capacity to discuss measures to de-escalate tensions. Continued dialogues hosted by the US Naval Postgraduate School and Pacific Forum CSIS brought US and Chinese officials together in a track-two capacity to discuss bilateral relations between the two great powers. If it weren’t for the work of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and other institutions, multilateral dialogue with North Korea wouldn’t have been able to continue when the official Six Party Talks were suspended. Indonesia and Australia are hardly at the brink of serious conflict, but the cases above indicate how useful track-two diplomacy can be in a crisis situation. This is a needed element to foster familiarity and longevity in good Indonesia–Australia relations.

There are many institutions in Australia capable of facilitating track-two activities. Australia has a small but growing think tank community. Well-established institutions like the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), Lowy Institute for International Policy, and the activities of the Australian National University come to mind. New institutions are being established, like the Perth USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia and the Australia–Indonesia Centre at Monash. Griffith University and the Jakarta-based Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) work together on an academic dialogue focussed on areas of bilateral cooperation. Likewise, Indonesia has a growing democratic civil society and organisations like the Habibie Center and CSIS in Jakarta which are open to cooperation with Australian counterparts.

In the case of Indonesia and Australia, track-two initiatives will help to deliver enduring solutions to the problems that continue to divide, and unfortunately define, a troubled bilateral relationship. Along with official diplomacy, deep people-to-people ties and relationships built over many years through research cooperation, business, study, exchanges, and international programs can help manage future crises.

The secret of success is constancy to purpose—at least that was Disraeli’s view. It is a pity that recent prime ministers and foreign ministers, Liberal and Labor alike, have failed to see ‘constancy to purpose’ as the central precondition for successful bilateral relationships.

The rocky relationship with Indonesia is a case in point. Constancy and purpose are conspicuously absent.

Quite simply, neither Indonesia nor Australia have been able to articulate what they want out of the bilateral relationship, except for vague notions of ‘stability’, ‘security’ and ‘good relations’, which mean different things in Jakarta and Canberra.

For Australia, the lack of purpose is a more acute problem, because we need Indonesia more than Indonesia needs us. Yet we appear unable to design and implement consistent, coherent and purposive policy settings on which to develop a sound, long-term relationship with a country that has a GDP that is moving towards parity with ours and a population almost ten times the size of ours.

There are evident signs of inconstancy in Australia’s approach to Indonesia.

How quickly we have become distracted by changes in Indonesia’s political leadership and President Joko Widodo’s lacklustre performance.

How unsubtle were the efforts by both Prime Minister Abbott and Foreign Minister Bishop to persuade President Widodo and Foreign Minister Marsudi to stay the executions of Chan and Sukumaran.

How easily we took offence at President Widodo’s refusal to exercise clemency (recalling our Ambassador ‘for consultations’ was an unprecedented step).

How brittle our responses have been to both the electronic eavesdropping and ‘cash to captains’ questions raised by the Indonesian government.

How peeved we continue to be that Indonesia isn’t working harder to solve our refugee problem.

And how concerned we remain that Indonesia isn’t prosecuting the ‘war on terrorism’ with the energy, exuberance (and shrill hyperbole) of Australia.

The fundamental problem is that the relationship with Indonesia is conducted in the arena of domestic politics rather than international policy. And where the dog whistle is amplified through our preferred instrument of diplomacy—the megaphone—is it any wonder that the bilateral relationship is under stress?

Former Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, speaking at The Crawford School on Monday, was right to identify ‘a sense of disconnect’ in the present relationship, reinforced by a moribund ‘sense of communication’. What Natalegawa failed to mention was that he helped create this predicament by playing sensitive bilateral issues (electronic intelligence collection) into Indonesia’s domestic politics in the lead-up to the Presidential election in mid-2014.

So how might we inject a measure of purpose and connection into Australia–Indonesia relations?

We might first identify what we want from Indonesia. Our long-term economic, diplomatic and security interests are best served by an Indonesia that is stable, democratic, prosperous and confident as a contributor to the development of a rules-based international system.

Second, we should identify what Indonesia wants from us. That’s a bit more difficult, since Indonesians are reluctant to indicate preferences, much less to make demands. But more than anything else, what they want from Australia is respect, understanding, support, quiet engagement and constructive advocacy of their growing role as a regional and global player.

Third, we must identify the tools we need. Our bilateral diplomatic history suggests that enduring relationships at the senior political level are fraught, and subject to sudden and intense disruption. Prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers rarely have the diplomatic or negotiating skills to sustain a robust and enduring relationship. Yet at the institutional, functional and bureaucratic levels, Indonesia and Australia have long been able to maintain effective and practical relations, even during periods of political tension.

In Australia’s case, governments rely too much on the political levers of relationship management when they have a considerable range of alternative instruments at their disposal. Menzies, for instance, was able to demonstrate during Konfrontasi that, notwithstanding a political relationship that was at its nadir, both sides could maintain a wide range of functional linkages. This wasn’t the result of some kind of Nelsonian blind eye on the part of either Soekarno or Menzies, but rather an acceptance that relationship management was a matter of policy, not simply a political issue.

Howard displayed similar skills as Timor-Leste emerged from a quarter of a century of Indonesian ‘incorporation’. The trick here was to play to Indonesia’s unusual ability to manage relationships by remote control—the shadow play as a representation of more substantial realities.

The Abbott government has an even wider range of levers than Howard had. Through our banks, Telstra, our universities, government departments and agencies such as DFAT, AusAID, Defence and the AFP, Australia is able to engage in substantial ways without turning the political spotlight onto the relationship.

There is, of course, much more that could be done.

First, there’s a desperate need on Indonesia’s part for institution building—something that Australia could do well at on many levels.

Second, Indonesia would benefit from quiet assistance in developing governance models for its departments, agencies and state-owned enterprises to reduce and eventually eliminate corruption.

Third, a change of emphasis in the political relationship away from a focus on the executive as political agents to a focus on the democratic institutions as political forums would draw much needed attention to the processes of democratic politics as distinct from the (often clumsy) management of hot political issues. Symbolism is a powerful political medium in Indonesia, and Australia’s recognition of and support for the role of Indonesia’s parliament would boost Indonesia’s confidence as an Asian democracy.

Finally, on sensitive policy issues such as climate change, refugees, agricultural trade, education services, drug smuggling and security cooperation—especially counterterrorism—Australia would do well to pursue a ‘softly softly’ approach, allowing the agencies to do the hard work while political leaders provide modest encouragement from the sidelines.

This, of course, would require a level of intelligence and tact—the cornerstones of diplomacy—that neither side seems capable of at present.

In what’s believed to be potentially the largest compromise of US government employee information ever, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was recently breached by hackers. The Department of Homeland Security announced that malicious software was detected on OPM’s system in April, and by May they had established the scale of the data compromise, with roughly 4 million workers ‘likely affected’.  The attack targeted both the OPM’s IT network and its offsite data at the Department of the Interior’s shared facility for government agencies, though there’s been no word as of yet if any other departments were compromised.

The motives behind the attack are numerous. Names, dates of birth and social security numbers, can be used in identity theft and financial crime, but officials are concerned this information will also ‘help hackers test potential passwords to other sites’ that government workers have access to.

Speaking at a G7 press conference about the breach, President Obama wouldn’t confirm which country the attacks originated from and called on Congress to pass stalled cyber legislation to help address ‘significant vulnerabilities’. Jim Langevin, the ranking Democratic member of the House Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities was somewhat more explicit when laying blame:

We know that the attack occurred from somewhere in China, but we don’t know whether it was an individual or a group or a nation-state attack.

Turning now to Asia, the Indian government has put its money where its mouth is, freeing up funds to set up its National Cyber Coordination Centre. Indian Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad made the announcement that Rs 770 crore (about AU$157 million) will be allocated to set up the new centre. The government has also approved the establishment of a Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre to the tune of Rs 90.5 crore (over AU$18 million). The new centre will co-ordinate cyber activities among India’s intelligence agencies and spearhead responses to major events. The body is also set to work with Indian ISPs to access metadata, creating concerns that the body will become an ‘Indian cyber snooping agency.’

Indonesia has made public its own plans for a national cyber body, with Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno telling a recent symposium that the government was hoping to put aside funds for the body in next year’s budget. Tedjo explained that each of the country’s defence and law enforcement bodies had a cybercrime unit, ‘but they lacked coordination and were slow to pick up on new technologies’. The new body would bring together representatives ‘from the National Police, the military (TNI), the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and the Communications and Information Ministry among others’. Indonesian cyber expert, and advisor to Mr. Purdijanto, Yono Reksoprodjo, carried out a short Q&A with the Wall Street Journal about the Centre which you can find here.

Regular readers may recall the Bundestag hacking attempt mentioned previously in Cyber wrap. Officials within the German government have reportedly managed to read parts of source-code used in the hack, which has led them to believe that it was a state-backed Russian infiltration attempt. The Trojan Malware was very similar in nature to one used in an earlier attack on a German data network, helping investigators to make the link.