Geopolitics loves a good photo opportunity. When political leaders stand before the towering stone spires of the 9th-century Prambanan temple complex in Indonesia, chanting ancient mantras and invoking shared spiritual ancestry, the media eats it up. The narrative is instantly written: a profound, centuries-old civilizational connection is being revived to counter modern geopolitical pressures and construct a formidable maritime partnership.
It is a beautiful story. It is also completely irrelevant to how modern states actually behave.
The lazy consensus dominating international relations commentary today insists that soft power, shared religious history, and cultural heritage are effective tools for cementing state alliances. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of statecraft. Temples do not sign free trade agreements. Shared deities do not deter naval incursions. Relying on ancient history to fix modern diplomatic deficits is not just lazy; it is dangerous. It creates an illusion of alignment where none exists, blinding strategists to the cold, material realities that actually dictate national survival.
The Prambanan Delusion
When state actors use the phrase "civilizational bonds," they are usually trying to cover up a lack of economic substance.
Look at the actual data between India and Indonesia, the two nations supposedly bound by this unbreakable historical link. For over a decade, both nations have talked about expanding bilateral trade to $50 billion. Yet, year after year, the numbers hover stubbornly far below that mark. Indonesia consistently runs a massive trade surplus with India, driven primarily by raw commodities like palm oil and coal. When India restricted palm oil imports or tweaked tariffs to protect domestic farmers, the "shared civilizational legacy" did not magically resolve the trade dispute. Jakarta looked for other buyers, and New Delhi looked for other suppliers.
National interest always overrides historical affection.
Consider the structure of Indonesia’s modern economy. Who built the massive Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail line? Not the nation sharing the legacy of Prambanan. It was China, through its Belt and Road Initiative, injecting billions of dollars of hard capital into Indonesian infrastructure. When Indonesian policymakers sit in their offices in Jakarta, they do not weigh 9th-century cultural architecture against 21st-century deep-water ports. They choose the ports every single time.
The belief that cultural affinity creates economic alignment is a historical fallacy. Europe shared a dense, deeply rooted Christian civilization for centuries, yet that common heritage did not stop the continent from tearing itself apart in catastrophic wars every few decades. Civilization is a background condition; it is never a driver of immediate state action.
The Flawed Premise of Soft Power
People frequently ask how cultural diplomacy strengthens bilateral ties. The question itself rests on a flawed premise. It assumes that if the citizens—or leaders—of two countries admire each other’s culture, their governments will naturally cooperate on national security.
This is a profound misreading of political realism. Let us dismantle this premise with a brutal look at how defense policy works.
Indonesia operates on a strictly non-aligned, independent foreign policy doctrine known as Bebas-Aktif (Free and Active). This doctrine is baked into the country’s post-colonial identity. It means Jakarta will never join a formal military alliance that targets another major power, regardless of how many spiritual ties are invoked at state dinners. When Indonesia looks at maritime security in the South China Sea, it calculates its moves based on its exclusive economic zone, its naval capacity, and its diplomatic leverage within ASEAN.
Imagine a scenario where a maritime skirmish occurs in the Natuna Sea. Indonesia does not call upon an ally because of shared ancient philosophies. It deploys its own naval vessels, calculates the reaction of Beijing, and evaluates its radar capabilities. The security architecture of Southeast Asia is built on real-time deterrence, weapon system compatibility, and satellite intelligence. An ancient mantra echoing through a temple provides zero radar cover.
I have watched diplomatic missions spend millions of dollars organizing cultural festivals, youth exchanges, and religious tourism tracks, only to watch those same initiatives yield absolutely nothing when a real crisis hits. When a nation needs to secure its supply chains for semiconductors, critical minerals, or advanced defense hardware, it does not look at a map of ancient trade routes. It looks at the modern manufacturing capabilities of its partners.
The Cost of Cultural Obsession
Every hour a diplomatic apparatus spends romanticizing the past is an hour it loses negotiating the concrete realities of the present.
There is a distinct downside to leaning too heavily on civilizational rhetoric: it alienates the modern demographics of the partner country. Indonesia today is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. While its citizens are proud of their pluralistic history and preserve monuments like Prambanan and Borobudur as national treasures, their contemporary identity is firmly rooted in the present.
When a foreign power frames its relationship with Indonesia primarily through a pre-Islamic, ancient lens, it risks looking out of touch with the living, breathing reality of modern Indonesian society. It looks like an attempt to bypass the current political elite and the contemporary population to speak to ghosts.
True diplomatic authority is built on mutual economic necessity and shared strategic vulnerabilities. If you want a deep partnership with an archipelagic state, you do not talk about the shadows of old empires. You talk about maritime domain awareness. You talk about joint naval patrols, undersea cable security, and space technology. You offer concrete solutions to their immediate problems, such as transferring defense technology or integrating banking systems.
Stop Reminiscing and Start Trading
The fixation on civilizational ties is an intellectual trap. It allows governments to claim victory on the world stage without doing the heavy lifting of structural economic reform. It is easy to orchestrate a high-profile visit to an ancient monument; it is incredibly difficult to cut through bureaucratic red tape, align customs regulations, and lower tariff barriers.
If a state wants to build a genuine, unbreakable bond across the Indian Ocean, it must abandon the sentimental history lessons.
First, dismantle the protectionist barriers that choke bilateral commerce. Trade must be diversified away from raw commodities into high-value technology, pharmaceuticals, and digital services. If your regulatory systems do not talk to each other, your shared history means nothing.
Second, establish deep, institutional defense integration. This does not mean symbolic joint exercises where navies simply sail together for a weekend photo-op. It means selling advanced anti-ship missiles, sharing real-time satellite tracking data on illegal fishing vessels, and building interoperable communication networks.
The next time you see a headline celebrating a political leader invoking ancient spiritual legacies at a historic temple, ignore the romantic prose. Look past the smoke of the incense. Look at the trade balance sheets, the defense contracts, and the infrastructure investments. If those numbers are flat, the state visit was a failure, no matter how loudly the ancient mantras reverberated through the stones.
Stop treating international relations like an archeological dig. Nations do not live in history books; they live in the present, driven by fear, ambition, and greed. If you want to build a real alliance, put away the history textbook and open the ledger.
