I recently visited the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, where I was invited to deliver a series of lectures to the top twenty leaders of the largest Islamic organization in the world — the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) (literally, “the awakening of the scholarly interpreters of Islamic doctrine and law”).  

While the first part of my professional life addressed the strategic and ideological challenge of Soviet communism on which I worked in the Reagan National Security Council, today I am absorbed by the similar threat emanating from the Chinese Communist Party.  So why have I have turned my attention to far-away Indonesia, of all places? 

The answer is twofold:

First, the intramural battle of ideas within Islam is at a strategic turning point.  This is a conflict between those who want Islam to be a religious source of solutions and not problems in the world versus those driven by essentially secular political passion to restore an Islamist Caliphate, whether by the sword or by other means — i.e., immigration, demographic growth, non-assimilation, and the acquisition of greater political power.  Indonesia is the home of the former: those with a serious religious commitment yet who seek harmony with other religions and nations, a perspective that has led to a new commitment to reforming Islam on a global scale.

Second, Indonesia is the most geostrategically important country in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea.  It is the prize that China would like to secure through its strategy of subversion and conquest without war.  As a democracy, it shares an abiding interest with the United States and our closest friends and allies in the region — Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Taiwan — in maintaining independence and security in the region.  

Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world with some 230 million adherents, and the NU alone has some 115 million members, making it the world’s weightiest non-governmental Muslim body.  Essentially, it is an autonomous civil society association, independent of any government control.

The NU is a politically moderate Islamic organization and has had a decisive influence in keeping Indonesia focused on Islam as a religion as opposed to a radical political ideology.  It has been successfully fighting an ideological war against the radical jihadists for decades within the country, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and its local affiliate, as well as Saudi Arabian Wahhabi/Salafi influence.  

NU’s longtime President (who also served as President of Indonesia), Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid hurled major salvos in that war.  An example was his explication of the differences between “right Islam” versus “wrong Islam”:

“All too many Muslims fail to grasp Islam, which teaches one to be lenient towards others and to understand their value systems, knowing that these are tolerated by Islam as a religion. The essence of Islam is encapsulated in the words of the Quran, “For you, your religion; for me, my religion.” That is the essence of tolerance. Religious fanatics—either purposely or out of ignorance—pervert Islam into a dogma of intolerance, hatred and bloodshed. They justify their brutality with slogans such as ‘Islam is above everything else.’ They seek to intimidate and subdue anyone who does not share their extremist views, regardless of nationality or religion. While a few are quick to shed blood themselves, countless millions of others sympathize with their violent actions, or join in the complicity of silence. 

“This crisis of misunderstanding—of Islam by Muslims themselves—is compounded by the failure of governments, people of other faiths, and the majority of well-intentioned Muslims to resist, isolate and discredit this dangerous ideology. The crisis thus afflicts Muslims and non-Muslims alike, with tragic consequences. Failure to understand the true nature of Islam permits the continued radicalization of Muslims world-wide, while blinding the rest of humanity to a solution which hides in plain sight. 

“The most effective way to overcome Islamist extremism is to explain what Islam truly is to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Without that explanation, people will tend to accept the unrefuted extremist view—further radicalizing Muslims, and turning the rest of the world against Islam itself.” (Abdurrahman Wahid, “Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam,” The Wall Street Journal, 12/30/05).

As part of his campaign to discredit radical Islamism, Abdurrahman (who became colloquially known as “Gus Dur”) wrote a book entitled The Illusion of an Islamic State.  In it, he argues that the radical jihadists are motivated by passion for secular political power and not by a serious religious striving for holiness.  As he says in his Introduction:

“People who are convinced that they know more than anyone else about Islam, and yet are full of hatred towards any of God’s creatures who do not travel the same path as they; and those who claim to be in possession of the absolute truth, and for that reason entitled to act as God’s vice-regents on earth (caliphs) and to dictate how everyone else must live–clearly, their words and behavior will not lead us into the presence of God. Their dream of an Islamic state is merely an illusion, for the true Islamic state is not to be found in the structure of any government, but rather, in hearts which are open to God and all His creatures.”

The book shows how a coalition of serious, religiously minded Muslims successfully fought the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and how its methods can be used elsewhere to isolate and discredit the Islamist ideology of religious hatred, supremacy, and violence that animates terrorism.

Abdurrahman’s efforts in this regard involved serving as a patron, board member, and senior advisor to the Winston-Salem-based LibForAll Foundation (“Liberty for All”), which is dedicated to fighting religious extremism and terrorism.  

Under the leadership of the new Chairman of the NU, Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, the organization is now seeking to extend its influence to the rest of the Islamic world in hopes of bringing Islam into alignment with universal human rights principles and into harmony with other faiths and nations.

An indicator of NU’s approach is its creation of an Institute for Humanitarian Islam.  The very name represents an indirect condemnation of the practice of Islam in many parts of the world.  This is reminiscent of the Prague Spring in 1968, where the Czechoslovak Communist Party leader, Alexander Dubcek, embarked on internal reforms designed to create “socialism with a human face.”  This very slogan implied that the socialism practiced in the USSR and its satellites did not have a human face.  That very idea, which challenged the legitimacy of Soviet Communist Party rule, was enough to prompt the Kremlin to invade Czechoslovakia to restore strict ideological conformity.

The NU is poised to compete with Middle Eastern countries in the education of Muslim youth and, in effect, in the construction of the Muslim future.  With the financial help of the Government of Abu Dhabi, the Universitas Nahdlatul Ulama (UNU) Yogyakarta has established a Center for Future Studies.  This Center’s educational programs will integrate “Islamic values such as universal love and compassion” into a curriculum focused on science, technology, and future studies to help with the “development of peaceful, inclusive, tolerant, prosperous, and sustainable societies.”  In addition, the NU is heavily involved with the Universitas Islam International Indonesia, which is competing as a major education center in the Islamic world, but one which promotes a tolerant version of Islam that seeks harmony with other world religions.  

The NU has taken the lead in creating the G20 Religion Forum or “Religion 20” (“R20”) — an interreligious movement designed, in the words of NU Chairman and R20 Founder Yahya Staquf, “to bring the world’s geopolitical and economic power structures into alignment with the highest moral and spiritual values.”  This is a radical departure from the secular, globalist focus of most of the participants in the G20.  The R20 is dedicated to raising the profile of human rights and shared civilizational values as central to the creation of a harmonious world, and to make these values a permanent part of the G20 agenda, as opposed to an exclusive focus on harmonies created by international commerce.  

For example, one of the R20’s working groups is devoted to the “recontextualization of obsolete and problematic tenets of religious orthodoxy” within the world’s major religions which are “incompatible with peaceful coexistence and a rules-based international order founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.”  In the case of Islam, the R20 is examining “infidel” and “jihad” as precisely such concepts. 

If there were ever a cost-free way our foreign policy could support those Islamic forces that oppose radical jihadism, it would be for the U.S. officially to recognize and host the Religion 20 Summit (R20) as part of America’s Presidency of the G20 next year.

To help guide the R20 in a coherent direction, the NU, in collaboration with Holland Taylor, CEO of the LibForAll Foundation, and Dr. Timothy Shah, Distinguished Research Scholar in Politics at the University of Dallas, has created the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV).  This Center has identified principles shared by various religions that can form the basis of greater harmony among faiths and nations.  Taking a cue from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CSCV has articulated a number of these shared “principles of conscience”: 

“We believe that there is order to God’s creation and that certain fundamental principles are woven into the very fabric of nature. Divinely ordained, these principles — which Muslims associate with the “Beautiful Names of God” (asma’ Allah al-husna); Western philosophers and theologians have termed “natural law” or “universal moral law”; Hindus refer to as rta and C. S. Lewis described as “the Tao” — reflect God’s infinite love, compassion, wisdom and justice.

“When apprehended by human conscience, these fundamental principles give rise to universal values that have long been articulated and embraced by the world’s great cultural, religious and ethical traditions.

“By understanding and acting in accord with these “first principles,” one may develop noble character, or virtue. Muslims use the term al-akhlaq al-karimah when referring to the complex, mutually reinforcing elements of exemplary moral character such as universal love, compassion, honesty, gratitude and humility. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines virtue as “a habitual and firm disposition to do the good” (“Shared Principles for Human Flourishing,” Center for Shared Civilizational Values).

According to CSCV, faithfulness to these principles makes it possible for the forces of what we at The Institute of World Politics call “decent civilization” to unite against the forces of totalitarian tyranny — in its Communist, fascist, and radical Islamist incarnations — which have been at war with that civilization for a century.  Indeed, the CSCV likens the uniting of forces resisting totalitarianism to the “Fellowship of the Ring” in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy:

“Set within the mythical realm of Middle-earth, Tolkien’s novel portrays the perennial struggle between good and evil. The Dark Lord Sauron has openly returned to Middle-earth.  Humans, dwarves, elves and hobbits must choose whether to unite and oppose the forces of tyranny, which seek to conquer, enslave, and/or annihilate every living creature in Middle-earth.  Those who join ‘the Fellowship of the Ring’ — and the communities they represent — differ immensely from a cultural, linguistic and even genetic (i.e., species) perspective. What unites them is a set of shared values, for which they are prepared to risk their lives in order to re-establish and guard the boundaries between civilization and barbarism.”  (Ibid)

It is precisely the principles of “shared civilization” that can guide and enable the various communities to unite in what is a common “long twilight struggle” against the evil empires of totalitarianism.

With initiatives like the Humanitarian Islam movement, the R20, and the CSCV, the Nahdlatul Ulama is now seeking to expand its influence to moderate Islam and to exercise its influence to promote human rights and other shared civilizational values globally.  To this end, the NU created the National Leadership Academy, where I gave my lectures. 

The Academy is designed to provide NU cadres with education:

  • in strategic leadership in both foreign and domestic policy; 
  • in the integrated religious and civilizational worldview of the Nahdlatul Ulama’s brand of Sunni Islam;
  • in developing the capacity “to understand and navigate the historical, political, cultural, and economic dynamics shaping the 21st century;” 
  • in the ability to craft and deploy persuasive narratives capable of prevailing in what NU Chairman Yahya Staquf terms “an intense competition regarding what values will form the basis of a new global civilization;” and
  • in the principles enabling respect for the dignity of all human persons, inter-faith and inter-civilizational dialogue, and democracy.

Most of the NU leadership have had religiously based education in the organization’s network of schools.  Some have had higher education in civilian colleges and universities and serve as college professors and newspaper columnists.  What they all needed was education in political philosophy, international relations, and those elements of statecraft that would maximize their ability to exercise strategic influence.  Three Americans were invited to serve as faculty members in the inaugural curriculum at the Academy: Dr. Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution (and former Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo), Prof. Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School (and former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See), and myself.  

I was invited to provide the NU leadership with a primer on international relations, the role of morality in foreign policy, and one of the key elements of statecraft: strategic influence and its subset, ideological competition.  Of the many potential professors who could have delivered at least the international relations part of my curriculum, I was chosen because I conceive of international relations through the lens of a transcendent, objective, universal moral order — a “natural law” perspective.

It is precisely this worldview that NU leaders wanted me to impart because of their distrust of what they consider to be the militantly secular, relativistic foreign policy elites in the West who have been exporting the toxic products of a libertine popular culture to societies that retain traditional mores.  (Indeed, the policies some of those elites reflect a complete lack of understanding of the strategic importance of public diplomacy and the role of religion in cultural diplomacy.)  Whereas the NU admires Western democracy and freedom, it is wary when they see Western liberty become license.

Altogether I delivered 18 hours of lectures in three days.  I told my audience that they all deserved Olympic gold medals for listening to me for so long each day!  My topics included: 

  • the first principles of political and moral philosophy that enable leaders to identify the “genetic code’ of different regimes and how they are likely to behave internationally.  I focused on two basic questions and their political consequences: 1) Is there an immutable human nature or is human nature malleable and perfectible through social, political, economic, bio-medical, or genetic engineering?  And 2) Is there a transcendent, objective, universal moral order in the world?
  • the actors in international relations;
  • the attributes and instruments of national power – both the tangible and the intangible;
  • the alternative theories of peace and harmonies of interest, including those based on power relations and those grounded in the Augustinian concept of tranquillitas ordinis;
  • the causes of conflict and war;
  • the types of warfare – both kinetic and non-kinetic – particularly political, ideological, information, psychological, and cultural – the non-violent methods that one thinks a nation should try to use in situations of irreconcilable conflict before starting to use force to defend vital interests;
  • the role of morality in shaping the ends and conducting the means of foreign policy; and
  • the conduct of public diplomacy, strategic influence, and ideological competition.

Armed with knowledge of these subjects, the NU’s leadership is a little closer to realizing its ambition to moderate Islamic doctrine throughout the world.  Its example within Indonesia is already teaching the materialistic foreign policy cultures of the West that ideological competition is a strategic form of radicalization prevention with global implications. 

Unfortunately, American knowledge of Indonesia is embarrassingly weak and that just contributes to our minimization of ideology as a strategic factor in global politics.  Our nation and our foreign policy community ignore at our peril the fourth largest country in the world, the largest Islamic country in the world with the most politically moderate version of Islam, the third largest democracy in the world, and the most strategic country along the most trafficked commercial waterway in the world.  It is a nation that should be much closer to the United States. We need to adjust our priorities accordingly. 

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