NEWS ANALYSIS : Pentagon’s Investment in Indonesia Lacks Payoff : Military: America’s efforts to gain influence by training officers are for naught as the violence in East Timor demonstrates.

For years, the Pentagon has spent millions on programs that aim not only to train fast-rising officers in foreign armies--including Indonesia’s--but to plant in them the seeds of American values and influence.

But after days of attempts to force the military leadership in Indonesia to halt the convulsion of violence in East Timor and allow United Nations peacekeepers to keep order, the sum total of this influence seems depressingly close to zero.

“We’ve used all those sorts of contacts, and what we’ve gotten back is almost nothing,” said a senior administration official dealing with the crisis. Indonesian authorities “are saying all the right words, but they’re not doing a thing.”

Added a congressional staff member who has monitored the Pentagon’s main training program for foreign officers, the International Military Education and Training program--known as IMET--for much of the past decade: “It demonstrates the complete lack of utility of the entire program, at least as far as Indonesia is concerned.”

Ensuing Tension Between Nations

While Indonesia’s military chief, Gen. Wiranto, appeared Saturday to have slightly eased opposition to a U.N. peacekeeping force for East Timor, the shift in his rhetoric seemed to have more to do with the looming threat of potentially ruinous global economic and political isolation than with any quiet lobbying by uniformed friends in Washington.

After a flurry of contacts with Indonesian military leaders in recent days--including a meeting between Wiranto and Adm. Dennis Cutler Blair, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, plus a telephone call to Wiranto from Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--President Clinton felt forced to take additional action Friday.

Clinton accused Indonesia’s army of “aiding and abetting the military violence” in East Timor. Then, a few hours later, the White House announced a freeze on arms sales to Indonesia--sales that were expected to total just over $16 million for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. That decision effectively tightens a step taken by the U.S. on Thursday when it suspended military-to-military relations with Indonesia but seemed prepared to allow any sales already formally approved.

Those who follow America’s relations with Indonesia say they are not surprised that the personal relationships between U.S. officers and their Indonesian counterparts have had little effect in the East Timor crisis. These U.S. officials say that the contacts fostered through IMET, and other efforts, provided little return during the political convulsion 15 months ago that forced longtime President Suharto from power.

“The [U.S. Pacific commander] at the time felt he had great connections, but when he tried to get in touch with [Indonesian commanders], his calls were never returned,” noted the congressional specialist.

Program’s Goals Fall Short

Such responses from the Indonesians would seem to fall well short of what the Pentagon had hoped would result from its training and education contacts.

A Defense Department report released last year noted: “By exposing [foreign] military leaders to democratic values, and working to foster respect for civilian authority and military professionalism, IMET provides a window through which we can positively influence the development of foreign military institutions.”

U.S. taxpayers spent $50 million this fiscal year on training and educating about 9,000 foreign military personnel from more than 100 countries under IMET.

Although the program involving Indonesia was halted in 1992 after the army massacred a group of civilian protesters in East Timor, other military-to-military contacts continued. This year, with a new government in Jakarta, IMET has funded training and education in the U.S. for 17 Indonesian officers.

Critics of the program note that many of the military contacts with Indonesia have involved an elite branch of the army known as Kopassus, a unit that has reportedly been involved in some of the worst excesses of the current violence in and around the East Timorese capital, Dili.

Liberal-Arts Approach May Be More Effective

A senior defense official, who asked to remain anonymous, said it is unfair to gauge the success of the Pentagon’s military-to-military programs by the experience with Indonesia, arguing that the U.S. efforts have never been as effective with officers from there as with officers from many other countries.

But some critics contend the problem is deeper. They say that poorly devised curricula and substandard supervision blunt the impact of the programs.

“If you’re going to do human rights and democratization, it must be more liberal-arts oriented, not a lot of stuff on military structure and strategies,” said the congressional staff member.

Others, however, say it is simply too much to expect that even the strongest friendships growing out of such programs could somehow sway a senior foreign military officer convinced his nation is in peril.

“Political crises dwarf individual psychologies,” said Theodore Friend, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and an advocate of military-to-military exchanges. “This particular crisis is utterly fundamental to the Indonesian nation.”