Hawaii-based troops played a key role in the largest-yet iteration of the annual exercise Garuda Shield in Indonesia, which wrapped up earlier this month.

Historically held as a bilateral exercise for the U.S. and Indonesian armed forces, this year 14 countries participated — including 2,000 Indonesian troops, 2,000 American troops and more than 4,000 combined troops from Australia, Singapore and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. Smaller contingents from other countries took part as well.

This year’s iteration has been dubbed “Super Garuda Shield.” U.S. Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Travis Dettmer told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that in April Indonesian military chief Gen. Andika Perkasa informed American commanders at the Oahu-based U.S. Indo-Pacific Command that he wanted to make this year’s exercise multinational.

“(Indonesia) has sought on and off to play a larger aspirational role, particularly, since the transition to democracy” after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, said Satu Limaye, vice president of the East-West Center in Manoa. “On multiple levels Indonesia is seeking a more engaged, important, influential role — both regionally and internationally.”

Indonesia — home to 273.5 million people spread across 17,508 islands — has Southeast Asia’s largest military, as well as the region’s largest economy. It currently chairs the G20, which will hold its annual summit this year in Bali.

Members of the U.S. Army’s Schofield Barracks-­based 25th Infantry Division participated in Garuda Shield along with American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines from other units across the country. In recent years the 25th Infantry Division has taken on a leading role in the exercise, partnering extensively with the Indonesian military through a series of exchanges that have brought Indonesian troops to Hawaii to train.

Also, the Indonesian military has close ties to the Hawaii National Guard, which trained in Indonesia last month. Additionally, Indonesian sailors and marines came to Hawaii this summer to participate in the biennial exercise Rim of the Pacific.

U.S. military leaders and politicians in Hawaii have played a steady role in promoting American engagement with Indonesia, which was long ruled by military dictator Suharto. While his decades-long rule was bloody and brutal, it was largely supported by American officials that saw Suharto as an ally in their fight against communism. After the Cold War, however, attitudes changed. In 1998 Suharto resigned in the face of widespread riots and chaos.

The country then began holding democratic elections. But in a 1999 referendum, through which East Timor secured independence from Indonesia, violence broke out as government-backed militias committed numerous atrocities with support from elite Indonesian special forces. Then-President Bill Clinton ordered a suspension of military cooperation with Indonesia.

A few years later — after 9/11 — relations gradually resumed as the U.S. looked to form alliances with Muslim countries. And Hawaii’s late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye slipped language into a defense bill that allowed Indonesian military officials to participate in programs at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Waikiki.

In the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that ravaged Indonesia and killed 227,898 people, the U.S. military played a key role in assistance response. Three years later, then-­Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle signed an agreement through the National Guard’s State Partnership Program that paired the Hawaii National Guard and the Indonesian military for a series of joint training exercises and exchanges.

Lingle first traveled to Indonesia in 1995 while serving as Maui’s mayor through Sister Cities International. She returned in 2001 to assist in training the newly decentralized government in Jakarta.

But the resumption in military ties wasn’t without critics. Particularly among Hawaii activists and academics who pointed to the bloody history of the Indonesian military in East Timor — now Timor Leste — and continuing violence in West Papua, where the Indonesian military and police have been accused of widespread human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings in their fight against pro-independence rebels and activists.

In 2010, during a speech to the Hawaii-Indonesia Chamber of Commerce where Lingle was introduced as the “only Indonesianophile governor of the state of Hawaii,” she said, “America, on the national level, is missing a major opportunity in Indonesia.”

In her remarks she praised then-President Barack Obama for pursuing closer ties between the two countries, but criticized members of Congress who continued to express concerns about partnering with the Indonesian military. She noted in particular a ban on allowing Indonesian cadets to train at U.S. military academies, arguing the best way to reform the Indonesian military is to engage with it.

Since then, ties between the U.S. and Indonesian militaries have continued to expand, with Hawaii holding a prominent role. Last year, an Army contracting unit at Oahu’s Wheeler Army Airfield solicited quotes from American and Indonesian contractors to support operations in Indonesia through 2026.

This year, portions of Garuda Shield were held in Indonesia’s northern Natuna Islands, where Jakarta has accused Chinese of encroaching on its maritime territory in recent years with vessels and covert drones.

China claims the entire South China Sea as its own under a controversial maritime border called the Nine Dash Line. The Philippines sued China over its claims and in 2016 an international court ruled China’s territorial claims have “no legal basis.” In response, China rejected the ruling and has built military bases on disputed islands and reefs.

Though Indonesia officially considers itself a non-party to these disputes and has strong trade ties with China, Beijing has asserted that parts of the Natuna Sea fall within the Nine Dash Line.

The South China Sea is a critical waterway through which more than one-third of all global trade travels. With the islands of Indonesia in both the Pacific and Indian oceans, geography puts them at the center of maritime trade and disputes.

Recently, in response to a visit to Taiwan by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to underscore America’s support for its democratic government, the Chinese navy briefly encircled the country in a series of exercises.

“The destabilizing actions by the People’s Republic of China as it applied to the threatening activities and actions against Taiwan is exactly what we are trying to avoid,” INDOPACOM commander Adm. John Aquilino told reporters during a joint news conference with Perkasa on Aug. 12 in Indonesia. “We’ll continue to help deliver a free and open Indo-­Pacific and be ready when we need to respond to any contingency.”

Among the countries that attended the recent Garuda Shield was Timor Leste. Limaye said that in the years since fighting between Indonesian forces and pro-independence forces in Timor Leste ended, Jakarta has come to enthusiastically recognize its independence and has even backed a failed Timorese bid to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations earlier this year. Next year Indonesia is set to chair ASEAN.

“It is my perception that Indonesia, in its regional role, seeks to not isolate Timor Leste and to continue to have a substantial influence there,” said Limaye. “After all, Indonesia is East Timor’s largest import partner (and) it’s a major power that sits astride East Timor’s maritime domain.”

However, conflict in West Papua remains ongoing and next year’s elections loom. “The overall pattern appears to me, as an outsider, is that civil society and public space in Indonesia is more contested, more difficult than it was in the earlier days of democracy,” said Limaye, who recently returned from a visit to Jakarta.

He stressed that Indonesia is not unique in this way, pointing out that polarization has been on the rise in democracies around the world, including in the United States. Further, an upcoming set of elections in Indonesia, slated for 2024, will serve as a major test of transition from the Suharto years.

“It’s particularly important because it’s the first time that national and local elections will happen at the same time,” said Limaye. “So this decentralization and democratic process is going to be particularly important.”