Two weeks after recalling the ambassador from Jakarta in protest at the executions of two Australian drug traffickers, the government announced Tuesday it plans to cut Indonesian aid by 40 percent from 543 million Australian dollars ($428 million) to AU$323 million. Australia wants to cut its aid budget to AU$4.1 billion next year.

On 29 April Indonesia executed seven foreigners and one Indonesian for drug offences. The refusal of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to offer clemency despite pleas from foreign leaders has been analysed in a number of ways.(...)But was his decision instead a deliberate act of public diplomacy, designed to send signals to those missing the Sukarno era?

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will soon be completing his first full year in office. While he has his critics, there tends to be broad agreement that Modi has done a robust job in the sphere of foreign policy. Modi’s approach has focused on economics, soft power, connectivity, and maritime security. Modi has been deft at using what Joseph Nye has dubbed “smart power” – the right blend of soft power and hard power.

The executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in the early hours of Wednesday morning present several tricky challenges for relations between Australia and Indonesia. The Australian government immediately announced it would recall its ambassador, Paul Grigson, and suspend ministerial visits. In a rare show of solidarity, the Labor Party and the Greens fully supported this. It is unclear at this stage if other actions might be taken.

Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the brutal state-sanctioned killing of two Australian citizens, the shallowness of any trust between Jakarta and Canberra - between Australians and Indonesians - has been fully exposed.The expected recall of both ambassadors - theirs in direct retaliation to the unprecedented withdrawal of ours already announced - is as inevitable as it is regrettably, largely pointless. Ditto for other gestures of Australian unhappiness in the diplomatic sphere.

Six months after taking office, Indonesian President Joko Widodo is starting to step away from his predecessor’s foreign policy of keeping everyone happy. Widodo, known as Jokowi, criticized the United Nations and International Monetary Fund at this week’s Asian African Conference in Jakarta. He’s pledged to increase defense spending, ordered foreign boats seized for illegal fishing to be destroyed, and declined to pardon two Australian drug smugglers facing a firing squad, leading to warnings of damaged ties.

Under Secretary Richard Stengel will travel to Jakarta, Indonesia April 14–15. While in Jakarta, Under Secretary Stengel will meet with the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia and U.S. Embassy staff. He will also meet the U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN...