Between Two Reefs: Indonesia’s Strategic Culture in the Twenty-First Century

Indonesia’s strategic culture has long been anchored in the principle of bebas aktif—a free and active foreign policy rooted in nonalignment, strategic autonomy, and pragmatic engagement—which has guided the country from the Cold War to today’s era of intensified great-power competition. Shaped by anticolonial history, internal nation-building challenges, and evolving democratic politics, Indonesia has consistently sought to maximize agency by balancing relations with major powers while prioritizing domestic economic development, ASEAN centrality, and selective global leadership. Although public and elite consensus largely supports neutrality amid U.S.–China rivalry, growing economic nationalism, maritime security pressures in the South China Sea, and debates over Indonesia’s role in the global order are narrowing policy flexibility. As the Prabowo administration signals ambitions for a more assertive international profile, Indonesia faces the challenge of translating its middle-power aspirations into concrete regional and global influence without abandoning its longstanding strategy of “rowing between two reefs.”

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