Outlook for the Prabowo Administration’s Foreign Policy

Several observers have already praised the incoming president of Indonesia, Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, as the next great foreign policy hope for his country. They believe he will be more hands-on in managing foreign and defence policy than his predecessor. His various overseas visits from April through September saw Prabowo meeting heads of state and defence minister counterparts, partly for him to personally invite some of them to attend his presidential inauguration on 20 October.

Prabowo’s predecessor, Joko Widodo, was conspicuously absent from last week’s ASEAN Summit in Vientiane, Laos, and roundly criticised for a missed opportunity to assert Indonesia’s influence and reassure others that ASEAN remains a cornerstone of Indonesian foreign policy. Widodo sent his vice president as his representative to the summit meetings, a decision that sealed his reputation as someone disinterested in foreign policy, something already clear from his first years as president.

Widodo’s absence was an unnecessary own goal that added to the long-standing perception that Indonesia punches below its weight as Southeast Asia’s largest country. By the Lowy Institute’s latest Asia Power Index, in terms of material resources and “influence”, Indonesia ranked ninth out of 27 countries in “comprehensive power”, below Singapore. Indonesia supports the international rules-based order and is an active player in ASEAN, yet Widodo’s inattention and fast-moving geopolitics have contributed to a sense of stagnation. Indonesia did introduce the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) concept in 2019 to buttress ASEAN centrality but some scholars warn that this is now threatened by competing visions for regional order, embodied by other minilateral arrangements. Widodo’s “global maritime fulcrum” (GMF) idea, released with fanfare when he first became president, was moribund by the start of his second term and a missed opportunity to secure Indonesia’s position as a maritime power.

As Prabowo takes over, three key areas bear watching: positioning, preoccupations and personalities.

The first issue is how Prabowo wishes to position Indonesia, vis-à-vis not just the US and China but also powers like Russia, Japan and the EU. Most commentators and scholars see Prabowo as an arch nationalist and a realist who believes that wealth and military might undergird a country’s prosperity in an anarchical world. In his presidential debates and subsequent statements, he has interpreted Indonesia’s long-standing foreign policy motto “bebas aktif” (free and independent) to mean that Indonesia will be a “good neighbour” — continuing the “many friends, zero enemies” posture of the two presidents before him. He is also a pragmatist: Prabowo’s foreign trips reflect his willingness to meet diverse partners in Asia and Europe to shore up Indonesia’s positions in trade, defence, security and other areas, although some predict possible tensions given his past rhetoric against issues like the EU’s sanctions on palm oil.

A deeper unknown is whether Prabowo will act on his darker tendencies to see the world as a Hobbesian contest, where national power must derive from military power, leading to a tendency to overstate perceived threats to Indonesia or intensify negative rhetoric vis-à-vis its neighbours.

Prabowo wants to strengthen Indonesia’s economic position, recently emphasising that he wanted all Indonesians to enjoy the country’s riches. Thus, he is expected to continue Widodo’s policy of attracting Chinese investment and trade. At the same time, Prabowo will want to continue enjoying good defence and security ties with the US, although anti-US sentiments over the tensions over Gaza and now Lebanon may complicate this effort. While Prabowo’s visit to Russia in late July signalled a potential recalibration of Indonesia’s foreign policy and a desire to explore future military acquisitions and defence deals, Russia’s actions in Ukraine and the ostracism it faces might give Prabowo’s administration some pause in implementing such plans.

As defence minister, Prabowo strengthened Indonesia’s defence diplomacy by signing various pacts with partners like Singapore and Australia to improve and support the Indonesian military (TNI). Some criticised his approach as scattershot and transactional, and the TNI has not reached its Minimum Essential Force (MEF) goal, but Prabowo had inherited a dismal situation created by decades of under-investment. As president, Prabowo will continue to emphasise defence cooperation, including with smaller neighbours like Brunei and by giving arms and aid to Cambodia, while privileging defence relationships with bigger powers. He might also try to level up Indonesia’s defence industry, which faced various challenges under Widodo.

A deeper unknown is whether Prabowo will act on his darker tendencies to see the world as a Hobbesian contest, where national power must derive from military power, leading to a tendency to overstate perceived threats to Indonesia or intensify negative rhetoric vis-à-vis its neighbours. This might be so if an unexpected crisis occurs. Prabowo may seek to project regional leadership by pushing for more robust action on crises like Myanmar. He has also twice proposed a “solution” for the Russia-Ukraine war during the 2023 and 2024 Shangri-La Dialogue.

Finally, personalities will set the overall tenor of foreign policy. A key question is who will replace Retno Marsudi as Indonesia’s foreign minister (Menlu). Many credit Retno’s disciplined and consistent high-level diplomacy for maintaining Indonesia’s international standing, even if she did not achieve breakthroughs on issues like Myanmar. A critical question is how and whether Prabowo will shape the foreign ministry’s (Kemlu) policies.

In a personality-centric presidential system like Indonesia’s, it is not just a president’s worldview that shapes foreign policy but also who works within his inner circle. Thus, whether Prabowo’s Menlu can balance or challenge his realist tendencies is important. Several possibilities for Menlu have been floated recently but it appears that Prabowo will stick with a loyalist. Gerindra cadre Sugiono, 45, is a House of Representatives (DPR) Commission I deputy chair who was educated at two foreign institutions, including an American military academy. His links with Prabowo go back more than two decades when he was a young scholarship recipient and Prabowo was commander of the Kopassus, Indonesia’s Special Forces Command. Sugiono is the clear frontrunner even though he is not a career technocrat or diplomat. He met the president-elect on 14 October 2024 and told the media afterwards that he was “ready” to undertake the task since he was a “soldier” (prajurit).     

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