Prabowo’s Ukraine proposal underscores Indonesia’s fractured foreign policy

26 June 2023

When Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto took the stage at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in early June, few expected that he would propose — unprompted — his vision of a “peace plan” to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Prabowo’s proposal is not without controversy; for one, its elements contradict the United Nations’ position on the war, a position that Indonesia largely abides by. Backlash to Prabowo’s proposal came almost immediately — not only from Ukrainian interlocutors, who promptly dismissed the plan but also from within the Indonesian government itself. Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry, nominally the government body with statutory responsibilities for the country’s foreign policy, has refused to comment on the proposal, and President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo has distanced himself from Prabowo’s speech. Amid a highly contentious domestic political environment in the run-up to the 2024 presidential elections (in which Prabowo is currently a frontrunner), the proposal has quickly become a lightning-rod. Senior officials from the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) now argue that the defence minister’s remarks undermine Indonesia’s bebas aktif (“free and active”) foreign policy.

In the abstract, Indonesia should be encouraged to take on an increasingly prominent role on the international stage and work to solve regional and global challenges — including Russia’s war in Ukraine. But Prabowo’s rogue announcement — to say nothing of the specific shortcomings of his proposed plan — underscores the structural challenges that Indonesia faces in defining and acting on its foreign policy priorities and taking on a greater role internationally.

A fractured foreign policy

Relative to his predecessors, Jokowi has shied away from taking the lead on foreign policy issues, instead relying on cabinet members or other officials to speak and act on his behalf. While Jokowi in recent years has begun to take a more active role globally, in part because of Indonesia’s chairmanship of the G20 last year and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year, the president’s general disinterest in international affairs has arguably led to a fracturing of the Indonesian foreign policy apparatus. Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi remains a trusted interlocuter for the president, but the Foreign Ministry is one of many competing instruments of Indonesian foreign policy. Others include the president’s own office, the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investments Affairs under Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, the Defence Ministry under Prabowo, and the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs under Airlangga Hartarto. These individuals and institutions often have competing priorities and can — in the extreme case of Prabowo’s speech — act in contradictory ways. This includes recent tensions between Jokowi and PDI-P presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo over the latter’s support for the exclusion of Israel from the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup, with Indonesia’s hosting rights subsequently stripped by the football body over the controversy.

Prabowo’s controversial proposal, borne out of his efforts to refashion himself as a statesman even while contradicting his own government, underscores the fact that Indonesia will face serious growing pains in its pursuit of a more active regional and global role.

As Indonesia gears up for presidential elections in early 2024, these developments will sharpen. While foreign policy is unlikely to be a major point of concern among the electorate, it is increasingly probable that electoral dynamics will impact foreign policy. Prabowo is currently a frontrunner in the 2024 election and leads Gerindra, now the third-largest party in Indonesia’s parliament. While Gerindra maintains a tenuous alliance with the ruling PDI-P under the president’s pro-government Onward Indonesia Coalition, the two parties will likely mount competing presidential tickets in 2024. Prabowo and other political aspirants thus have an incentive to shape policy in ways that would burnish their own electoral credentials — even at the risk of contradicting the term-limited Jokowi or the official government line. The net impact of this dynamic is Indonesia’s inability to articulate and act on a coherent and unified foreign policy, which in turn poses a considerable challenge for international partners who are tasked with making sense of the noise.

Punching below its weight

Indonesia has long prided itself on being the “natural leader” of ASEAN, and its policy elite have operated under the assumption that the country’s sizable population and abundance of natural resources would cement its status as the region’s centre of gravity. While this to a certain extent remains true, for the duration of the Jokowi administration Indonesia has been perceived to be punching below its weight in regional and international affairs.

The perception that Indonesia has become more internally focused under Jokowi — who strikes a more domestically-oriented figure than his immediate predecessor, the comparatively internationalist President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — is in part a reflection of Indonesian domestic sentiment. In their 2021 poll of Indonesian public opinion, the Lowy Institute found that “most respondents [want] the government to focus on keeping citizens safe overseas and supporting jobs and the economy at home […] Indonesians also see global and regional challenges as important goals, but place a lower priority on them than domestic and trade-related concerns”. Yet, as the Lowy poll notes, these trends have remained largely consistent over the past ten years; to this end, shifts in Indonesian foreign policy in this period likely have less to do with public perspectives on foreign affairs, and more to do with the specific preferences of the leader of the day.

Ultimately, the public’s focus on trade and domestic concerns is no surprise given the continued economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. And neither is the fact that Jokowi, in pursuit of what he views as Indonesia’s national interests, has opted to make these issues the focus of his attention. But focusing exclusively on domestic concerns over regional or international challenges limits the aperture of the country’s approach to foreign policy, which inhibits Indonesia’s ability to take on the sort of leadership that it aspires to. As the editorial board of East Asia Forum put it, Indonesian leaders must not only “[emphasise] how engagement with multilateral institutions addresses the problems the voters think they have,” but also “highlight the problems and opportunities the voters don’t [recognise] affect them, and how Indonesia’s agency is critical in [realising] those opportunities”. Ultimately, the disjunction between Indonesia’s perception of its central role in the region and the reality that Indonesian foreign policy has become increasingly inward-looking may impact the extent to which the international community views the country as an active and reliable partner.

ASEAN and an increasingly challenging regional environment

Indonesia faces no shortage of foreign policy challenges. ASEAN is increasingly disunited in the face of US-China competition, faces a long road ahead in post-Covid economic recovery, and has been unable to mount an effective response to the crisis in Myanmar. Any one of these challenges would be considerable in their own right — taken together, they are a recipe for disorder and disfunction.

Indonesia should be given credit for managing these crises to the best of its ability — as demonstrated by the country’s hosting of the G20 summit last November largely without incidents. But ultimately, these challenges demand a more ambitious form of regional and international leadership from Jakarta. While Indonesia earlier this year signalled that it would make the Myanmar crisis a top priority of its ASEAN chairmanship, the bloc’s summit in May came and went with little to show for it, with even Jokowi noting “there has been no significant progress in the implementation of the five-point consensus”. And the body has — at least publicly — made limited ground on issues like negotiating a code of conduct for the South China Sea or strengthening the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). The latter issue is particularly salient given the growing proliferation of Indo-Pacific strategies by extra-regional actors — including Canada, the European Union, and France, among others. While these partners’ enhanced focus and attention on Southeast Asia are generally a net positive, they also sharpen the need for ASEAN to better articulate and advocate for its own priorities in the context of the myriad visions for the future of the region. Indonesia can and should play a leading role in reinvigorating the AOIP and pushing ASEAN to become more proactive in managing strategic competition and shifts in the regional architecture, but this will ultimately be contingent on Jakarta’s ability to step into a more active role regionally and internationally.

Prabowo’s controversial proposal, borne out of his efforts to refashion himself as a statesman even while contradicting his own government, underscores the fact that Indonesia will face serious growing pains in its pursuit of a more active regional and global role. Amid an increasingly contentious geopolitical environment, and given a fractured foreign policy apparatus, it is unclear whether Indonesia will be able to live up to its own potential on the international stage. Even less clear is what Indonesia’s role in global affairs and the regional order might look like in a post-Jokowi era. The net result is a foreign policy that is outwardly ambitious, but ultimately limited by domestic — and even personal — political interests that lead to inconsistency and contradiction.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author Biography

Andreyka Natalegawa is an associate fellow for the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Image credit: Flickr/U.S. Secretary of Defense (image cropped).