By any reasonable reading, Indonesia’s foreign ministry is right urge caution on a proposed new US military agreement on flight.
But the deeper problem isn’t the deal itself. This is what the deal reveals: a foreign policy that is increasingly ad hoc, reactive and at times dangerously incoherent.
According to reports, the proposed agreement would give US military aircraft broad access to Indonesian airspace for emergency and transit operations, with minimal procedural friction.
More worryingly, Indonesia’s own foreign ministry warned internally that such a move could embroil the country in the South China Sea conflicts and expose it to increased security risks, including vis-a-vis China.
This warning should not be dismissed as a bureaucratic precaution. It reflects a fundamental truth: Indonesia cannot simultaneously claim strict neutrality while providing strategic access that materially enhances external military operations in a contested region.
To its credit, the foreign ministry seems to understand this contradiction. Her concerns — that the deal could create the perception of sprawl, enable surveillance from Indonesian territory and even make the country a potential target — are not hypothetical.
They are based on recent experienceincluding repeated US military surveillance activities that Indonesia itself has protested. The ministry’s instinct – to slow down, reassess and protect sovereignty – is the right one.
But this episode is not an isolated error. It is part of a wider pattern that suggests Indonesia’s foreign policy is losing its strategic compass.
Consider November 2024, when Jakarta signed a joint statement with China raising serious questions of sovereignty, particularly regarding the South China Sea.
Framed as economic and diplomatic cooperation, the move had unmistakable implications: Indonesia appeared willing to accommodate Beijing’s narrative in waters where its rights are actively contested.
Now, barely 18 months later, Indonesia is introducing a proposal that could give the US unprecedented operational flexibility in its airspace.
Taken together, these moves do not prove a sophisticated balancing act. Instead, they point to something more troubling: a willingness to cede strategic space to multiple powers without a clear framework governing and guiding those cessions.
Indonesian officials often defend such decisions under the banner of the country’s longstanding doctrine of “free and active” foreign policy. But this doctrine was never intended to justify inconsistency.
“Free and Active” was created to preserve independence—freedom from entangling alliances—and to enable proactive engagement in the pursuit of national interests.
It was not a license to say yes to everyone, nor was it a defense strategy so broad as to erode the very sovereignty it claims to protect. What we are seeing today is not disengagement. It is a strategic shift.
On the one hand, Jakarta is deepening ties with Beijing even as China maintains sweeping claims in the South China Sea, including areas that overlap with Indonesia’s Natuna Islands exclusive economic zone.
In turn, it is exploring a deal that would give Washington expanded military access — drawing Indonesia into exactly the kind of great-power rivalry it seeks to avoid.
A coherent foreign policy requires more than good relations with multiple powers. It requires clarity about the red lines – about what is and what is not negotiable. Sovereignty over territory and airspace should be among the least negotiable of all.
However, the current trajectory suggests that sovereignty is increasingly treated as a flexible bargaining tool, tailored to suit the partner and the moment.
This approach carries real risks. First, it undermines credibility. If Indonesia appears equally willing to accommodate competing powers, neither will fully trust its neutrality.
Second, it increases vulnerability: by offering strategic access – be it diplomatic, economic or military – without a clear framework, Indonesia risks becoming a place for great power competition rather than an independent actor shaping it.
And third, it confuses allies, partners and perhaps most importantly, Indonesians themselves. A foreign policy without clear direction is difficult to defend domestically and even more difficult to sustain over time.
The US flight proposal brings these contradictions into sharp relief. Even if the agreement is eventually reduced or even abandoned – and officials insist it remains under review – it has already exposed the lack of a consistent strategic doctrine guiding Indonesia’s foreign engagements.
The foreign ministry’s intervention is therefore more than a procedural dispute with the defense ministry. It is a warning from within the government that Indonesia may be drifting into decisions that compromise its long-term interests.
This warning should be heeded. Indonesia does not need and should not choose between the US and China. But it must choose coherence over opportunism – a foreign policy that is not just friendly to everyone, but firmly anchored in clearly defined national priorities.
Otherwise, the risk is not simply that Indonesia will be dragged into other countries’ conflicts. It is that, in trying to be everything to everyone, it becomes progressively less able to protect what matters most – its own sovereignty.
To be “free and active” means to stand still. Right now, it looks more like movement.
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is director of the China-Indonesia Desk at the Jakarta-based Center for Economic and Legal Studies (CELIOS) independent research institute. Yeta Purnama is a researcher at CELIOS.
