Technically, Indonesia doesn’t need to ask for international aid, but it should not reject foreign assistance either in times of emergency.

Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa has issued a stark ultimatum to the Customs and Excise Directorate General (DJBC): repair its battered reputation within a year or face the possibility of another institutional freeze. The warning puts the future of roughly 16,000 employees on the line. But the deeper question is whether the DJBC can truly rebuild itself or whether this threat simply postpones the next cycle of breakdown and intervention.

The government's response to the Sumatra flooding and landslides is turning into a case study of what not to do after a major disaster.

Indonesia's budget deficit widened Rp 479.7 trillion (US$29.98 billion) or 2.02 percent of GDP in October 2025, heightening concerns about the country's fiscal health. This marks a sharp increase from the Rp 309.2 trillion deficit, or 1.37 percent of GDP, recorded during the same period last year. The shortfall has been further pressured by sluggish state revenues as the government had collected only Rp 2.1 quadrillion by Oct. 31, equivalent to 73.7 percent of this year's revenue outlook.

The elections are a clear attempt by the regime to gain legitimacy and sideline the government in exile. But they open the possibility of some diffusion of power.

In becoming a full OECD member, Indonesia will join other countries at the table that are helping to shape global standards by investing in and committing to long-term reform.

Russia has moved significantly closer to China, sometimes uncomfortably so, while the United States has tried to consolidate Europe under a NATO-centered response to Moscow.

The national security strategies document speaks of reducing America’s trade imbalances, increasing commerce, securing supply chains and reindustrializing the country.

Countries with high disaster risk do not leave disaster protection to voluntary market behavior

Many people today are burning the furniture to keep the house warm, and when the wood runs out, they are buying firewood on high-interest credit.

Building more infrastructure and opening real economic opportunities in the outer cities and beyond will help relieve Jakarta’s heavy burden.

Abandoning Taiwan would undermine US interests, alienate allies, embolden China and unravel the Indo-Pacific balance. 

The region's flagship index has jumped more than 25 percent this year as a wave of governance reforms and fresh domestic money has started to chip away at a decade-long valuation gap with the United States.

A nation’s relationship with technology is forged in childhood, where habits of curiosity, perseverance and independent reasoning are either nurtured or suppressed.

Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar show we must prepare for storms that are weak in wind but extreme in rain.

In places where communities had been trained to respond to early warnings, the difference is striking: lives and properties were spared because people knew what to do.

Europe now relies heavily on Chinese components to support its energy transition, while Southeast Asia depends on Chinese machinery and intermediate goods to fuel rapid industrial upgrading.

The presence of the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) Private Airport in Morowali Regency, Central Sulawesi, has sparked controversy after Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin asserted that the facility operates without proper state oversight. The issue appears to reflect a broader debate among state institutions, revealing friction between figures from the previous administration and the current government.

The state's disaster response in Sumatra only shows that victims of the floods and landslides have had their the rights to life, health and protection denied during emergencies.

As tensions rise between Tokyo and Beijing, ASEAN and Taiwan must balance economic integration with the political realities imposed by China’s growing assertiveness across Asia.

A constructive collaboration between Indonesia and Norway on many issues in the global arena could serve as a distinctive model of cooperation among middle powers.

For a nation that calls itself the world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia has never built the industrial architecture needed to transform its maritime identity into maritime power.

Extreme rain wasn’t the only cause of Sumatra’s deadly floods. Years of forest loss, eroded soils and weakened watersheds turned a storm into a tragedy, one that could repeat.

The Sumatra flooding and landslides necessitate a review of the risk factors noted in next year's state budget, as natural disasters pose massive economic losses both locally and nationally.

AI has become the center of a new world order, and we have entered the AI Triad, which consists of the politicization, securitization and weaponization of technology. 

Last month, President Prabowo Subianto skipped the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, undermining his claim to be a champion of multilateralism as well as his chances of assuming the vacant leadership of the Global South. 

We need not only tougher laws and regulations on the use and conversion of forest land by plantation and mining companies, but also tighter supervision and credible enforcement of these rules.