As Indonesia deliberates the military’s role in domestic security, the priority must remain the preservation of the criminal justice system over purely kinetic solutions. Effective counterterrorism is measured not by the neutralization of threats, but by the state’s ability to uphold legal accountability under civilian oversight.

In Washington last week, amid headlines about trade agreements and institutional initiatives, a quieter but unmistakable theme ran through Indonesia’s February 2026 diplomatic mission: history. 

In the remote regions of Eastern Indonesia, a rigid digital reporting system is forcing midwives to choose between ticking boxes and saving lives.

It is time to restructure the current system, which is set up to keep building one technology facility after another that produces everything but actual innovation, by addressing the incentives that make repetition more attractive than real change.

The Board of Peace meeting was long on showmanship and short on substance.

This retreat is good for sensible policy, because the failed alarmist approach relied on a series of persistent misrepresentations. 

We find it troubling that the partnership purports to protect the environment, when in Papua, these military-dominated monocultures are riding roughshod over local communities.

The Indonesia–US tariff deal is a pragmatic adjustment in an era of managed globalization.

When legality becomes stratified by class, democracy collapses into oligarchy.

The controversy surrounding LPDP scholarship recipients reveals a fundamental flaw in Indonesia’s development strategy: a narrow focus on physical presence over strategic influence. To compete globally, Indonesia must shift from a framework of geographic compliance to one of borderless contribution.

As 2026 ASEAN chair, the Philippines is expected to assume a more proactive role in sustaining dialogue among member states, minimizing the risk of miscalculation and helping to prevent tensions from escalating.

Signs of suicidality, defined as the risk of suicide as indicated by suicidal behavior or ideation, are increasing among the nation's youth amid socioeconomic pressures and limited mental health support.

While Indonesia’s Red and White initiatives aim to revitalize cooperatives as constitutional cornerstones of the economy, empirical data reveals a sector struggling to translate scale into growth. True economic sovereignty will require shifting the focus from administrative expansion to high-value productivity and human capital reform.

In companies that succeed, adoption is driven from the top down and reinforced from the bottom up, making digital tools integral to daily decision-making and execution.

As Indonesia's corruption score falls to 34, the President suggests authoritarianism might help. His own fiscal policies prove otherwise.  

Russian Ambassador Sergei Tolchenov defends Moscow’s Ukraine actions as lawful and security-driven, questions UN voting claims and says Russia prefers negotiations.

The US Supreme Court did the right thing by ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) “does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”

Other major trading partners like China, Japan, or South Korea, would have grounds to question whether Indonesia is granting discriminatory treatment inconsistent with MFN rules.

Forget policy aspirations, the ASEAN Power Grid is transforming into an "electricity supercycle" that represents Southeast Asia’s most consequential and investable infrastructure play of the decade.

The impunity of the 1998 criminals is the overarching feature of almost all state-sponsored violence in Indonesia’s past and recent history.

Rethinking the LPDP return requirement isn't just bureaucratic housekeeping - it's about whether Indonesia wants to lead on the world stage or stay home.

What makes this agreement especially indefensible is not only its deeply asymmetrical substance but also its disastrous timing.

The hegemonic pretensions of powerful states, the weaponization of interdependence, and the erosion of shared norms all confirm that old certainties have dissolved.

For greater durability, Jakarta needs to explore pathways toward a more institutionalized trade framework with Washington, while preparing a US+1 contingency strategy and articulating a clearer vision of its role within the evolving international economic order.

The newly formed WHO Council of Champions is the first global collective of ministers committed to violence prevention.

Multidimensional data show that deprivation in Indonesia often clusters long before a family is officially classified as poor.

As the Indonesian state weaponizes the stigma of "terrorism" to mask its failures of governance, a systematic campaign of criminalization is silencing public voices demanding accountability: a chilling descent into neo-authoritarianism revealing a regime that would rather trade democratic values for elite consolidation than address the people's economic grievances.