As a nation born of anticolonial struggle, Indonesia cannot afford moral complacency or strategic naïveté.

Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are extremely important for the stability of the region, including Indonesia, and the entire international community.

The use of degraded lands decouples economic development from deforestation, strengthens rural livelihoods and positions Indonesia as a global leader in nature-positive development.

Gold ETFs offer a modern solution to the strucutural hurdles of accessibility and liquidity as regards traditional gold investment in Indonesia, ensuring securty for all investors as they turn to safe-haven assets amid ongoing economic fragility.

The President's recent instruction to formulate a bill to combat disinformation and "foreign propaganda" walks a fine line between the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression and ratified international agreements stipulating the standards that must be met before basic rights can be legislatively curtailed.

The failure to settle the BLBI scandal beyond doubt shows that the state has opted for accommodation over confrontation, appearing more fearful of unsetting entrenched economic elites than of losing public funds.

The Greenland saga shows that the post-Cold War assumption that alliances and international norms would reliably restrain power politics is eroding.

Increased power, perhaps counterintuitively, appears to breed increased fear of weaker competitors. This can trigger preventive action such as foreign interventions that, to outsiders, may look illogical.

ASEAN will now need to make decisions about its future purpose and whether it will seek to restore the established order or strike out in a new direction. 

As part of the wider national food security agenda, protein self-sufficiency requires a circular agriculture approach that integrates cereal production and pastureland planning and management for livestock feed, which is still highly dependent on imports.

Trying to prepare people for a fixed set of challenges, when those challenges are constantly changing, is a losing strategy.

The long era of the liberal international order seems to be fading, replaced by a new and colder reality that could be best described as pragmatic transactional realism. 

The Indonesian labor market is characterized by the job hugging phenomenon, in which employees stay in their current positions for career stability, or job security, even if they may not be satisfied.

As history has shown with regard to past Olympic boycotts, a similar move against this year's World Cup will be an equally futile, symbolic maneuver that achieves nothing more than moral signaling and spectacle, in addition to harming sport’s potentials as a soft power.

The Washington Post article quoting a US diplomat in Dhaka invites closer scrutiny as a civic duty, not as regards the content of the reported statements but rather the timing and purposeo f the allegedly leaked recordings.

In terms of organizational structures, functions and role, status, and rules and procedure, the BoP resembles more like a privately-owned family company than an intergovernmental organization.

Today, Indonesia again occupies a position where its voice can shift the conversation, especially among states that feel trapped between great-power rivalry. 

Do we even talk about the same Indonesia? Do we live in the same universe as Prabowo?

As non-bloc, nonaligned nations with a firm belief in multipolarity, the India-Indonesia partnership is more than a bilateral benefit; it is a balancing force for global good. 

Timor-Leste’s accession to ASEAN in October 2025 stands as a heartening example of the power of partnership in challenging times.

Without coherent multilateral standards, well-intentioned environmental rules risk becoming de facto trade barriers that favor those with the deepest pockets for administrative costs.

It is difficult to understand why Indonesia, which has persistently supported Palestinian independence, is willing to engage in a peace initiative led by an administration whose approach to Gaza and the broader Palestinian question raises serious normative and political concerns.

The government spends a lot on free nutritious meals to fight stunting in children, but is not willing to guarantee a living wage for the volunteers who prevent it.

The recent ban on elephant rides highlights the critical need for consensual deliberation in managing a balance between the various dimensions of contemporary conservation, including animal, community and environmental welfare.

As it marks its second year of full membership in 2026, Indonesia is likely to continue making cooperative contributions within the BRICS foundational principles of equality, openness and mutual respect.

Until Indonesia bridges the gap between policy rhetoric and cultural reality, we will remain a nation of great ideas but few breakthroughs.

We must move away from the narrow perception of the energy transition as simply a move away from fossil fuels to renewables and instead embrace its broader, transformative aim of powering sustainable economic and social development through the delivery of secure and affordable energy for all.