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View all search resultsFrom strategic autonomy to strategic incorporation: Prabowo’s grand strategy?
Prabowo’s foreign policy begins to look less like a collection of diplomatic initiatives, which is lacking, and more like the external dimension of an ambitious industrial strategy.
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President Prabowo Subianto (left) and French President Emmanuel Macron gesture during a joint press statement at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris, France on May 28, 2026. (AFP/Pool/Ludovic Marin)
P
resident Prabowo Subianto has been criticized for spending too much time abroad. His frequent overseas visits have prompted questions about whether his administration has a coherent foreign policy strategy or is simply pursuing diplomacy for diplomacy’s sake. Judged by the number of summits, bilateral meetings or state visits, his foreign policy indeed appears directionless.
But perhaps we are looking in the wrong place.
Prabowo has yet to articulate a comprehensive foreign policy doctrine. That is true. Yet grand strategy is not always found in policy documents. More often, we should infer a foreign policy vision by examining a president’s speeches on domestic priorities. Read through that lens, Prabowo’s foreign policy begins to look less like a collection of diplomatic initiatives, which is lacking, and more like the external dimension of an ambitious industrial strategy.
His emphasis on Indonesia Incorporated seeks to align the state, state-owned enterprises and private businesses to increase national competitiveness. Danantara is designed to mobilize state capital for strategic investment. His focus on food security, energy resilience and the defense industry reflects a common concern with reducing Indonesia’s strategic vulnerabilities while building domestic industrial and technological capabilities.
Read together, these are not isolated initiatives. They suggest that foreign policy is increasingly being treated as an instrument for industrial transformation.
This observation also raises a deeper issue. Indonesia’s foreign-policy debate remains anchored in a vocabulary developed for a different era. For decades, bebas-aktif (independent and active) has largely been interpreted as the pursuit of strategic autonomy, reflected in the slogan “a thousand friends and zero enemies”. That principle served Indonesia well during an era of expanding globalization that provided relatively open markets and stable supply chains. Strategic autonomy meant preserving diplomatic flexibility while engaging all major powers.
The world that made the strategy successful, however, has fundamentally changed.
