Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono did not say it explicitly, but the ghost of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s arrest by the US was everywhere in that room. In his Jan. 14 foreign policy speech, Sugiono turned Indonesia’s worldview, and, by extension, its foreign policy, on its head.
By declaring that “Indonesia will not hang its national interests on multilateralism that does not work,” he signalled an apparent shift toward what can only be described as post-normative diplomacy, where resilience and self-help replace the assumption that international rules will reliably protect sovereign states. Indonesia’s diplomatic turn thus reflects a Thucydidean recognition that power, not principle, determines whose sovereignty is respected.
Framed as a sober response to a harsher, more fragmented world, this doctrine of diplomasi ketahanan strengthens and institutionalizes President Prabowo Subianto’s personalized approach to foreign policy, embedding a security-centric logic at the heart of Indonesia’s strategic outlook.
After all, if a major power such as the United States can, when it sees fit, unilaterally act against a sitting head of state, as it has done to Maduro, then it is no longer unimaginable that similar action could be directed at Prabowo, or any other leader whose interests diverge from those of dominant powers.
What Indonesia is undergoing is therefore best understood as a paradigmatic shift, not in alignment, but in the underlying assumptions that structure its foreign policy. This is a move away from norm-trusting diplomacy toward a post-normative, survival-oriented framework in which international law is treated as contingent, multilateralism as instrumental rather than foundational, and resilience as the primary currency of security.
What emerges is a twenty-first-century inversion of the old dictum si vis pacem, para bellum: not preparation for war to secure peace, but permanent preparedness in a world where peace itself offers no protection. It’s more like “si vis survivere, para durare” (if you want to survive, prepare to endure).
At the same time, this shift is inseparable from the personalization of foreign policy under President Prabowo Subianto: a leader-centric recalibration in which the perceived vulnerability of leadership itself becomes embedded in state doctrine. In a global order where power increasingly overrides rules and where even heads of state can be subjected to unilateral coercion, Indonesia’s doctrine of diplomasi ketahanan reflects not only a realist reading of world politics, but a defensive project shaped by the recognition that sovereignty, and personal immunity, can no longer be assumed.
This fusion of post-normative realism, resilience diplomacy, and personalized security calculus marks a fundamental departure from Indonesia’s post-Reformasi foreign policy tradition, redefining bebas-aktif for an era no longer anchored in trust in global norms.
This is the deeper meaning of personalization in Indonesia’s current foreign policy turn. It is not about style, symbolism, or diplomatic theatrics. It is now about fear, specifically, the fear that international law no longer offers reliable protection even to heads of state, and that sovereignty can be overridden when power decides to act. Sugiono’s speech does not mention Maduro by name, but its entire architecture rests on the assumption that rules are applied selectively, that multilateral institutions often fail to restrain powerful actors, and that survival increasingly depends on internal strength rather than external guarantees.
In that sense, the speech translates Prabowo’s personal security calculus into state doctrine. What appears as national strategy is also a leader’s defensive project.
Sugiono repeatedly returned to one phrase that deserves closer scrutiny: “foreign policy begins at home.” On the surface, the statement sounds benign, even commonsensical. Yet in the context of this speech, it carries a far more consequential implication. If foreign policy truly begins at home, then diplomacy is no longer separable from domestic political arrangements. The condition of democracy, the treatment of dissent, and the balance between civilian authority and militarisation become not just internal matters, but foundational elements of foreign policy itself.
Here lies the central contradiction of Indonesia’s new resilience diplomacy. Sugiono insisted that ketahanan cannot be borrowed and must be built internally, and that only states strong at home will possess bargaining power abroad. But strength, in this framework, risks being narrowly defined as control, discipline, and the capacity to suppress instability, rather than democratic legitimacy, social trust, and political openness.
When survival becomes the organising principle of statecraft, dissent is easily recast as vulnerability, criticism as threat, and opposition as risk to national cohesion. The logic of resilience, if left unchecked, becomes a justification for repression.
This is precisely where the personalization of foreign policy under Prabowo becomes most visible, and most dangerous. A foreign policy shaped by the leader’s fear of geopolitical exposure will inevitably reflect his tolerance for domestic challenge. In a world imagined as hostile and unforgiving, pluralism appears expendable. Sugiono’s fusion of diplomacy and defence, his emphasis on preparedness and vigilance, and his scepticism toward international law all point to a worldview in which internal control is seen as a prerequisite for external security.
The line between managing foreign threats and managing domestic politics grows increasingly thin.
Indonesia has been here before. During the authoritarian era, the state justified repression at home in the name of stability abroad. The post-1998 democratic transition broke that logic by demonstrating that legitimacy, not coercion, was Indonesia’s greatest diplomatic asset. Its moral authority in multilateral forums, its leadership in ASEAN, and its credibility on issues such as Palestine were inseparable from its democratic reforms at home. Normative diplomacy was not naïve idealism; it was a strategic extension of domestic transformation.
Post-normative diplomacy, as articulated by Sugiono, risks severing that link. While the speech insists that Indonesia will remain within the multilateral system, it also makes clear that Jakarta no longer trusts that system to work when it matters most. Resilience replaces norms; networks replace rules; deterrence replaces moral persuasion. Yet resilience built on fear is inherently fragile. A state that punishes dissent, tolerates militarisation, and normalises repression does not become less vulnerable internationally, it becomes more exposed.
The lesson of Maduro’s arrest is not simply that powerful states act unilaterally. It is that leaders who are politically isolated, both internationally and domestically, are easier to target, easier to delegitimise, and harder to defend. If Prabowo’s foreign policy is increasingly shaped by the fear that he, too, could be subjected to external coercion, then the response should not be to close democratic space at home. It should be to widen it. The most effective shield against arbitrary power is not secrecy or control, but legitimacy.
If diplomacy truly begins at home, then Indonesia’s foreign policy crisis is inseparable from its domestic political direction. Resilience cannot be built while dissent is criminalised, critics are intimidated, and the military’s role in civilian life quietly expands. Such measures may create the illusion of strength, but they erode the very foundations of sovereignty they claim to defend. A government that weakens the rule of law internally forfeits the moral ground to protest when international law is applied selectively from the outside.
Sugiono warned against a world where rules are enforced a la carte. Indonesia cannot meaningfully resist such a world while reproducing its logic domestically. Post-normative diplomacy may reflect the realities of global power, but without democratic correction at home, it risks becoming a mirror of the very injustices it claims to navigate. If Indonesia wishes to survive a harsher global order without surrendering its democratic gains, it must remember that resilience is not merely a matter of defence capability or strategic alignment. It is, above all, a political condition, built at home, tested abroad.
The arrest of Maduro does not explain Indonesia’s foreign policy shift on its own, but it crystallizes the kind of world that Sugiono’s speech assumes, and helps explain why resilience, survival, and leadership security now sit at the center of Jakarta’s diplomacy.
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Omong-Omong Media’s editorial is also published in The Jakarta Post every Monday.
