Indonesia Could Be 10th Largest Economy: But here are the Challenges

To understand how Indonesia’s foreign policy operates, one must look at the basic foundation of its foreign policy: the “independent and active” principle, which originated from the dynamics that emerged at the domestic and international levels in the 1940s. The Cold War brought bipolarity to the international system with the United States and the Soviet Union at its axis and, as a newly established state, Indonesia opted to stay independent from either bloc. Indonesia’s colonial history led it to empathise with other colonised states and, thus, Jakarta pledged to “independently” and “actively” pursue the settlement of international issues, rather than being passive or reactive.