On January 6, 2025, Indonesia formally acceded to full membership in BRICS, the starts-and-stops, Russia- and China-led organization seeking to create an alternative to the US dollar-based global financial system. As the war in Iran has since made clear, whatever limitations might be plaguing America’s wildly overfunded and corrupt military-industrial complex, its economic power and broad array of financial tools are still formidable. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent’s economic siege has arguably been more devastating to Iran than the best efforts of Pete Hegseth’s Department of War. Through this lens, the battles over BRICS and US dollar hegemony are not just side skirmishes of World War III, but pivotal and potentially decisive confrontations.
Less than a year after Indonesia’s BRICS acceptance, student-led protests engulfed the island nation—a dubious coincidence. The campaign had many hallmarks of previous so-called color revolutions observed in former Soviet republics and other parts of the world, something Indonesian leaders seemed content to use as justification for their subsequent crackdown. Western think tanks were quick to call foul on that framing:
“Since late August, Indonesians have been protesting against police violence and politicians’ perks. Moscow and Beijing have taken advantage of this chaos, claiming it is a direct result of the United States meddling in the domestic affairs of an Asian nation. The Indonesian government and its diplomatic partners, as well as the public, should be aware of these operations. Moreover, governments and intelligence experts should forecast the next steps Russia-China collaboration [sic] to enable preventative measures.
It is not new for Russia and China to frame demonstrations as Western-engineered : they have done so in response to domestic protests in Moscow and Hong Kong. The two countries have also discredited democracy protests elsewhere—including in Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Serbia and Thailand—using claims of covert US interference in domestic politics.”
Its accession to BRICS aside, Indonesia’s leaders have broadly tried to stay neutral in the battle between the geopolitical elephants, pursuing a strategy of strategic ambiguity. As with BRICS members India and Brazil, trade with China has created meaningful ties to that emerging superpower that would be nearly impossible to sever, yet the country still maintains significant interactions to the US military :
“Indonesia and the United States recently elevated their decades-long military ties to a Major Defense Cooperation Partnership (MDCP), a designation that embodies the countries’ commitment to pursue advanced security measures.
Under the MDCP, the nations will codevelop sophisticated asymmetric capabilities and other next-generation defense technologies across domains, and cooperate on maintenance, repair and overhaul support to ensure readiness, according to a joint statement released after Indonesian Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin and U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth met at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., in April 2026.”
At first blush, neutrality between superpowers would seem a near-impossible task, especially given Indonesia’s role as a gatekeeper of the Strait of Malacca, a global shipping chokepoint on par with the Strait of Hormuz in its economic significance.
