How Prabowo’s Indonesia can avoid a regional security dilemma

President Prabowo Subianto’s sweeping military restructuring, unveiled on Aug. 10, marks a transformative shift in Indonesia’s defense strategy, driven by the need to address escalating global tensions from Europe to the South China Sea.

The establishment of new military units backed by a 2025 defense budget of Rp 247.5 trillion (US$15 billion)—a nearly 50 percent increase—and new advance weapons acquisitions like Turkish KAAN fighter jets and ballistic missiles, aim to strengthen Indonesia’s resilience against threats like separatism and natural disasters.

Yet, this expansion risks sparking a security dilemma, where defensive measures are misperceived as aggressive, potentially unsettling Southeast Asia’s delicate balance. The integration of advanced technologies, as seen in the United States’ Operation Midnight Hammer, and a shift from Java-centric to distributed military deployments underscore the strategic stakes, necessitating defense diplomacy rooted in confidence-building measures (CBMs) and non-provocative defense (NPD) protocols to maintain regional harmony.