When Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement on 7th August, declaring that an attack on one signatory would be treated as an attack on all three, the reaction from most of the Muslim world’s capitals fell somewhere between quiet approval and studied silence.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, has so far offered neither. There has been no statement from the Foreign Ministry, no comment from President Prabowo Subianto, and nothing from the Defence Ministry. That silence is not indifference. It is, in effect, the position itself.

Indonesian foreign policy has been governed since 1948 by the doctrine of bebas aktif, “free and active” non-alignment, which commits Jakarta to pursuing its national interest without binding itself to any bloc or alliance.

Indonesian foreign policy has been governed since 1948 by the doctrine of bebas aktif, “free and active” non-alignment, which commits Jakarta to pursuing its national interest without binding itself to any bloc or alliance.

Foreign Minister Sugiono set out the logic plainly in late 2024, well before the pact existed, when he said Indonesia would not join any military pact, invoking President Prabowo’s own formulation that a thousand friends are too few and one enemy is one too many. The remark predates Mecca by nearly two years, but it remains the clearest available guide to how Jakarta is likely to read it.

That does not mean the pact has gone unnoticed. An adviser at the........

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