The Great Breakdown and the Rise of Strategic Resiliency: A Response to Ray Dalio

Indonesia’s strategy has been deliberately pragmatic. Through downstream industrialization, resource value-addition, food security initiatives, and infrastructure expansion, we are building tangible assets. Nickel processing. EV battery ecosystems. Maritime connectivity. Agricultural resilience.

These are not speculative instruments. They are real economy foundations.

In a world where monetary dominance is contested, nations anchored in production and supply chain relevance possess enduring bargaining power.

3. The Non-Aligned Advantage

Perhaps most important is Indonesia’s independent and active foreign policy tradition.

As geopolitical blocs harden and major powers drift toward strategic confrontation, Indonesia does not position itself as a proxy. We position ourselves as a bridge.

Bridges are often underestimated in stable times. But in polarized eras, bridges become indispensable.

Non-alignment today is not passivity. It is strategic optionality. It preserves flexibility while enhancing diplomatic credibility.

From Survival to Leadership

Resilience is often misunderstood as defensive endurance. In reality, resilience in a fractured system creates gravitational pull.

The global system is entering what Dalio describes as a “Big Cycle” transition, a period when internal discipline and external relevance determine which nations rise and which recede.

Indonesia has experienced systemic crisis before, most notably the 1998 financial collapse. That crisis did not weaken our democratic foundation; it strengthened it. It forced institutional reform, decentralization, and economic recalibration.

An archipelagic nation of more than 17,000 islands must learn integration as a discipline. That discipline now serves us in a fragmented world.