RESPON INDONESIA TERHADAP ALIANSI PERTAHANAN TRILATERAL AUSTRALIA, UNITED KINGDOM, AND UNITED STATES (AUKUS)

The establishment of the AUKUS trilateral defense alliance in 2021 has fundamentally altered the Indo-Pacific security order, triggering Indonesia's concerns regarding potential arms races, nuclear threats, and the erosion of regional stability. This qualitative explanatory study explains how the dynamics of Indonesia's strategic response were formulated as a consequence of these structural pressures, utilizing Regional Security Complex Theory and Incrementalism Theory. The findings indicate that Indonesia's position as an insulator state drove a response of institutional balancing to prevent external power dominance, or overlay. Indonesia's defensive response operated incrementally, commencing with the articulation of normative concerns, escalating to multilateral action through the submission of a working paper to the United Nations regarding non-proliferation legal loopholes, and culminating in a pragmatic approach via the 2+2 bilateral dialogue with Australia. Through the mechanism of mutual adjustment, Indonesia successfully secured a transparency commitment from Australia and upgraded defense cooperation to a treaty-level agreement, thereby ensuring the protection of national interests and maritime sovereignty amidst great power rivalry.