Layered Incoherence in Middle Power Foreign Policy: Indonesia and the U.S.‐China Rivalry

ABSTRACT Amid the intensifying U.S.‐China rivalry, middle powers, especially those from the global south, are often portrayed in IR literature as strategic hedgers, expected to balance between major powers to preserve regional autonomy and stability. Yet many, like Indonesia, display contradictory foreign policy behaviour by rhetorically championing inclusive engagement while increasingly courting China through selective alignments. This article challenges such realist interpretations by arguing that Indonesia's foreign policy behaviour cannot be understood solely through external balancing logics that assume a unitary state responding to external pressures. This article proposes an alternative explanation: layered incoherence that refers to a structural condition rooted in the interplay of ideational contestation, institutional fragmentation and informal governance. Rather than treating inconsistency as the product of changes in the government's perception of threats, it argues that these contradictions are embedded features of the state itself. Through an analysis of Indonesia's response to Chinese maritime assertiveness and the implementation of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo‐Pacific (AOIP), this article demonstrates how competing strategic visions, bureaucratic silos, and informal networks interact to produce an ambivalent foreign policy. The article offers a more grounded understanding of middle powers, highlighting how domestic structures mediate external pressures and constrain strategic coherence.