Indonesia: The Most Important Country No One Talks About

Recommendable! An archipelago of 17,000 islands and with a rich and diverse culture.

"When the first president of an independent Indonesia—the charismatic Sukarno—convened the nascent non-aligned movement in Bandung in 1955, the host country had a population of 80 million and was among the world’s poorest. The Indonesian archipelago was peripheral geographically, economically, and strategically, and Sukarno’s autarkic bent ensured that it would remain so. Today, Indonesia, as it did then, finds itself between great powers competing for regional sway. Yet it is peripheral no more.

Indonesia is now the world’s fourth-largest country, with a population of 270 million, and is classified as middle-income by the International Monetary Fund. Moreover, it straddles the world’s most critical shipping chokepoint, the Strait of Malacca, linking the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, and it holds the largest reserves of a key twenty-first-century resource, nickel. ..."

Indonesia's February 14 Presidential Election | City Journal Once a peripheral power, Indonesia, which will elect a new president on February 14, is now a regional fulcrum the U.S. cannot afford to ignore.

A Hindu prayer ceremony at Besakih Temple in Bali, the only Indonesian province where Hinduism is the predominant religion