As with all Indonesian Army acquisitions, its probably divided between equipment for KOSTRAD and the KODAMs. I'm guessing that Cobra/Pandur II 8x8 are meant to go to the KOSTRAD, which is already equipped with Leopard 2A4/2RI, Marder IFVs, Self-Propelled Howitzers, among others. Meanwhile, Anoas (6x6) will head for the KODAMS, which are also the main recipients of the new Tiger Medium Tank.

In essence, Indonesia's Army is largely divided into 2 formations:

1) The Strategic Reserve Force (KOSTRAD) which serves as the main strike and manouver force of the Army, organized into divisions and equipped with the top of the line Western/NATO type major equipment.

2) The Regional Military Area Commands (KODAMs) which is the main defensive arm of the army, organized into regimental cantons based on the Wehrkreis model with a mandate to defend their territory in wartime. This unit is typically equipped lower-end Western/NATO type major systems, but locally-designed and produced where possible as costs is a major consideration given that KODAMs personnel makes up the vast majority of the army.

Then there's the Indonesian Marine Corps, part of the Navy and equipped largely with Soviet/Eastern bloc systems. This is where you'll find BMP-3Fs, BTR-50s, BVP-2s, RM-70s, etc.

All in all, there are effectively 3 acquisition lines to fulfill 3 different requirements for Indonesia's ground fighting forces. And this is a major - though not only - reason why Indonesia's list of equipment is an absolute rojak.

Does Indonesia have any submarine rescue vessels?

Given the number of submarines it has in service and more on the procurement pipeline, I'm wondering whether it already has submarine rescue vessels in service or whether they have one on order.

I see. Unfortunate that it takes a tragedy to bring attention to this given how long the country has operated submarines. But then again, they were retaining a 43-year old submarine in active service so maybe foresight and good sense wasn't always in abundance. Hopefully that will change and soon.

Given that it's the largest country in Southeast Asia, it shouldn't be content to continue punching under its weight, comparing itself to regional countries, and instead look to be a power that can contend with at least the likes of China and India. It's a destiny Indonesia needs to fulfill if Southeast Asia is to remain - or perhaps become even more of - a region of peace, stability and independence.

The idea of Indonesia banking its fighter force on US warplanes is simply ludicrous. I don't think Indonesia has any more appetite for a high degree of dependence on US defense equipment given the history of US arms embargo on the country. In the early 2000s, US arms embargo effectively grounded the Indonesian Air Force's F-16s, effectively eliminating its primary (really, entire) fighter fleet, a condition which was only mitigated with the arrival of the Russian Sukhois.

Note that prior to this, Indonesia had actually planned to build a fighter force composed entirely of F-16s, with 80 examples planned. But the embargo proved that the US is an unreliable supplier. And once bitten twice shy, it now seeks to avoid dependence on one supplier. Neither the public nor the political establishment would accept a return to such a time since it had been taught the harsh lesson that when you depend on the armaments of one country, you'll have to obey its policies and dictates, and no country that has to obey another can claim to be truly sovereign.

Of course, I don't doubt that this policy is partly maintained by officials seeking to secure kickbacks from procurements, it is definitely a motivation. Indonesia is not like Singapore, its officials cannot just pay themselves millions over the table. The public would lynch them if they ever attempt to give themselves such a pay raise, so they have to skim them under the table. Malaysia - and pretty much the rest of Southeast Asia, really - is also in the same straits.

Of course, this isn't good since it lets officials get used to breaking the law. What I'd like to see happen is for countries like Indonesia and Malaysia to be more like the US where officials don't receive kickbacks or bribes and instead secure golden parachutes and run the revolving door of government and business. Instead of taking cash for making government decisions, they should instead take speaking and consultation fees. If these countries can reform their political culture in that direction, it will go a long way towards cleaning up their corruption reputation and perhaps approach the US ranking in the Corruptions Perceptions Index, the US being one the cleanest countries globally according to the index.

Of course, it still wouldn't be Singapore, but that's unrealistic for large and populous countries to aim for in the first place. Instead, countries like the US or Japan provides a better model for managing political corruption and diminishing its perceived impact. Such reforms would also professionalize arms procurement, giving the public greater confidence in the quality of defense spending.

Of course the French may impose embargoes. Even the Russians may impose embargoes on Indonesia if the country ever crosses Russian interest - the Soviet Union, Russia's predecessor state, had done exactly this after 1965 - this fact is a given and well-understood. The entire point learned by the Indonesia that had the experience of being embargoed by the Soviet Union, the EU and the US is that none of them can be trusted to be a sole or majority supplier of Indonesian defense equipment for major and critical platforms, hence the insistence on multiplicity of sources. The idea being that they are a lot less likely to place embargoes in lockstep with one another, ensuring that at least some assets in any class would be usable in the event that an embargo is placed by a source country.

And of course, not all countries' interests are equally vast. France may be a great power whose island territories in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific put their core interests right next to Indonesia's doorstep, but they are far and away a much weaker power (compared to the US & China) which must seek cooperation with regional powers to maintain their interests. This helps constrain any decision by France - and by extension, the EU - that would strongly jeopardize French relations with Indonesia. Russia, on the other hand, is a greatly diminished and distant power and is therefore unlikely to have interests Indonesia is likely to cross, so they are a better supplier in terms of not constraining Indonesia's freedom of action. The US and China, the former being the current global hegemon with equally global interests and the latter being a rising superpower keen to break out of its containment within the so-called First Island Chain are the two countries Indonesia would most likely cross at some point in the future - depending on its choices - and so make poor choices as defense suppliers.

Being a large country straddling one of the most geostrategically important locations on Earth - especially more recently in the context of geostrategic competition between the US and China - Indonesia cannot hope to avoid crossing one major power or another forever. It is also unwilling to subordinate itself to the interest of any foreign power, hence its insistence on entering no alliance and its continuous swinging between the major powers as partners of choice at any point in time - part of the so-called dynamic equilibrium - to encourage great power competition. Therefore, at some point in time, someone somewhere would not agree with its choices and so seek to constrain its behavior, arms embargo being a viable tool for employment in such a scenario.

Of course, the safest course of action for a country like Indonesia is to source its armaments domestically, ensuring the greatest freedom of action least constrained by any external state's interest. But, for obvious reasons, this is not viable at the present time. The country had certainly made progress in this field and attempts had been made to adopt foreign technology for domestic manufacture of defense equipment, including by making them a requirement of major arms purchases from the time of the Yudhoyono presidency. Having said that, defense was, for a long time, not a government priority.

Indonesia may have made great strides in economic development, lifting itself from the poorest country in the world in 1949 to a middle-income country today, yet the need to deliver on infrastructure, economic growth and social development continue to weigh on government resources and diminish its ability to invest in defense and, commensurately, localized manufacturing and R&D. Although it is perfectly possible for Indonesia to lift defense spending to 1% of GDP from the current 0.8%, perhaps even to 1.5% if it decides to be ambitious, it will not militarize to the same extent as China or the US - and certainly not Singapore, which had often broadcasted its readiness to spend up to 6% of its GDP on defense - anytime in the foreseeable future.

So until then, imports of major advanced equipment cannot be avoided, so multiplicity of sources will continue to be the only viable way of maintaining its diplomatic and geopolitical independence.

I feel like you are not even reading my statement before insisting on regurgitating your own.

I knew and freely acknowledge that from the perspective of logistics efficiency, having fewer platforms with commonalities from the same suppliers would be the better option. It would be fantastic for any armed force, the best option in terms of keeping upkeep costs low and maintaining a high degree of availability as you don't have to train as many technicians and can negotiate more favorable procurement deals due to larger orders. This is something understood in Indonesia as well, hence why the old Indonesian Air Force plan calls for standardizing on the F-16 as the country's only fighter/multi-role aircraft. In other words, its air force plan was awfully similar to Turkey's.

But countries must learn from experience too and Indonesia's experience over the last 20 years had taught it that such a plan was untenable. Depending on American supplies means that the US can cripple the Indonesian Air Force at will. The Indonesian Air Force had experienced this. The Indonesian political establishment and the public will not accept a repeat of this. Which part of this is difficult for you to understand?

How does your suggestion of dependence on the US as sole supplier - which you continued to insist on - secure Indonesia's freedom of action? It doesn't! But I suppose it would make sense for a country like Singapore to want Indonesia leashed in such a way. Becoming dependent on US armaments means accepting an assigned position within America's global order. No country that cares about their independence would accept such subordination.

So if Indonesia has to purchase fighter aircraft from just a single source, from the perspective of its national interest, that country would either be France or Russia, but never the US, and certainly not China. The reasons, I have already stated before, but I will state it again for the sake of clarity.

The US is a global hegemon with equally global interests and ambitions. It had shown itself happily willing to sanction and embargo countries that will not move in lockstep with it. Indonesia is a large and sovereign country, and it is a Non-Aligned country, it will never accept subordination to an American-assigned position within its world order, certainly not forever. So, any move that will make it dependent on the US is not only militarily foolish, but politically suicidal as well, because sometime, somewhere, it will piss off the US again, if only because it refuses American demands at some point in the future.

Yeah, big doubt from me too.

As for security reasons...

Haven't folks from the Pentagon and Japan said something about war with China being imminent? They mention different dates, but I heard anywhere between 2024-2028. An interesting fact I've noticed is that the Chinese economy is expected to surpass the US' by 2028. On an unrelated note, WWI happened on the very year Germany's GDP eclipsed Britain's.

Who knows for sure?

"human rights abuses"? "human rights abuses"?! Mate, are you being serious right now?!

If the US imposes sanctions on countries for "human rights abuses", it would have sanctioned Israel over Palestine and Saudi Arabia & the UAE over Yemen a long time ago!

No country in the world gets sanctioned by the US over their "human rights abuses". No country! It is a meme and a tool!

If the last 70 years of American foreign policy should have taught people anything is that countries can commit any amount of "human rights abuses" and infractions, no matter how severe, so long as it moved in lockstep with the US. So long as you make the White House and Congress very happy, they would sweep any "human rights abuses" concerns under the rug, but if you ever refuse to dance like a puppet on a string and speak words like a doll with ventriloquist's hand up your arse, then by God, they will sanction you! They will find your "human rights abuses", they will find even the tiniest of infractions and magnify them a thousand times over and failing that, they will make them!

Yes! Yes, I've stated multiple times that they can they can and they have! And that is exactly the point of having multiplicity of sources!

How can I explain this in a way you will understand?

I doubt anything I say wouldn't just fly over your head again, but for the sake of others reading this, I'll try.

If - for example - a country's air force is made up of 1/3 American fighters, 1/3 Euro fighters and 1/3 Russian fighters, an American embargo will ground only 1/3 of this country's Air Force, as opposed to its entirety in the even that you depend 100% on American imports. If the EU imposes sanctions, the same thing, you can still keep 2/3 of your fighter fleet flying. The same goes for Russian sanctions.

Is this ideal? Heck no!

Of course, it's not ideal!

But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world where not all countries are able to manufacture their own equipment and where some who do, leverage it to force others to do their bidding.

This may be fine for small countries. For the statelets of the world, it may even be ideal to take shelter under the armpit of a great power. A small country's interests are not many compared to a larger country, and it is far less capable of living on its own resources anyway. So, yes, for these countries, being under the hegemonic sway of a superpower is completely acceptable. You get to access its trade block, its market and resources. You even get to secure your continued existence under its world order. What's not to like?

But this is not the case for large national-states!

The Russias, the Chinas, the Indias and the Indonesias of the world will never accept such subordination.

No country that is the 4th most populous on the planet, that is the world's largest archipelagic state, that boasts 1.9 million sq km of land and 5 million sq km of water, that straddles two continents and two oceans, that sits atop some of the busiest maritime traffic in the world, will accept subordination to another.

Neither the political establishment, nor the armed forces, nor the people of such a country will accept playing second fiddle - certainly not forever. Their ambitions will always include sitting at the table of the great powers as an equal.

If Singapore is a country of such size, it too wouldn't so readily jump at the chance of being a satellite of another. It too would have equally great ambitions, if not greater, because these are simply the natural imperatives imposed by its conditions and geography.

Trying to suggest that countries of such asymmetry as Singapore and Indonesia should follow the same strategy and approach to national defense and geopolitical relations is completely tone-deaf. It completely ignores their geopolitical realities. Their conditions, their concerns and what best fulfills their national interests are completely alien to one another.

And speaking of national interests, let me address your continued insistence on bringing up the EU and its embargoes.

Yes, the EU may impose such a thing and they had done such a thing. But the EU is in any case not a monolith and are hardly united.

Look at how divided they are over the question of gas from Russia! Look at how divided they are over the 2003 invasion of Iraq! Ultimately, the EU is made up of many countries, each with their own national interests which are not always in lock step with one another. Sometimes, they diverge and even clash. This division is something Indonesia understands it can use. It is what many other countries, including China, have used to their own benefit, blunting any coherent EU response to concerns over them.

And in as much as the EU is dominated by its Western European member states, it is far closer to ASEAN - a disunited grouping - than it is to the federated United States of America. And these Western European member states are also, in any case, nation states with their own national interests. Brexit have also shown that they can be counted on to not always move in lockstep and present a united front. So they make far better defense partners for a country like Indonesia than the likes of the US or China.

And with that, I am done. I will not be writing anything more on the issues I've covered over the last several posts in this thread. Those posts will stand on their own. Anyone who still refuses to understand them at this point is either being disingenuous or have simply refused to understand.

Yes, this certainly looks more sensible. Comes down to a little over US$3 Billion a year in new procurement each year for 25 years until 2044 - split between the 3 services.

I was almost worried that they might have intended to spend US$125 Billion on acquisition until 2024. That would drive deficit spending well beyond 3% of GDP per annum over the period. Unless Indonesia is willing to scale back its annual infrastructure spending by about a third, it won't be able to keep to the limit - which it must return to by 2023.

It'll also send a very bad signal regarding regional stability. That kind of spending is only justifiable if war is imminent. It is eerily similar in relative scope to the rise in defense spending in the Balkans in the years preceding WWII. Countries like Romania suddenly putting up orders for importation of hundreds of tanks and aircraft just a few years before the onset of the war, and much of their orders were never delivered given the situation which followed.

Hopefully, this means that Pentagon and Japanese "predictions" of war between Taiwan and China coming up in 2025-2028 - and its cascading effects - won't come to pass.

Seems that your assessment before was actually right. I found some Indonesian articles recently explaining the 2020-2044 spending plan. Essentially, the US$125 Billion spending is meant to be made within the 2020-2024 period, it is the delivery and payments schedule for those orders that will last to 2044. So that's the clarification that I managed to glean, for anyone interested.

That probably explains the sudden bulk orders.

If this turns out to be true, then we can expect more bulk orders in the very near future. But this also worries me regarding the possibility of conflict erupting in the Western Pacific. This kind of sudden buildup had to have come from somewhere. While it is true that Indonesia Armed Forces were underinvesting for decades, that was possible because there were no external threats to the country's security. This kind of spending implies a change in threat perception. I hope it's not a sign of something bad brewing.