US-Indonesia military ties robust

Ever so quietly, pushed along by President Barack Obama's "pivot to Asia", the military relationship between Indonesia and the US has gone from the stalemate of an arms embargo in 2004 to its most robust point in decades.

US foreign military sales to Indonesia have rocketed to US$1.5 billion (S$1.9 billion), more Indonesian military men than ever are training in the United States, and the two nations are now involved in 200 exercises and other engagements a year.

Mr Obama's November 2010 visit to Indonesia and the landmark signing of a comprehensive partnership agreement with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono elevated bilateral relations to a more strategic level.

But as the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) noted in a 2013 report, for all that progress, the relationship's importance remains undervalued in Washington - and is often treated with ambivalence by policymakers in Jakarta.

The CSIS report said Washington's Asia-Pacific focus has been too fixated on North Asia at the expense of the rest of the region. Of course, that may well be changing as China continues to alarm its neighbours to the south by stoking tensions in the South China Sea.

Once focused exclusively on counter-terrorism, US-Indonesia ties are now evolving into something much more relevant. When new US ambassador to Indonesia Robert Blake talked to foreign journalists recently, he did not once mention terrorism in his prepared remarks.

The CSIS report called on the US to expand Indonesia's role in joint exercises and broaden the scope. "Including Jakarta as an active participant in US-led multilateral exercises," it argued, "is symbolically indicative of its growing centrality to security in the Asia-Pacific."

The CSIS also wants to see the US put more emphasis on funding and training for Indonesia's navy and air force, something Jakarta is already doing with 62 per cent of its 2010-2015 capital expenditure directed towards those two branches.

There seems to be a significant difference these days in Jakarta's approach to its ties with Washington and Canberra. Despite whistle-blower Edward Snowden's leaks that the US embassy in Jakarta listens in on Indonesian communications, for example, Washington got a free pass compared with the criticism heaped on Australia for doing the same.

After an effective arms embargo stretching from the 1991 bloodshed in then-East Timor to the start of President George W. Bush's second term in 2005, US foreign military sales to Indonesia are back to full throttle - even if Jakarta is varying its sources of supply.

Indonesia is spending US$700 million on refurbishing 24 F-16 C/D fighters, US$700 million on eight AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and about US$12 million on an initial shipment of 45 shoulder-fired Javelin surface-to-surface missiles.

Now being worked on at Utah's Hill airbase, the ex-US Air National Guard F-16s are due to begin arriving in July and will be delivered in tranches over the next year, providing a major boost to Indonesia's frayed air defences.

Interestingly, Indonesia is among just 13 countries approved for Javelin sales, and one of just 14 foreign nations permitted to operate Boeing's heavily armed Apache, which is likely to enter service with the Indonesian army in 2016.

Indonesia has already signed a US$500 million government-to-government contract to purchase the Apaches, but its House of Representatives has yet to sign off on the US$200 million logistics and training package that goes with it.

Meanwhile, inter-operability between Indonesian and US armed forces is improving significantly, along with the increased pace of training exercises and other bilateral engagements.

The biggest exercise is the land-based Garuda Shield, which last year involved the Indonesian Army Strategic Reserve's 1st Division and 700 paratroopers from the US 82nd Airborne Division and Hawaii's 25th "Tropic Lightning" Division.

This year, the Americans will be bringing to the war games four Apaches from the army's aviation training centre at Fort Rucker, Alabama, where Indonesian pilots will soon be learning to operate the sophisticated new gunships.

And as it does with other ASEAN states, the US Pacific Fleet has placed increasing importance on the bilateral Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (Carat) exercise which takes place each year in the Java Sea.

Usually involving 1,500 US sailors and Marines aboard three or four warships, Carat focuses on maritime interdiction, information sharing, combined sea operations, patrols and gunnery exercises and anti-piracy and anti-smuggling exercises.

So far this year, more than 260 Indonesian officers and men have been or are being trained in the US in everything from infantry and armour to artillery and intelligence. That number is expected to double by September.

Burdened by allegations of human rights abuses in Aceh and then-East Timor in the 1990s and early 2000s, the elite 5,000-strong Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus) is still confined to non-lethal training with US forces.

It might have been different this year if Kopassus troops had not spoiled an otherwise clean, decade-long record by staging a shock March 2013 raid on a Yogyakarta jail and executing four criminals in revenge for the murder of one of their own.

Eight soldiers received prison terms ranging from 21 months to 11 years for the crime, which, in a single stroke, ensured continued resistance in Washington to Kopassus engaging in combat training with American special operations units.

thane.cawdor@gmail.com

This article was published on April 18 in The Straits Times.

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