Flexible and sly: Indonesian Defence policy, Russia and Australian anxiety

We have a growing defence relationship with Indonesia. We will keep engaging with Indonesia in a way that befits a very close friend and a very close friendship between our two countries.

This sweetly coated nonsense should have gone out with the façade-tearing acts of Donald Trump's global imposition of tariffs, unsparing to adversaries and allies alike.

Marles continues to operate in a certain twilight of international relations, under the belief that the defence cooperation agreement with Jakarta "is the deepest level defence agreement we've ever had with Indonesia, and we are seeking increasing cooperation between Australia and Indonesia at the defence level." Whether this is the case hardly precludes Indonesia, as an important regional power, from conducting defence and foreign policy on its own terms with countries of its own choosing.

In January, Jakarta officially added its name to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group, an alternative power alignment that has been foolishly disregarded in terms of significance by the United States and its satellites. Subianto's coming to power last October has also heralded a warmer turn to Moscow in military terms, with both countries conducting their first joint naval drills last November in the Java Sea near Surabaya. (Indonesia is already a market for Russian fighter jets, despite the cloud of potential sanctions from the US Treasury Department.) For doing so, self-appointed disciplinarians, notably such pro-US outlets as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, have questioned the country's fabled non-aligned foreign policy. Engaging Russia in cooperative military terms supposedly undermined, according to the think tank's publication The Strategist, Jakarta's "own stated commitment to upholding international law."

Such commentary is neither here nor there. The Indonesian military remains jealous and proprietary, taking a dim view of any notion of a foreign military base. Retired Major General TB Hasanuddin, who is also a Member of Commission I of the Indonesian House of Representatives, points to constitutional and other legal impediments in permitting such a policy.

Our constitution and various laws and regulations expressly prohibit the existence of foreign military bases.

Any criticism of Jakarta's recent gravitation to Moscow also refuses to acknowledge the flexible, even sly approach Indonesia has taken to various powers. It has done so while maintaining a firm independence of mind. In the afterglow of the naval exercises with the Russian Navy, Indonesia's armed forces merrily went about the business of conducting military exercises with Australia, named Keris Woomera. Between November 13 and 16 last year, the exercise comprised 2,000 personnel from the navy, army and air force from both countries. As Australia frets and fantasises about the stratagems of distant authoritarian leaders, Indonesia is having the last laugh.