Djakarta, who signed a contract Thursday for the first six French combat aircraft, seeks to diversify his alliances in the face of an increase in tensions in Asia-Pacific.
Le Monde
Negotiations have been in progress for several months between Paris and the largest country in Southeast Asia, which had never acquired French combat aircraft.
The Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto announced on Thursday 10 February the signing of a contract for six burst in a total order of some 40 devices. “We agreed for the purchase of Forty-two burst”, with “a signed contract [Thursday] for the first six”, “he said after a meeting with his French counterpart Florence Parly, in Jakarta.
Indonesia seeks to diversify its alliances and suppliers of military equipment facing an increase in tensions in Asia-Pacific between China and the United States. France seeks, for its part, to tighten the links with Indonesia after considering its strategy to assert itself in the Asia-Pacific shaken last year by the sudden rupture by the Australia of a gigantic contract of ‘Purchase of French submarines and the announcement of the Aukus Strategic Alliance (for “Australia, USA and United Kingdom”).
“Indonesia’s choice is that of sovereignty and technical excellence, with an airplane that has demonstrated its operational capacities on many occasions,” said the Minister of Armies, Florence Parly, to journalists . Indonesia has also initiated cooperation with France in the field of submarines, she said.
An aging equipment
Indonesia has an aging equipment, mainly US F-16 and Sukhoi Russians SU-27 and SU-30, and is in negotiations with multiple partners to renew its combat aircraft. Especially since a contract that Indonesia had signed in 2018 for the purchase of eleven Sukhoi su-35 hunting aircraft in Russia has never materialized, because of a US law providing for sanctions Automatic when a country concludes a “significant transaction” with the Russian weapon sector.
The French and Indonesian defense ministers had signed a defense cooperation agreement in 2021 in Paris and the negotiations on the acquisition of Rafale had been in progress for several months on financing and compensation. Djakarta negotiates in parallel the purchase of thirty F-15 American combat aircraft, according to the media, and participates in a research and development project with South Korea for the combat aircraft KF-21.
Dassault knew a year in 2021 with, eighteen appliances sold in Greece (including twelve used), thirty to Egypt and twelve used in Croatia and a record order of eighty apparatus for the United Arab Emirates.