For decades, Indonesia has spent little – by global standards – on its military. And the modest resources available have been mostly directed to the army rather than the navy or air force. Investments in these latter two services have been sporadic at best, and for a country covering millions of square kilometres of sea and thousands of remote islands, Indonesia has relatively few naval and air capabilities.
The elevation of Prabowo Subianto as Indonesia’s defence minister in 2019 reinvigorated an agenda for acquiring sea and air platforms. Over his five years as minister, he secured funding for a procurement pipeline of high-end technologies for the air force and navy. The…