Indonesia's Arms Spree Only The Start Of A Modern Military

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According to the Singapore-based S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Indonesia signed just one contract for armed Chinese CH-4B drones between 2012 and 2022. Since 2023, it has contracted for several types of Turkish unmanned aircraft.

Every new platform creates a second requirement: the architecture around it. Modern military power is a system of systems. Sensors must feed command networks, which must pass targeting data to weapons quickly enough to matter.

Aircraft, ships, submarines, drones and ground units must work from a common operational picture, and all of them must be supplied, repaired and crewed. The relevant question is no longer how many weapons Indonesia has bought, but whether they can operate as one force.

The price of diversification

Diversification has given Indonesia a geopolitical advantage.

It is acquiring or developing capabilities with France, Italy, Turkey, India, the United States, South Korea and its own defense industry, which gives Jakarta more room to maneuver than reliance on a single supplier would. The approach also suits the country's long tradition of strategic autonomy and hedging among major powers.

But diversity has a military cost. Each supplier brings its own communications architecture, software, maintenance regime, weapons interfaces, training systems and logistics. A force drawn from so many technological ecosystems can gain political independence while becoming harder to integrate in battle. Strategic diversification can breed tactical fragmentation.

Indonesia's defense establishment seems increasingly aware of the tension. September's forum drew the Defense Ministry, the armed forces headquarters, the three services, the digital ministry, the national research agency BRIN, the cyber agency BSSN and domestic defense companies.

The agenda covered C6ISR, network-centric warfare, communications standards and data links. Officials' definition of interoperability was telling: it reached beyond communications to personnel, doctrine, procedures, data, networks, sensors, command-and-control systems and weapons platforms.

That is where modernization must become transformation. Take the Rafale. Its effectiveness depends not just on the aircraft but on the radar picture available to pilots, the intelligence behind each mission, the weapons built into doctrine and the ability to sustain a high rate of sorties.

During the 2026 PEGASE exercise with France, Indonesian Rafales flew alongside French Rafales and an A330 MRTT tanker, a glimpse of the value interoperability can create. The same logic applies to the BrahMos, the Scorpene, the PPA warships and unmanned aircraft: a weapon is worth far more as part of a reliable kill chain. Without one, even advanced platforms operate alone.

The Sriwijaya test

The Sriwijaya may be the clearest test of whether Indonesia can turn procurement into institutional capability. The former Italian carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi was commissioned in September as Indonesia's first aircraft carrier.

Officials describe it chiefly as a command center for maritime operations, a platform for defense diplomacy and a vehicle for humanitarian aid. It can operate many helicopters and is expected to contribute substantially to disaster response and logistics across the archipelago.

That is a sensible starting point. Indonesia does not need to copy American or Chinese carrier doctrine to get value from a large ship that can carry aircraft. Its geography creates real needs for mobility, disaster response, maritime presence and command and control.

But the Sriwijaya also shows the gap between acquiring a platform and mastering a capability. A carrier needs trained crews, aviation specialists, deck operations, maintenance facilities, helicopters or other aircraft, escorts, replenishment ships, communications and a doctrine for sustained deployment. The hull is the visible part of a far larger operation.

The ship is better seen as a test of institutional learning than as proof that Indonesia has become a carrier power.

The questions are whether the Navy can build the procedures, human capital and logistics to keep it useful for decades; whether it can link the vessel with frigates, submarines, maritime patrol aircraft and unmanned systems; and whether PT PAL and other Indonesian companies can learn enough to maintain, and eventually modify, such complex platforms at home.

The Scorpene program may offer a more promising model. Naval Group, the French shipbuilder, says both submarines will be built and commissioned in Indonesia, with technology transfer meant to let Indonesians manage, operate and maintain them.

More than 400 Indonesian engineers are expected to be trained in submarine construction. Strategic autonomy requires more than owning a weapon. It requires enough technical, industrial and organizational knowledge to keep it effective when foreign supply chains become costly, disrupted or politically constrained.

From procurement to readiness

Indonesia has shown that it can spend more, diversify its suppliers and acquire advanced platforms. The next test is whether it can sustain them, which means measuring modernization differently.