The speed with which Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles denied reports on Wednesday morning of Russia wanting to establish a military air base in eastern Indonesia was alarming.
By Wednesday evening, comments from Russia’s ambassador in Jakarta showed Moscow was indeed looking to expand defence co-operation. Ambassador Sergei Tolchenov said: “Military co-operation is an integral part of the intergovernmental relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Indonesia.”
Russia would be sophisticated enough not to ask for a base operating under a Russian flag. That appears to be the possibility rejected by the Indonesian Defence Minister in his conversation with Marles. But that in no way stops Russian forces operating out of Indonesian military facilities.
Let’s be clear: we have nothing like a clear line of sight into President Prabowo Subianto’s thinking or political intentions. Our relationship with Jakarta is at best cordial but hardly close. Australia is not a high-priority partner for Indonesia; our defence engagement is limited. There are senior Indonesian military officers and politicians who mistakenly think after their “loss” of East Timor 20 years ago that Canberra wants to liberate the province of Papua from Indonesian control.
We have even less insight into Russia’s strategic thinking and Vladimir Putin’s intent. Whatever Albanese and his ministers say, you can be assured that our intelligence agencies and diplomats will be scrambling hard to work out what Russia and Indonesia are planning.
Subianto has been President for less than six months. He is said to want to be a “foreign policy president”. It may seem odd to Australian thinking, but Russia is a prominent part of his agenda.
As defence minister in 2023, Subianto proposed a “multi-point peace plan” for the Russia-Ukraine war which was criticised by Kyiv for being “a Russian plan, not an Indonesian plan”.
As President-elect Subianto met Putin in Moscow in July 2024 and pledged to build closer ties with Indonesia’s “great friend”. In November 2024, just days after Subianto’s inauguration as President, Russian and Indonesian naval forces conducted a joint exercise in the Java Sea.
A key Indonesian interest is access to cheap Russian oil. And let’s add to this picture the fact that Russia is a major supplier of weapons and combat aircraft to the Indonesian military.
Prabowo was defence minister for five years, during which time allegations of corruption were reported in connection with his proposed purchase of former Qatar Emiri Air Force Dassault Mirage 2000-5 jet aircraft. You can take it as read that Russian weapons deals are hardly models of financial transparency.
All of which means the Albanese government was too hasty in denying there might be substance to reports of Russian interest in an air base on Biak island.
Whatever assurances the Albanese government has sought and received should be treated with measured scepticism.
Moscow has been interested in Indonesia’s Biak island for some time. In December 2017 two nuclear-capable Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers flew a patrol from Indonesia’s Manuhua Air Force Base.
The base is a significant piece of strategic geography. Biak sits just north of Indonesia’s Papua province. Its remote from Jakarta, but a relatively short fast-jet sortie of only 1380km from Darwin and 1868km from American military forces based in Guam.
In other words, Biak matters. It sits on the outer edge of the so-called first island chain – the islands that run from Japan, through to Taiwan, The Philippines and the Indonesian archipelago.
Dominating the first island chain is a way of controlling what military forces can approach the Chinese mainland. That’s why Taiwan is such a critical strategic factor in the US-China relationship. It’s also why the US, including under the Trump administration, is strengthening relations with The Philippines and looking for opportunities to put US Marines and other forces onto different Philippine islands.
Russia is positioning itself into this equation because Putin retains great power ambitions for his country, including maintaining an influential role in Vietnam. Russia maintained a substantial naval and intelligence presence at Cam Ranh Bay well past the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Putin’s interest in Indonesia will be to find a market for oil and weapons and a source of commodities. Putin may well see closer relations with Jakarta as a way of doing his friend Xi Jinping a favour.
Because of their complicated and difficult history, China would have little prospect of establishing a military presence on the Indonesian archipelago. Russia may have an easier path to that outcome. It is very much in China’s interests to see Russian strategic bombers an hour’s flight from US military bases in Guam.
That’s the core strategic interest at play in this issue: how can China, using Russia as a proxy, complicate American military planning in the Pacific?
Of course this is deeply concerning from an Australian point of view. Whether or not the air base at Biak develops, how will we deal with the consequences of a closer Russian defence relationship with Jakarta?
What if Putin proposes to Prabowo that Russian missiles would be an attractive way to pay for Indonesian commodities? That’s the stuff of nightmares for Australian defence planners.
Our strategic concerns have become marginal to Indonesia’s leaders because we have not invested in seriously promoting our economic, military and diplomatic power in Southeast Asia. The region is supposed to have been a priority for Wong and Albanese, but the reality is we do nothing more than deliver the thinnest of diplomatic capabilities.
Pretending to Indonesia that Canberra is deeply motivated by the idea of “ASEAN centrality” is just a substance-free fiction.
The truth is that our strategic position in the region is deteriorating fast. We have free-ridden on US security for decades; now we are unsure if Washington really does have our back, and we are killing our own defence capabilities for lack of funding.
Nothing to see here? Don’t you believe it. We are in a world of pain, led by delusional political leaders incapable of responding to the hard realities of power politics playing out in our region.
Once again Albanese is caught being a spectator at his own parade. Why is he not calling President Prabowo? The Albanese government will know there is a lot more to this story based on intelligence and diplomatic information. Albanese’s refusal to share more detail tells me he knows there is a serious problem emerging out of Moscow’s defence ambitions with Jakarta.
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Has Russia fallen for the subtle Indonesian art of strategic ambiguity in believing it might be in with a shot to base long-range aircraft in southwest Papua’s Manuhua Air Force Base?