It was earlier assessed that “Indonesia’s New Military Partnership With The US Might Upset Some BRICS Supporters” due to their false belief that this economic-financial group is also a security bloc.
The end of that analysis noted that President Prabowo met with Putin on the same day as his Defense Minister announced their country’s “Major Defense Cooperation Partnership” (MDCP) with the US in DC. The timing isn’t coincidental and proves that Indonesia is actively balancing between Russia and the US.
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It was assessed last August after Putin hosted Prabowo as his guest of honor during June’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that “Indonesia Will Play A Key Role In Russia’s Asian Balancing Act”. To elaborate, “Russia and Indonesia play complementary roles in one another’s balancing acts, with each serving as valve of sorts from the pressure to commit to China-India and China-US respectively.” That’s still the case to this day even though the geostrategic situation has somewhat changed since then.
Prabowo received military training in the US,effusively congratulatedTrump in November 2024, and just authorized the MDCP, which the analysis cited in the introduction concludes aims to give the US the ability to blockade the Strait of Malacca to Chinese ships in the event of a crisis. He’s therefore clearly chosen to align Indonesia closer with the US than with Chinaeven thoughChina is Indonesia’s largest trade partner at $135 billion in bilateral trade in 2024 and its second-largest investor behind Singapore.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to conclude that he’s an American puppet since he wouldn’t have traveled to Russia to meet with Putinthreeseparatetimesbefore this latest one. It’s beyond the scope of this piece to detail, but this analysisherefrom early 2025 enumerated ten analyses on bilateral ties that were published by the Valdai Club in the last quarter of 2024 right before and after his inauguration. Readers can review them for a comprehensive look at the envisaged future of their bilateral relations.
Putinsummarizedthem during his latest meeting with Prabowo:
“Our colleagues on both sides as well as you and I have repeatedly identified the most promising areas of cooperation: energy, space, agriculture, industrial cooperation, and pharmaceuticals. We attach great importance to developing humanitarian ties, including in culture and education. Of course, our foreign ministries also maintain close and active coordination across international platforms.”
These, with anemphasis on energygiven the global crisis in that industry caused by the Third Gulf War and also agriculture to an extent due to how that conflict harmed the global fertilizer industry, are their priorities. Conspicuously absent from his remarks and Prabowo’s is any mention of defense ties despite prior talk of aSu-35andBrahMosexports. That’s likely because Prabowo now envisages his Russian-American balancing act dividing partnerships between them and the military one going to the US.
Source: Global Research
