US offered F-16s ‘to anticipate rising China’ (Indonesia)

The United States has reportedly asked for Indonesia’s help to counter the increasing influence of China, particularly in the South China Sea, which some foreign policy analysts say reflects the US’ strategy of “proxy by war”.

An Indonesian source, who closely followed the contacts between the two countries, recently told The Jakarta Post that the US had asked Indonesia to receive 24 used F-16 fighter jets from the US, rather than purchasing new ones that would come in a fourth number of the granted units. The Indonesian Military (TNI) could operate the 24 jets much earlier than waiting for the new units, to boost Indonesia’s capabilities, including to monitor the situation in the South China Sea.

“The US expects Indonesia to help them counter China if anything bad happens in the South China Sea,” said the source, who requested for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

“The United States has not made any requests to the Indonesian government regarding any specific use of the F-16s that are planned to be granted to Indonesia,” press attaché from the US Embassy in Jakarta, Troy Pederson, told the Post on Tuesday.

The Defense Ministry’s spokesman Brig. Gen. Hartind Asrin said he did not know about anything the source referred to.

“[Our plan to take the used F-16s] has nothing to do with [any request made by the US to help it deal with China], but it’s simply because it corresponds to our posture,” he told the Post.

Aside from the US request, the two future squadrons of F-16s would definitely boost the Air Force’s strength, he said, adding that Indonesia was waiting for the US response on the price deal for refurbishment of the used F-16s expected to arrive here by 2014.

The US has offered US$760 million for that cost, while Indonesia bargains at $669 million, according to Hartind.

An Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker and a deputy head of the House of Representatives’ defense commission, Maj. Gen. (ret) TB Hasanuddin, said he did not know of the information either.

“But whatever the case is, we have to keep our sovereignty in one piece, making our own decisions by using our own money. We don’t have any reason to assist one country to deal with another head-to-head either,” he told the Post.

While having no knowledge of the US request, the retired two-star general said the used F-16s would be coming from the US National Guard, not from the US Air Force, thus those aircraft would only have the ability for interception, not battle.

In response to the US request, University of Indonesia security expert Andi Widjajanto said what the US was doing was passing the buck, where a country fought for the interest of the US.

“This can mean two things: the US is weakening so that it can no longer apply its hard-balancing strategy with direct military confrontation; or the US is being a smart power, using the entire spectrum of power by engineering a strategic competition far beyond US territory,” he told the Post.

“If Indonesia becomes the next US target of passing the buck, Indonesia would find itself in a situation of strategic entrapment and [would be forced] to compete with China, not for its own national interests, but for the US.” Indonesia is an effective target of the US preference because of its power gap with the US, which means it has no chance to escape entrapment. It is powerless to unilaterally anticipate the rise of China, so it has to get closer with the US, like it or not, according to Andi, adding Australia also fits the first criteria.

The US also plans to establish a military base in Darwin, Australia, and deploy 2,500 marines there — a move analysts say is intended to counter China. The US says it will not be building any US bases there, but will use existing Australia military facilities and that the presence is an expansion of US training activities with its ally.

Indonesia Center of Democracy, Diplomacy and Defense executive director Teuku Rezasyah said Indonesia should not let the US allow a “war by proxy” by using Indonesia, as it did in Timor Leste (then East Timor) in 1975. He said that during that time the US made Indonesia occupy Timor Leste over its fear that a new base of communism would find a new home to grow there.

Its something more basic than just countering China. The reality is, the US military will face tough austerity measures over the coming decade. The more overseas customers she can win, the more these other countries can help sustain America’s military industries. In the big picture, many military suppliers are going after foreign customers as the US military face cuts.

The US military, even with all the austerity measures, will by far be the largest customer of American military industrial complex and will outspend every other country by a huge margin. And the 24 refurbished F-16 at $669 million total adds nothing more then peanuts to the overall market share of American military industry.

The point is US military industry is nothing like Russian and European military industry that needs overseas sales for their survival. US military industry will very well survive even without any overseas sales.

The US Military, overall, will survive. But companies would like to keep their production as long as possible. For example, the F-18 have had some Navy orders as a result of the delayed F-35 program. However, additional overseas orders will help keep the F-18 run longer once the current Navy orders are filled.

Also, while most of the F-35 will be purchased by the US military (about 2000 or so), an additional 1000 is expected to be purchased by foreign customers. This additional 1000 will help in reducing the per unit cost of the US purchase of her 2000.

Overall, foreign sales help bring down the cost of what the US military ends up paying for their hardware.

You are quite wrong actually. This article talks about 22 refurbished F-16s not F-18s. The F-16s are at the very tail end of their production life. There is very little likely hood of any future large scale purchase of brand new F-16s from overseas. And USAF isnt buying anymore F-16s. The per unit of production especially for smaller order of new generation F-16s goes up considerably higher. It costs a lot more to keep the production facilities open for only small orders from overseas. That's is why Dassault closed the production line for the Mirages even though they were commercially very successful overseas.

Beside these F-16s sold to Indonesia are refurbished F-16s from older stock. It doesn't really help in keep production facilities open.

I can understand your rancor over US supplying F-16s to Indonesia to bolster their defense against China but trust me, China does exactly the same with Pakistan.

Well...I realize that the F-16's are reburbished. But customers are still valueable even for small purchases like this. Remember, business is also about establishing customer relationships, getting them used to doing business with them, both in being a supplier, service, etc. to win future contracts.

As far as my ranchor over F-16, I have no objections to it. Why would I? There'll come a day when the Chinese will want to sell fighter jets to Indonesia as well. Who knows, maybe even to Australia and Canada. No one really knows what the future will look like.

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