In this article it is reported that Russian Naval vessels participated in a counter-terrorism training event with the Indonesian navy. This comes after the newly inaugurated Indonesian President pledged a closer partnership with Russia in Defense. This training mainly focused on Freeing captured vessels and countering unmanned boats. This event was held in the Java sea. This practice was mainly an exercise in joint strikes between the Russia and Indonesian navy.
This is an interesting decision from the Russian military’s brass as using valuable ships and personnel on a training exercise with Indonesia seems like a gross misallocation of resources when Russia is embroiled in a prolonged conflict that it should have won easily if their own media sources were to be believed. This would mainly be a way of swaying South East Asian countries to side with Russia and other unaligned countries that are not already bought by the Americans. It also could be a side move to embolden Russia’s other allies like China in the South China Sea by using a very soft show of force to would be allies to American proxies like the Philippines.
This exercise would seem to push Indonesian allegiance towards Russia and other countries that would fall into a similar category to countries not aligned with America. Furthermore this seems to be a show of force to reinforce Chinese claims to sole sovereign over the South China sea as it would allow both of these countries to shrink the United States sphere of influence over the region. With American stronghold in countries like Japan, South Korea and the Philippines these revisionist powers would like to expand their alliances and economic goals in the region.
To connect to the subjects we have been talking about in class this is an example of revisionist powers and bandwagon states. Although Russia is severing lacking in military power as illustrated by their current situation in Ukraine they are still making power moves and gaining favors with smaller states that can remove them from the financial island NATO aligned countries have sent them to. Although I wouldn’t classify Indonesia as a small or weak nation they are attempting to throw their bag in with the Russians and more BRICS aligned countries to chip away at American hegemony. Weather it be due to shifting internal or external national interests.