According to Alman Helvas...
You have to take Alman Helvas’ posts on the issue of a LOR with a pinch of salt — including his nationalistic take on Indonesia in the region and
Prabowo’s fake declared interest in an advanced American fighter (aka F-35 interest) with regard to his US trip. “On Jakarta’s wish-list is a ‘roadmap’ to procuring the F-35 fighter jet, an Indonesian government official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding officials were not optimistic.”
In the US, Prabowo is scheduled to meet his US counterpart Mark Esper. It’s not just a matter of lobbying the Americans or others in the region.
A real road map for a F-35 purchase will take a fundamental rethink of the TNI posture and equipping (plus a move away from Russian and Chinese equipment), and this commitment must last beyond the Jokowi administration that is in its second term. The problem is that Amman Helvas’ posts — he is sometimes half right — but he does not seem to understand the context of actual military-to-military cooperation requirements for interoperability by advanced tertiary air forces. The TNI AU is not even on track to be a tertiary air force; what is the point of talking about a F-35 purchase without the basics.
Indonesia will not be willing to do what is needed to get access to the F-35 program and it is not in Indonesian interests to be aligned that the level that Australia and Singapore are at, in relation to the US; where their troops were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in support of American operations and the level of basing support for American troops and naval port visits.
Robust access and support agreements, is the minimum; the actual bar as a burden sharing partner is much higher — as shown at multiple US DoD levels with Singapore’s Mindef and the various services, including with the Singapore Navy.
In the Aug 2017 USS John S. McCain collision which killed 10 sailors, saw the SAF going into action to save as many of the injured as possible, without any external consideration. The accident sparked a massive Singapore-led search at sea for the 10 US sailors who went missing. Their bodies were eventually recovered from the warship a few days later.
The US Navy, naval aviation and the US Marines all know that they have a safe harbour and landing rights in Singapore. In contrast to Singapore, Indonesia has consistently rejected amy proposal by the US to allow its P-8s to land and refuel there. The Americans made multiple “high-level” approaches to Indonesia’s defence and foreign ministers before Jokowi rebuffed the request.
It’s not just about spending enough to ensure interoperability but also spending hundreds of millions of defence dollars in high risk operations, for 6 years in Afghanistan, or sending troops as part of a multinational coalition to fight ISIS in Iraq; and to deploy medical, imagery analysis and special forces teams to build local capacity along with Australian and American troops.