Multilateral Naval Exercise Komodo 2023
INDONESIA hosted a multilateral naval exercise Komodo (MNEK) 2023 in its waters from June 5-8, 2023. Thirty-six countries including the US, UK, China, India, Japan, Pakistan, Russia and South Korea participated in the three-day military drill. The world’s biggest archipelago conducted a large-scale non-war exercise amid simmering tension in the Asia-Pacific region. MNEK 2023 was organized in the backdrop of China and the United States having launched an onslaught of military diplomacy in the region, staging more frequent war games with allies and partners around Taiwan, and in the busy waterways of the South China Sea and the western Pacific.
Regrettably, there have been a series of incidents in the near past, which could ruffle feathers in Washington D.C. and Beijing. Last weekend, an incident in the Taiwan Strait was reported, in which the US Navy said a Chinese warship came within 140 meters of the US destroyer USS Chung-Hoon. The incident took place after US and Canadian warships sailed through the sensitive waterway on a “freedom of navigation” operation. MNEK 2023 took place in the waters between Borneo and Sulawesi, and was the fourth iteration of the naval exercise that Indonesia has hosted since it was established in 2014.
Fifteen vessels, including from China, the Philippines and Russia, dropped anchor off Sulawesi island on June 5 as the Komodo drills began, the Indonesian navy informed. In a statement, the Indonesian Navy (TNI-AL) described the three-day Multilateral Naval Exercise Komodo as “a non-war exercise by prioritizing regional maritime cooperation, disaster management, and humanitarian operations to strengthen cooperation between the Indonesian Navy and friendly countries.” Fifteen vessels, including ships from China and Russia, dropped anchor off Sulawesi Island on June 5 as the Komodo drills began, the TNI-AL said.
The Chinese navy sent its destroyer Zhanjiang and frigate Xuchang, both equipped with guided missiles, to the exercise, Chinese state media CCTV reported. The Komodo exercises represent a rare sign of concord at a time of growing tension in the Asia-Pacific. Rather than hardcore military drills, MNEK 2023 comprises a series of simulated sea rescues and responses to humanitarian emergencies like natural disasters. The sanguine aspect of the exercise is that of the 36 participants, many of them have faced bitter conflicts and disagreements in the near past. In addition to the US, Russia, and China, it also includes rivals India and Pakistan and both South and North Korea, yet they all willingly joined the multilateral exercise, sinking their differences temporarily.
MNEK 2023’s emphasis on joint humanitarian and disaster response drills plus associated on-shore community goodwill events made it easier for these rival nations to take part. Anything more combat-focused would have most likely not obtained buy-in from participating countries due to necessary information-sharing and joint operations between rivals. That Indonesia maintains military ties with these nations reflects the balancing act of Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s administration between the US and China, despite Jakarta’s territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea. Economically, China is Indonesia’s most important trade partner, accounting for 19.5% of Indonesia’s trade. However, the US remains the most important security partner for Jakarta.
The drills opened a day after the conclusion of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, which saw senior US and Chinese officials trade barbs over issues including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Beijing rebuffed a US request for a meeting between Defence Minister Li Shangfu and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of the conference, due to the US currently targeting Li. The US likewise refused a Chinese request to lift the sanctions as a precondition for talks. Credit must be given to Jakarta, which has had a creditable year in managing regional tension, both as G-20 president, when it managed to negotiate the various diplomatic complications associated with the war in Ukraine, and this year’s chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in which capacity it is currently trying to push forward a solution to Myanmar’s conflict.
All of this reflects Indonesia’s attempt to strike a balance in an era of superpower competition – to attain what Evan Laksmana, of the University of Singapore, in his research paper titled ‘Pragmatic Equidistance: How Indonesia Manages its Great Power Relations’ describes the rationale and nature of Indonesia’s foreign policy vis-à-vis the United States and China. It places Indonesia’s foreign policy pertaining to these two countries within the broader context of Jakarta’s overall management of its great power relations. The author argues that Indonesia’s approach can be described as an approach to great power management; “Pragmatic Equidistance” captures the idea of fully engaging one great power in various forms of cooperation — from economic to defence matters — while simultaneously maintaining both strategic autonomy and keeping equal balance with other great powers. It also appears to suggest that Indonesia, fortified by its “free and independent” foreign policy tradition, is a good candidate to bring together the many “non-aligned” nations in the Global South that are resisting the gradual crystallization of the world into competing neo-Cold War blocs.
The exercise carried the theme “Partnership to Recover and To Rise Stronger” to promote the spirit of collective awakening from the Covid-19 pandemic and increase friendship among countries for a better future. Bilateral meetings, international maritime security symposium, engineering civic action program, medical civic action program, and other activities were also held all throughout the exercise. Komodo 2023 culminated on June 8 with a sea-phase exercise. Besides a diplomatic tightrope walking to maintain an air of camaraderie, a lot of planning went into the exercise. “2023 MNEK Initial Planning Conference (IPC)” was held in December 2022, The Indonesian Navy had invited the navies of 47 countries for the Multilateral Naval Exercise. The conference was for planning for the joint exercise implementation. More than sixty percent of the invitees attended the IPC. By way of comparison, the annual US-Indonesian Garuda military exercises held later this year are of a far larger scale and concentrate on pure combat interoperability between the two militaries and Western allies.
—The writer is a Retired Group Captain of PAF, who has written several books on China.
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