Indonesia Just Rejected America's Military Overflight Request — Here's Why

Speaker 1· Host0:00

Indonesia just told Washington to pump the brakes. The United States has proposed a standing military overflight agreement with Indonesia, giving it basically full access to its airspace. This wouldn't be a one-time request. This is a framework that's structured, it's pre-cleared for emergency operations, crisis response, and agreed exercises. Indonesia's foreign minister sent an urgent letter, a confidential letter, to the defense minister before the Pentagon's meeting, and this message was direct: "Do not sign this." The deal was reportedly on the table to be signed that day, and it wasn't. So I think that tells you everything where this relationship actually stands. So to start with, let's look at what the United States is actually asking for. This is not just a one-time overflight access. Normally, you would go through the diplomatic clearance process, which if anyone has dealt with that in the past, it can be quite cumbersome. So this wouldn't be an emergency exception. This is a blanket framework that allows US military aircraft to operate over Indonesian territory for a variety of reasons. Indonesia's foreign minister said that the arrangement would allow Washington to maximize surveillance and reconnaissance using Indonesian territorial waters. It warned that the deal would give the impression that Jakarta was involving itself with the US alliance. It said that this impression would place Indonesia as a potential target in a regional conflict. This is not a diplomatic boilerplate. The foreign minister is telling its own defense minister this deal could put a target on its country's back. The deal appears to still being under review, and so the proposal ha- hasn't met a final decision.