Joint Military Exercises Involving US, Indonesia, and 5 Other Nations Address Regional Concerns Over China

joint-military-exercises-involving-us-indonesia-and-5-other-nations-address-regional-concerns-over-china

Soldiers from the United States, Indonesia, and five other nations commenced annual training exercises on Indonesia’s main island of Java on Thursday, while China’s growing aggression is causing concern.

Since 2009, American and Indonesian personnel have participated in the live-fire exercise, which Australia, Japan, and Singapore joined last year. Approximately 5,000 personnel from the United Kingdom and France are participating in this year’s Super Garuda Shield exercises.

China views the expanded exercises as a threat and accuses the U.S. of constructing an Indo-Pacific alliance similar to NATO in order to contain China’s expanding military and diplomatic influence in the region.

Brunei, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and East Timor also sent observers to the two-week exercises in Baluran, an East Java province coastal hamlet.

General Charles Flynn, commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific, stated that the participation of 19 nations in the training is a potent demonstration of multilateral solidarity to protect a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

“Super Garuda Shield 2023 builds on last year’s tremendous success,” Flynn said in a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta on Tuesday. “This joint, multinational training exercise displays our collective commitment and like-minded unity, allowing for a stable, secure, more peaceful, free, and open Indo-Pacific.”

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Garuda Shield Exercises Enhance U.S.-Indonesia Military Cooperation

joint-military-exercises-involving-us-indonesia-and-5-other-nations-address-regional-concerns-over-china
Soldiers from the United States, Indonesia, and five other nations commenced annual training exercises on Indonesia’s main island of Java on Thursday, while China’s growing aggression is causing concern.

At least 2,100 U.S. and 1,900 Indonesian forces will bolster interoperability through training and cultural exchanges, including a command and control simulation, an amphibious exercise, airborne operations, an airfield seizure exercise, and a combined joint field training culminating in a live-fire event, according to the statement.

The command post exercise will emphasize mission planning staff duties in a combined military environment. Battalion-strength elements from each nation will participate in a field training exercise to enhance interoperability and combined operational capacity.

Garuda Shield was conducted in multiple locations, including the waters around Natuna in the southern portion of the South China Sea, a flashpoint in the U.S.-China rivalry.

Indonesia and China have generally positive relations, but Jakarta has voiced concern over what it perceives to be Chinese incursions into its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.

The boundary of the exclusive economic zone overlaps Beijing’s unilaterally declared “nine-dash line” defining its claims in the South China Sea.

The increased presence of Chinese coast guard vessels and fishing boats in the area has alarmed Jakarta, prompting the Indonesian navy to execute a large exercise in the waters surrounding Natuna in July 2020.

 

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Source: ABC News

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