In recent years, the Indonesian Air Force has made frequent moves, not only signing a purchase agreement with Russia for 11 Su-35 fighters, but also signing purchase agreements with France and the United States for Rafale fighters and F-15EX fighters, and even jointly developing the next generation of fighters KF-21 with South Korea. However, over the past 15 years, Indonesia's defense budget has been only 0% of GDP8%, and in the KF-21 project with South Korea, Indonesia's funds have been overdue and not in place on time, which shows that Indonesia does not have the strong financial capacity to support such a huge procurement project.
In this regard, India's "Eurasian Times" directly described the Indonesian Air Force as the "poorest air force". However, this statement is not accurate, after all, the total strength of the Indonesian Air Force is 320,000 people, and 440 aircraft of various types, which is not small in the world, but it is really not enough to compare with India, South Korea, and Japan in this monster room in Asia, and even the Singapore Air Force can press it to the ground and rub it.
At present, the Indonesian Air Force has only 5 Su-27 and 11 Su-30 and 31 F-16 aircraft with real combat capability, while the rest are some F-5 fighters, A-29B Super Tucano attack aircraft and C-130 transport aircraft, which are not very effective and some very old models. So from this point of view, only more than 40 modern fighters are really not enough in Southeast Asia. In fact, as early as the "2024 Minimum Basic Forces Roadmap", Indonesia proposed to increase the defense budget to 1 of GDP5%, which means that Indonesia has a plan to upgrade its fighters for a long time.
Indonesia initially looked at the Russian Su-35 fighter, after all, Indonesia itself already has 5 Su-27 and 11 Su-30, and the Su-35 is developed on the basis of the Su-27 and Su-30. Although the Russian fighter is stretched across the electronic system, the combat effectiveness of the Su-35 may not be able to reach the level of the F-15EX and Rafale fighters, but after all, the Su-35 is equipped with advanced equipment such as phased array radar, wing edge radar and vector engine, and its combat effectiveness has also been greatly improved compared with the Su-27 and Su-30. Coupled with its $80 million**, it's obviously extremely cost-effective. Considering that Indonesia has established a corresponding security system with the Su-27 and Su-30, this also makes it possible to introduce the Su-35 without investing too much money in maintaining the security system, which can also reduce a lot of pressure on Indonesia.
As early as 2015, Indonesia and Russia conducted Su-35 procurement negotiations, and Russia also approved Indonesia's purchase of 11 Su-35s in 2018. However, after the United States began to intervene, Indonesia had to compromise and temporarily shelved the Su-35 procurement project. Although the purchase of the Su-35 was put on hold indefinitely, the modernization of the Indonesian Air Force could not be stopped, so the Indonesian Air Force turned to other targets. For example, it jointly developed the KF-21 with South Korea, proposed to purchase the F-35 from the United States, and purchased the Mirage 2000-5. KF-21 will not be until 2032 at the earliest, the United States rejected the F-35 purchase application, although the Mirage 2000-5 is not a big problem, but after all, it is a second-hand aircraft, so there is news in the near end that Indonesia has abandoned the purchase of the Mirage 2000-5 and instead used funds to upgrade the F-16.
Later, with India's purchase of Rafale fighters, Indonesia also began to contact France, and signed a purchase contract for the first batch of 6 aircraft in 2022, and also signed an agreement of intent for the next 36 aircraft. At the same time, the United States also agreed to export F-15EX fighter jets to Indonesia. Indonesia also seems to have become a country that will soon have two super fourth-and-a-half generation fighters, the French Rafale and the American F-15EX. However, Indonesia's fiscal estimates are unlikely to support such a large scale of procurement. According to the plan, Indonesia will purchase 42 Rafale fighters from France, with a total contract price of more than 8.1 billion US dollars and a unit price of nearly 200 million US dollars. The procurement contract with the United States F-15EX reached 13.9 billion US dollars, and only 36 F-15EXs were purchased, with a unit price of nearly 400 million US dollars. The two procurement quotas exceed 20 billion, and you must know that Indonesia's total planned quota for upgrading the military equipment of the navy and air force in the next 20 years is only 125 billion, which is obviously a heavy burden for Indonesia.
At present, Indonesia has only bought 6 Rafale fighters, although Indonesia has signed a purchase agreement with Dassault of France for 42 Rafale, in fact, only the first batch of 6 Rafale has been officially paid and effective. Eighteen of the remaining 36 aircraft were confirmed with Dassault in the middle of last year, but no payment was made, and the remaining 18 are still in the framework agreement, and the first six Rafale that have already been finalized will not be delivered until the end of 2025.
It is estimated that the F-15EX procurement agreement reached by the United States will be difficult to enter the actual procurement process in the end, because Indonesia has actually reached an F-15EX procurement agreement with the United States, that is to say, the United States has approved Indonesia's procurement of F-15EX, but it is the US Congress that has the final say on the export of arms, so it may not be a few years until the US Congress approves Indonesia's purchase of F-15EX. In fact, the news about Indonesia's purchase of F-15EX is nothing more than a dying struggle after Boeing learned that Indonesia had reached an agreement with Dassault of France. After all, the U.S. military's procurement has not been effective in recent years, Boeing's military aircraft business is very stretched, and even the U.S. military refueling aircraft project is Boeing used some disgraceful means to force the U.S. military to purchase KC-46A.
However, although Boeing is keen to sell the F-15EX to Indonesia, the purchase is unlikely to succeed. First of all, although the United States approved Indonesia's purchase of F-15EX, Congress may not agree to give F-15EX to Indonesia. After all, the F-15EX is the culmination of the F-15 series of fighters, and it is the most advanced fighter developed by combining modern advanced technology after taking the essence of previous generations of F-15 fighters. The F-15EX has a new active phased array radar, a new electronic warfare system, a new digital fly-by-wire flight control system, etc., and can be said to be the strongest fighter in the United States besides the F-22 and F-35.
Boeing is very active about Indonesia's purchase of the F-15EX, and even gave the Indonesian F-15EX a new F-15IDN designation, which is the abbreviation of Indonesian English Indonesia. However, it is precisely because the F-15 is so good that it is difficult for the US Congress to agree to sell this advanced aircraft to Indonesia. Moreover, Indonesia is not an ally with the United States (or a very marginal ally of the United States). On the other hand, the unit price of the F-15EX is estimated to be close to $400 million, which will also make it difficult for Indonesia to afford.
For Indonesia, although it has a land area of 1.91 million square kilometers, it has the title of the country of a thousand islands. The country is mainly distributed on many islands, and having advanced fighter jets is an important means of Indonesia's national defense. For the current Indonesia, its fleet is small in size, its technical strength is relatively backward, coupled with the high corrosion environment caused by the high temperature, high salt and high humidity of the tropical island climate, and the Indonesian Air Force itself is not a strong support system and aviation industry system, so that the combat effectiveness of its fleet itself has been further reduced. Therefore, for Indonesia, it has become a very practical choice to purchase a large number of advanced fighters to quickly improve its combat effectiveness, of course, the only question is whether Indonesia can afford the high cost of Western fighters.