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Does Russia want a military base in Indonesia? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christanamied.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, April twenty two, twenty twenty five cardinals from
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  Speaker 1: around the world will gather in Rome to elect a
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  Speaker 1: new pope after Pope Francis died aged eighty eight. The
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  Speaker 1: Vatican announced the Pontiff's passing a day after he appeared
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  Speaker 1: at Saint Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday. Women have abandoned
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  Speaker 1: the coalition less than two weeks out from the federal election.
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  Speaker 1: That's according to new data from News poll. It's a
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  Speaker 1: sharp decline since the start of the campaign and it
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  Speaker 1: could spell trouble for the opposition on polling day. You
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  Speaker 1: can read all the latest from the campaign trail right
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  Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au. Moves by
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  Speaker 1: Russia in the Pacific have Anthony Albanesi and Peter Dutton
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  Speaker 1: scrambling on defense. In today's episode, our defense expert Ben
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  Speaker 1: packham unpicks what Russia's up to in Indonesia and if
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  Speaker 1: we should be worried about its surprise appearance in our
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  Speaker 1: neck of the woods last week. Halfway through the federal
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  Speaker 1: election campaign. Peter Dutton dropped a bombshell, but this.
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  Speaker 2: Is a very troubling development and suggestion that somehow Russia
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  Speaker 2: would have some of their assets based in Indonesia, only
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  Speaker 2: a short distance from obviously the north of our country.
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  Speaker 1: The opposition leader was referencing an April fourteen report by
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  Speaker 1: the Janes Defense Journal that Russia's top brass are keen
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  Speaker 1: to build a military base in Indonesia.
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  Speaker 2: It did the Prime Minister know about this before it
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  Speaker 2: was publicly announced by the President of Indonesia And what
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  Speaker 2: is the government's response to it?
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  Speaker 1: The problem is such a deal was never announced by
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  Speaker 1: Indonesia's President Proboo Subianto or anyone else for that matter.
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  Speaker 1: Labour's most senior figures, including Prime Minister Anthony Alberesi, Defense
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  Speaker 1: Minister Richard Miles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, leapt on
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  Speaker 1: the error.
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  Speaker 3: He verbaled the President of Indonesia, this is reckless and
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  Speaker 3: it is dangerous, too agro and too reckless.
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  Speaker 1: And at the second Leader's debate on Wednesday night, Dunton
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  Speaker 1: admitted he got it wrong. Kind of.
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  Speaker 2: The reference I was making was shouldn't have been to
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  Speaker 2: the president. That was in relation to sources from the
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  Speaker 2: Proboo government. It was a mistake and I'm happy to
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  Speaker 2: a bit. What we got from the Indonesian authorities in
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  Speaker 2: the reports was that the sources inside the Proboo government
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  Speaker 2: confirmed that was the case.
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  Speaker 1: But this is where things get confusing. The James report
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  Speaker 1: did cite Indonesian government sources, but none have confirmed on
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  Speaker 1: the record if a request was ever made by Russia
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  Speaker 1: to station warplanes on Indonesia's Biak Island. Indonesia's Foreign Ministry
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  Speaker 1: spokesman says no one's been given permission to establish a
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  Speaker 1: military base, but he didn't mention if any specific requests
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  Speaker 1: had been made by Russia. Labour's Employment Minister Murray Watt
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  Speaker 1: was more firm. He told Sky News the Opposition hasn't
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  Speaker 1: been briefed because the question was never asked.
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  Speaker 4: They might as well ask for a briefing on the
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  Speaker 4: Lockness monster. This is something that doesn't exist that they fabricated.
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  Speaker 4: There is no proposal from Russia to have a base
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  Speaker 4: anywhere in Indonesia in the way that Peter Dutton and
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  Speaker 4: his colleagues have been claiming over the last couple of weeks.
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  Speaker 1: But that's at odds with what some of what's Labour
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  Speaker 1: con colleagues have said, which is that the request was
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  Speaker 1: made but that Jakarta knocked it back. And so we've
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  Speaker 1: kind of come full circle with senior coalition figures demanding
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  Speaker 1: greater transparency from the government on Russia's antics in the Pacific.
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  Speaker 1: The coalition's Foreign affairs spokesman David Coleman said the inconsistencies
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  Speaker 1: in Labour's statements are proof of briefing is required. On Monday,
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  Speaker 1: Russian diplomat Sergey Tolchanov entered the chat, warning that Australia's.
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  Speaker 5: Interests cannot extend to the territory of neighboring sovereign states
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  Speaker 5: that pursue active and independent policies.
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  Speaker 1: We've used AI to bring to life parts of a
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  Speaker 1: letter written to the Jakarta Post by the Moscow ambassador.
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  Speaker 5: It is clear that the leaders of the two main
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  Speaker 5: political parties, replacing each other in power and calling it democracy,
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  Speaker 5: are now trying to outdo each other, heating up the situation.
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  Speaker 5: They stop at nothing, and the time has come to
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  Speaker 5: play the so called Russian card.
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  Speaker 1: And then Prime Minister Anthony Alberanezi dodged questions about the
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  Speaker 1: whole debacle dismissing Moscow's presence in the region as propaganda.
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  Speaker 3: There's a lot that still remains unclear over this story,
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  Speaker 3: but it's clear that there are quite close ties between
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  Speaker 3: Moscow and Jakata, and the Janes Defense publication also suggested
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  Speaker 3: that in fact, there's a security threat to Australia from
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  Speaker 3: Moscow operating its military aircraft some thirteen hundred kilometers from Darwin.
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  Speaker 1: Ben Packham is the Australian's Foreign affairs and Defense correspondent.
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  Speaker 1: I spoke with him on Monday afternoon, when parts of
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  Speaker 1: this story were still clear as mud.
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  Speaker 3: Now there's been a lot of back and forth since
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  Speaker 3: then about the exact details of what the request was.
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  Speaker 3: Was it in fact made, was it granted, Was it
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  Speaker 3: a request for a Russian base in India? Was it
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  Speaker 3: just a request to transit through Indonesia by Russia. As
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  Speaker 3: I said, it is difficult to know exactly what the
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  Speaker 3: request was. But the Janes Defense Publication is a very
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  Speaker 3: reputable publication and they stand by their report. And that
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  Speaker 3: report mentioned documents and it mentioned high level sources in
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  Speaker 3: Indonesia to back its reporting. And the point that the
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  Speaker 3: coalition is making about all this is what did Labor
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  Speaker 3: know about this request. Have we been blindsided by it?
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  Speaker 3: What representations has the Albaneza government made to Indonesia about this? Now?
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  Speaker 3: The Labor Party has tried to obfuscate and muddy the
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  Speaker 3: waters about this issue because it just does not want
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  Speaker 3: to be talking about potential strategic threat on its watch.
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  Speaker 3: Now this was helped by Peter Dutton actually because this
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  Speaker 3: has assisted Labor to bat away subsequent lines of questioning
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  Speaker 3: on this. But there's a lot of deeper questions here.
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  Speaker 3: There's a few unknowns there. And Indonesia further says that
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  Speaker 3: other nations military aircraft and vessels are free to undertake
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  Speaker 3: peaceful missions from its territory. It seems that if Russia
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  Speaker 3: wanted to do what it did in twenty seventeen and
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  Speaker 3: conduct surveillance missions from Biak Island, that it could do that.
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  Speaker 1: Let's assume for a minute Russia did propose establishing a
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  Speaker 1: military base in Indonesia. Would that be so wild? Since
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  Speaker 1: last year, the two nations have been collaborating on a
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  Speaker 1: commercial satellite launch facility on Biak Island, which is in
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  Speaker 1: Indonesia's easternmost Papua Province, and following his inauguration in October,
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  Speaker 1: Indonesian President Proboo Subianto signed onto the Bricks Developing Nations Group.
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  Speaker 1: It's an intergovernmental organization comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia,
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  Speaker 1: Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Within two weeks of
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  Speaker 1: that agreement being signed, by lateral naval exercises were underway
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  Speaker 1: in Indonesian waters.
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  Speaker 3: We're all very used to China being spoken of as
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  Speaker 3: a strategic threat for Australia in the region, but for
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  Speaker 3: many people the emergence of Russia in this context has
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  Speaker 3: been quite a surprise and of great interest. Now it
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  Speaker 3: would obviously be quite bad in a strategic sense for
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  Speaker 3: Australia to have Russia being free to operate its military
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  Speaker 3: aircraft to our north. There has been quite a close
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  Speaker 3: relationship between Russia and Indonesia over the years, dating back
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  Speaker 3: to the Cold War and even earlier. Indonesia is a
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  Speaker 3: big buyer of Russian military equipment and weapons, and we
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  Speaker 3: also know that in twenty seventeen Russia used Biack Island
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  Speaker 3: to stage reconnaissance miss using some of its long range
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  Speaker 3: bombers just eight years ago, so there's precedent for this,
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  Speaker 3: and there's a whole lot of advantages of equatorial launch
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  Speaker 3: locations for satellites. You get a benefit from the Earth's
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  Speaker 3: rotational forces near the equator, so it is quite a
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  Speaker 3: good location for a satellite launch facility. So really, if
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  Speaker 3: all goes to plans, as far as Indonesia's concerned, this
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  Speaker 3: island is going to be a hive of Russian activity,
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  Speaker 3: and Russia, concerningly, will have more leverage, even more leverage
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  Speaker 3: over Jakarta. Underneath it all, it does seem that you
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  Speaker 3: know that there is something to see here, that it's
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  Speaker 3: quite serious, and that not only do we have to
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  Speaker 3: worry about China's engagement and intentions in the region, but
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  Speaker 3: we also have to worry about Russia's.
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  Speaker 1: Would the White House have clocked that any of this
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  Speaker 1: is going on? Do you think? And how would it react.
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump his views on Russia appear to be much
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  Speaker 3: more favorable than those of his predecessors. That's one thing. Also,
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  Speaker 3: the US has a lot on its plate at the moment.
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump's moving incredibly fast on a whole range of
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  Speaker 3: foreign policy and economic issues. I doubt that there'd be
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  Speaker 3: a great deal of concern in Washington about this specific issue.
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  Speaker 3: I think they would be well aware of Russia's activities
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  Speaker 3: and efforts to gain more of a strategic foothold in
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  Speaker 3: the Pacific, But I think it probably doesn't reach the
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  Speaker 3: threshold of something that's going to hit the President's desk
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  Speaker 3: right at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. How do you solve a problem like defense spending?
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  Speaker 1: Ben Labor has signaled it won't boost defense spending to
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  Speaker 1: the three percent of GDP guided by the United States
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  Speaker 1: if it's re elected on May three, and the coalition's
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  Speaker 1: defense policy will only be unveiled in the next couple
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  Speaker 1: of days. Does this confusion around Russia's moves in the
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  Speaker 1: Indo Pacific change the calculus for either party? Do you think.
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  Speaker 3: This sort of draws attention in a broad sense to
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  Speaker 3: the strategic challenges that both parties freely admit that Australia faces.
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  Speaker 3: But while Labor has talked up those strategic challenges, we
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  Speaker 3: saw in the recent federal budget that it is sticking
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  Speaker 3: to its defense funding trajectory, so that has defense spending
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  Speaker 3: at roughly two point oh four percent of GDP in
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  Speaker 3: the coming financial year, rising to something like two point
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  Speaker 3: three three percent of GDP in the early twenty thirties.
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  Speaker 3: The Coalition is going to promise to spend more than that.
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  Speaker 3: They're talking about a target of two point five percent
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  Speaker 3: in the medium term. That'll be in the early twenty thirties,
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  Speaker 3: we believe, but you know that ramp up the trajectory
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  Speaker 3: to get there in the shorter term as well. There's
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  Speaker 3: quite a bit to do. And while Labor says that
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  Speaker 3: it's putting record money into defense and so forth, the
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  Speaker 3: truth is that every year is a record year for
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  Speaker 3: defense spending, because that's the nature of these things. So
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  Speaker 3: I think this whole debate over Russia and also China
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  Speaker 3: is going to feed into the coalition's election campaign. Whether
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  Speaker 3: or not that will change any or many votes, that
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  Speaker 3: remains to be seen. But I think we will see
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  Speaker 3: the Coalition trying to walk the talk in terms of
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  Speaker 3: matching the funding envelope to the sort of warnings of
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  Speaker 3: what we face, the strategic circumstances that we face.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think Peter Dutton's job in communicating that defense
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  Speaker 1: policy is made harder by the fact that he appears
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  Speaker 1: to have misunderstood a fairly crucial point about one of
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  Speaker 1: Australia's closest neighbors.
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  Speaker 3: I think by the time that defense policy is unveiled
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  Speaker 3: in the next couple of days, that sort of proboogaff
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  Speaker 3: will be behind him. It's just made it harder for
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  Speaker 3: him to capitalize on the Russia issue in the meantime.
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  Speaker 1: Ben Packham is The Australian's Foreign affairs and Defense correspondent.
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  Speaker 1: This story is developing quickly. You can read the latest
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  Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au