Indonesia’s New Military Partnership With The US Might Upset Some BRICS Supporters

So many were duped by Alt-Media charlatans over the years into thinking that this economic-financial group is also a security bloc when it never was, still isn’t, nor ever will be one.

Indonesia and the US announced a “Major Defense Cooperation Partnership” (MDCP) during their Defense Ministers’ meeting in DC in mid-April. This arrangement “will explore mutually agreed cutting-edge initiatives, including co-developing sophisticated asymmetric capabilities pioneering next-generation defense technologies in the maritime, subsurface, and autonomous systems domains, and cooperating on maintenance, repair, and overhaul support to improve operational readiness.”

In parallel, it was reported that “US, Indonesia discuss allowing US military overflight in Indonesian airspace”, which refers to a “preliminary draft that is being discussed internally” right now, but the writing is on the wall that the US aims to leverage their MDCP to this end. The purpose appears to be obtaining the ability to blockade the Strait of Malacca to Chinese ships in the event of a crisis just like it’s now blockading the Strait of Hormuz to ships that almost all go back and forth between China and Iran.

The grand strategic goal being pursued is Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby’s “Strategy of Denial”. The gist is that the US must do its utmost to prevent Chinese hegemony in Asia, in furtherance of which it’s indirectly controlling or cutting off Chinese resource imports (Venezuela and Iran) and seeking control over global chokepoints (Hormuz, Malacca, and the Panama Canal), with everything accelerating ahead of Trump’s trip to China from 14-15 May. Trump hopes that this will coerce Xi into a lopsided trade deal.

Regardless of whether it’ll succeed, some BRICS supporters might be upset by the major role that Indonesia is poised to play in the US’ “Strategy of Denial” vis-à-vis China since it joined the group as a full member in 2025, thus representing yet another member with close US military ties. Co-founder India became the US’ “Major Defense Partner” in 2016 while Egypt, which joined as a full member in 2024, has been the US’ “Major Non-NATO Ally” since 1987. The UAE is also militarily close with the US too.

None of this should be relevant to BRICS since it’s always been a voluntary network of countries whose members coordinate their policies for accelerating financial multipolarity processes with a view towards reforming the global order so that the World Majority finally obtains equitable influence therein. Nevertheless, many BRICS supporters were duped by Alt-Media charlatans over the years into thinking that it’s also a security bloc, the notion of which Russia’s BRICS sherpa belatedly debunked in February.

In their minds, military partnerships with the US – let alone those informally aimed against fellow BRICS members like how Indonesia’s evolving one is arguably aimed against China and the UAE’s is aimed against Iran – are incompatible with the abovementioned goal, thus making these states “Trojan Horses”. Whatever one thinks about the merits of their assessment, the fact of the matter is that these countries still remain full BRICS members, and that’s because BRICS was never intended to be anti-American.

It was therefore predictable that new full member Indonesia would become the US’ de facto military ally since President Prabowo – who was incidentally in Moscow meeting with Putin on the day that the MDCP was announced by his Defense Minister in DC – received his military training in the US. He also effusively congratulated Trump in November 2024, less than two months before Indonesia was accepted as a full BRICS member, so the group knew where his military loyalties lay when they admitted it.