Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto has offered to buy 15 used Eurofighter Typhoon jets from the Austrian Air Force. The bid came after the US State Department issued an initial clearance for Indonesia to purchase the Bell-Boeing MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. The plan to buy the Typhoons is not new. In 2015, when the current Indonesian Military (TNI) chief, Air Chief Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto, was the presidential military secretary, the Typhoon was one of the options to strengthen the Air Force fleet. But eventually the government chose to buy Russia’s Sukhoi Su-35, the contract of which was signed on Feb. 14, 2018. This Typhoon shopping can be interpreted in three ways. First, Prabowo is keen on purchasing the Typhoons to avoid sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Indonesia risks being penalized if it proceeds with the pu...

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