TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsPrabowo says Indonesia to build up defense capabilities with new aircrafts
Jakarta signed an $8.1 billion deal in 2022 under then-defense minister Prabowo to purchase 42 French-made Rafale fighters.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
President Prabowo Subianto splashes blessed water onto a Rafale jet fighter during a ceremony to hand over six new Rafale jet fighters, four Dassault Falcon 8X aircrafts and one Airbus A400M Atlas aircraft to the Indonesian Air Force at Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base in Jakarta on May 18, 2026. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
P
resident Prabowo Subianto said Monday that the Southeast Asian country will continue to build up its defense capabilities as the government handed over equipment including six French-made Rafale jets to the military.
Prabowo presided over a handover ceremony at a military airbase in Jakarta, where he inspected recently-acquired defense equipment including four Dassault Falcon 8x and an Airbus A400M Atlas aircraft, according to a presidential palace statement.
Jakarta signed an $8.1 billion deal in 2022 under then-defense minister Prabowo to purchase 42 French-made Rafale fighters.
Prabowo said after the ceremony on Monday that Indonesia will keep strengthening its defense capabilities.
"We must continue to improve our defense capabilities to serve as a deterrent. We do not have any interests other than protecting our own territory," he told reporters.
"We observe that the global geopolitical landscape is fraught with uncertainty, and we recognize that defense is a primary prerequisite for stability."
Indonesia received the first batch of three Rafale jets in January, and Monday's ceremony included an additional three jets for the military, defense ministry spokesman Rico Ricardo Sirait told AFP.
He underscored the jets' importance to strengthen Indonesia's air defense system and claimed that defense equipment modernization was also an investment to safeguard the nation's sovereignty.
"The government views the strengthening of defense equipment not merely as the procurement of combat platforms, but as a strategic investment aimed at safeguarding sovereignty, national honor and national defense readiness," he said.
Prabowo, a former military general who came to power in 2024, has sought to modernize Indonesia's ageing military assets.
He met with French President Emmanuel Macron last month in Paris, where the two leaders discussed bolstering strategic cooperation, including through the "procurement of defense equipment and the strengthening of the defense industry", according to an Indonesian government statement.
