What Will Indonesia Do With Its New Aircraft Carrier?

Febry Triantama has asked difficult questions in these pages about the strategic reasoning behind Indonesia’s acquisition of KRI Sriwijaya, a small aircraft carrier formerly owned and operated as the Giuseppe Garibaldi by the Italian Navy. Much regarding the future of the carrier (and the future of the Indonesian Navy) depends on how much Indonesia invests in maintaining and optimizing the vessel and its air wing.

The acquisition of the warship puts Indonesia into a growing club of navies in the Western Pacific to operate aircraft carriers. In recent years Australia, India, China, and Japan have all built or acquired flat-decked aircraft carrying warships. Most of these are considerably larger than the new Indonesian warship and can accordingly carry more and more varied aircraft and operate at greater distances from base. Thailand joined the aircraft carrier club in the 1990s with the Spanish-designed Chakri Naruebet, similar in size to KRI Sriwijaya. 

Two decades ago vessels like the Thai and Indonesian carriers might be expected to operate V/STOL (vertical or short take off and landing) fighters. But it does not appear that Indonesia will go this route. The world’s only operational V/STOL fighters are the AV-8B Harrier and the F-35B Lightning II; the former are old and expensive to operate, while the latter have yet to be offered to Jakarta, and in any case are extremely expensive. The Sriwijaya is better understood as an amphibious support ship than as an aircraft carrier, a warship with substantial aviation capabilities but without an airwing capable of offensive or defense air superiority operations. This would place the ship in the same category as Australia’s Canberra-class landing helicopter docks (LHDs). 

The best model for the Indonesia Navy may be the TCG Anadolu, a Turkish amphibious warship built along the same lines as vessels operating for Spain and Australia. While Anadolu was originally expected to fly the F-35B, disputes with Washington have put those plans on ice, perhaps permanently. Instead, the Turkish Navy has used Anadolu as a platform for experimenting with a variety of uncrewed aircraft, including the Bayraktar TB3 and the Bayraktar Kimilelma, both of which have multimission capabilities. Following the Turkish lead would allow Indonesia to avoid the expense of acquiring F-35Bs and, perhaps more importantly, the difficulties of maintaining trained pilots and aircrew for a very small combat wing. Indonesia has already signed a deal with Turkiye for the transfer of a number of drones, and may be able to take advantage of Turkiye’s experience operating advanced UAVs from a maritime platform. 

If Anadolu represents the best case, the Thai Chakri Naruebet represents the worst. The Thai carrier was initially expected to operate AV-8B Harriers, but the notoriously difficult fighter proved too much of a hassle and the small force was retired in the early 2000s. Since the Chakri Naruebet has become known as a “harbor queen,” barely operational beyond a few high profile humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HADR) operations. Thailand had expected more from its carrier but serial financial crises de-emphasized the navy and the navy’s most expensive ship. 

Of course, Indonesia is considerably larger than Thailand and its navy has far greater responsibilities. The Sriwijaya is an older vessel and will require considerable modification before service, but Indonesia has already engaged with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri to modernize the warship, an arrangement that should also improve Indonesia’s capacity for keeping the ship at sea. 

An aircraft carrier of any size is a huge opportunity, but also a huge responsibility. Indonesia is rolling the dice on its capacity to keep the ship in service, as well as on the durability of a very old vessel. It could pay off with a much enhanced HADR capability, as well as a platform capable of taking advantage of the latest in drone technology. Or Indonesia could end up with its own harbor queen.