Garuda Shield

Gusty Da Costa

Airborne Soldiers descended from the sky in a synchronized pattern over the island of Sumatra in the Indonesian archipelago in early August 2022, landing in the rice fields and in openings of dense tropical forests of Baturaja. This wasn’t an ordinary jump. Paratroopers from Indonesia, Japan and the United States completed their first leap together at Super Garuda Shield, a multinational and joint military exercise led by the Indonesian National Armed Forces, also known as the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI), and the U.S. military.  

The jump was not the only first at the annual exercise, which was conducted from August 1-14. Garuda Shield 2022, which garnered the moniker Super Garuda Shield for its size, marked the first time that Australia, Japan and Singapore participated in the exercise, which was staged amid starkly heightened global tensions, reflecting participants’ commitment to countering threats to regional security. 

Gen. Andika Perkasa, TNI commander, and Gen. Charles A. Flynn, commander of U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC), launched the exercise at the Baturaja Combat Exercise Center and drew more than 4,300 participants. Military personnel joined from 12 nations in addition to Indonesia and the United States. Participants included Australia, France, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, South Korea and Timor-Leste. Observers hailed from Canada, India and the United Kingdom.

Garuda Shield also emphasized maritime operations, with warships from Indonesia, Singapore and the U.S.  exercising together for the first time.

“When we’re together like this, we are stronger,” Flynn said at the launch of the exercises, calling them “an important expression of our teamwork, our interoperability and our unity as a group of nations that seek to have a Free and Open Indo-Pacific and maintain a rules-based order.”

As in the previous 15 iterations, Garuda Shield featured a range of activities and capabilities, including weapons interoperability and field coordination, satellite support and identification, friend or foe systems, and jungle survival and urban terrain training. Amphibious operations and an airfield seizure exercise were also conducted.

Super Garuda Shield built upon previous exercises, allowing personnel to test equipment and procedures, and giving the U.S. a better understanding of the defense infrastructure needs of the TNI and other allied and partner militaries, Dr. Teuku Rezasyah, a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Indonesia’s Padjadjaran University, told FORUM. 

Super Garuda Shield also enabled the TNI to expand collaboration and experimentation with combined and joint forces as part of USARPAC’s Operation Pathways, which is a symbol of regional friendships and cooperation. 

“I’m proud to see how Garuda Shield has grown since last year — expanding this summer to a joint, multinational exercise that includes all of our service components,” Flynn said. “It’s a symbol of the U.S.-Indonesia bond and the growing relationship between land forces in this consequential region … because land forces are the glue that binds the region’s security architecture together. We do that together by building readiness, building relationships and by building trust. Bringing our forces together like this, we stitch the fabric of regional security into something lasting.”

Heightened Tensions

The exercise’s supersized name, new faces and geopolitical aims reflected the circumstances under which it took place.

Since the inaugural Garuda Shield in 2009, tensions have steadily grown in the Indo-Pacific due to competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, as well as what is widely seen as the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) growing military presence and strategic ambitions across the region and beyond. 

In response, regional partners have joined together to demonstrate that destabilizing actions by the PRC and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be met by a strong alliance, which Garuda Shield exemplifies. “The exercise is part of Indonesia-U.S. defense cooperation, but it also sends a message to potential regional powers that there is close defense coordination when changes occur,” Nikolaus Loy, an international relations expert at Universitas Pembangunan Nasional Veteran in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, told FORUM.

“I believe the exercise represents an attempt to respond to global and regional strategic shifts,” Loy said. He listed the growing number of security challenges beyond the headline-making tensions over Taiwan: the disputes between Japan and the PRC regarding the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands and between India and the PRC over the mountainous border region of Ladakh; nuclear-armed North Korea’s unpredictable behavior, including its destabilizing missile tests; as well as Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent war.

Although not a party to any of the South China Sea disputes among Beijing and other littoral states, Indonesia has related concerns. The PRC’s expansive maritime claims, which were rejected by an international tribunal in 2016, overlap with Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in the southern portion of the South China Sea, known to Indonesians as the Natuna Sea. Beijing’s claims have led to confrontations that have further eroded the PRC’s public image, such as illegal fishing by Chinese fleets and mistreatment of Indonesian crew members on Chinese vessels. 

The TNI’s decision to stage some of Super Garuda Shield in the Riau Islands along the Malacca Strait in the South China Sea was significant, according to analysts, given nearby incursions by Chinese fishing boats and the islands’ status as the administrative capital of the maritime area.

Meanwhile, beyond the PRC’s increasingly ambitious regional posture, the growth of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) military capabilities is causing concern. In 2021, U.S. intelligence assessments described the PLA as gradually but steadily transforming into a highly agile, power-projecting arm of the CCP’s foreign policy machine, engaged in military diplomacy and operations globally, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Realigning Nonalignment

Officially, Indonesia’s long tradition of nonalignment remains robust, and the country’s civil and military leaders say its defense posture and foreign policy are not aimed at any nation. “We are all friends with our neighboring countries. This is what makes us stronger, our solidarity,” Perkasa told reporters, stressing that “there is no message for anyone” in the exercises. 

Perkasa noted that the PRC’s participation in the first Garuda Shield and in two Indonesian-Chinese military exercises in 2012 and 2013 had not been followed by interest from Beijing in the 2022 exercise. “If they do not see the drill as a priority, then it is fine,” Perkasa said, adding that Indonesia remains open to holding exercises with the PRC.

Padjadjaran University’s Teuku said concerns over the CCP made the PLA’s participation in Super Garuda Shield impossible. Issues such as continuing maritime territorial disputes between the PRC and Southeast Asian nations and the importance of maintaining a Free and Open Indo-Pacific presented barriers to cooperation. 

While the PRC remains Indonesia’s largest trading partner, changing economic patterns are seen as reducing Indonesia’s dependence on the region’s economic powerhouse. Indonesia’s status as the largest country in Southeast Asia — and the fourth most populous in the world — means that it is fully able to be its own player, especially in the Indo-Pacific. Australia’s hardening line toward the PRC and Jakarta’s warming ties with Canberra, for example, are seen as important regional developments.

There are other indications that Indonesia, like other participants in Super Garuda Shield, is working more closely with allies and partners to foster security in the region and beyond. Indonesian President Joko Widodo reportedly made Japan’s participation in the exercise a key point during an official visit to Tokyo in July 2022, and Japanese Parliamentary Vice Minister of Defense Tsuyohito Iwamoto was in Jakarta for meetings shortly before the kickoff in Baturaja.

Strengthening Partnerships

As in past decades, the U.S. will play a key role in regional security and stability. Because most of the Super Garuda Shield participants are U.S. allies or partners, Indonesia’s military is still perceived as a close partner of the U.S., Soleman Pontoh, a former head of the TNI’s Strategic Intelligence Agency, told FORUM. 

Yet Super Garuda Shield proved more than just a means to address a regional threat to Indonesian sovereignty. While the exercise defined the essence of security partnerships in the region, Super Garuda Shield also transcended geopolitics in many aspects. At the ground level, it provided a platform for personal and cultural relationships among Indonesia and the U.S. and other Indo-Pacific countries.  

Participants achieved a deeper appreciation for trust among like-minded allies and partners and for a shared understanding among different cultures that will provide a solid foundation for genuine future relationships among the militaries.