Ahead of the two-day Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the second week of July, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi warned against the deployment of nuclear weapons in the region, which she stressed puts regional countries at great risk. Masudi joins a growing number of officials in Southeast Asia calling for a treaty banning nuclear weapons. “Our region cannot be truly safe from nuclear weapons,” she told ASEAN leaders. “With nuclear weapons, we are only one miscalculation away from doomsday and global catastrophe.” In 1995, ASEAN countries signed a treaty promising to make Southeast Asia a nuclear-weapon-free zone, but so far only China, the nuclear-weapon state, appears willing to sign the treaty. Concerns have grown in Indonesia and across the region since the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom formed the AUKUS partnership in 2021, which will help hand over nuclear attack submarines to the Royal Australian Navy. The first phase of this transfer will be the sale of three US Virginia-class submarines.Speculation is rife that this may follow nuclear weapons sharing The agreement between Washington and Canberra will allow Australia’s submarine-launched cruise missiles and F-35 fighter jets to receive nuclear warheads in wartime and store them on Australian territory under US control in peacetime.
While the Indonesian government maintains a relatively positive relationship with China and has resisted possible Western efforts to militarize the region, including insisting on rejecting U.S. demands for an air base, the Indonesian military has taken significant steps in the opposite direction. More recently, this has included the deployment of U.S. B-52H intercontinental strategic bombers, which are considered the most powerful part of the U.S. nuclear triad of air power, and the deployment of ultra-long-range nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The Indonesian air force also plans to host Royal Australian Air Force F-35 fighter jets, the best nuclear delivery assets and a key component of the nuclear sharing agreement between the US and its European allies, on Indonesian soil in September for joint exercises. As Australia’s F-35 fleet continues to grow, and the US continues to build up its fleet of nuclear bombers in East Asia, the assets are expected to remain on Indonesian soil, despite Jakarta’s protests. Along with the Virginia-class submarines, the F-35 is expected to be a prime candidate for Australia’s warhead if Australia and the United States enter into a nuclear sharing agreement.