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Indonesia is rapidly expanding its naval fleet to meet its blue-water ambitions. But, for much of the past decade, budget constraints and limited political attention meant the country could focus only on acquiring small- and medium-sized naval vessels.

That pattern has shifted noticeably in recent years.

Jakarta has moved ahead with the procurement of larger and more capable platforms, including two Multipurpose Combat Ships/PPA from Italy and two I-class frigates from Turkey. It has also secured two additional Arrowhead 140 frigate licenses from the United Kingdom, bringing the total to four, with the first two licensed in 2021 and now under construction domestically. This year, Indonesia is also set to begin constructing French-designed Scorpène Evolved submarines.

These acquisitions align with Jakarta’s ambition to position itself as a key regional security actor and with the Indonesian Navy’s long-standing goal of becoming a blue-water navy — a force capable of sustained, long-range deployments far from its home waters.

Nonetheless, platforms alone are not enough to achieve true blue-water status. Warships may provide capability on paper, but without regular and sustained operations beyond national waters, much of that capability remains untested. A navy aspiring to blue-water operations should continually stress its doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy through real-world deployments abroad. This is precisely the challenge that the Indonesian Navy should begin addressing by embedding itself in an existing multinational mission.

Lessons from Others

The Indonesian Navy does routinely deploy its warships abroad. Its vessels regularly visited other countries’ waters and ports for joint exercises — including combat-oriented ones such as Rim of the Pacific and Kakadu — coordinated patrols, goodwill visits, and other activities. These deployments are valuable, but they should not be mistaken for blue-water operations in the full sense of the term.

Exercises, for instance, are episodic, time-limited, and often scripted. They do not require the Indonesian Navy to sustain itself at sea for months, manage long logistics chains, rotate crews, and above all operate continuously under operational uncertainty. Blue-water capability is not demonstrated by how far a ship can sail, but by how long it can remain operationally effective far from home.

Other Asian navies that aspire to or already claim blue-water status have internalized this distinction. China, India, South Korea, and Japan have all invested heavily in sustained overseas naval presence over the past decade. Since 2008, the People’s Liberation Army Navy has normalized long-duration deployments to the Middle East and the Western Indian Ocean through its anti-piracy task forces, which have provided valuable experience in conducting far-seas missions. The Indian Navy has institutionalized distant patrols, carrier strike group operations, and continuous deployments —particularly through its Mission-Based Deployments operational posture — stretching from the Gulf of Aden to the Western Pacific. Similarly, Japan and South Korea have maintained regular rotational deployments for maritime security, anti-piracy, and coalition operations.

Western blue-water navies provide an even clearer example of how sustained overseas presence defines real blue-water capability. The United States, France, and the United Kingdom treat overseas deployments as a normal part of naval operations. Their warships are deployed abroad on a near-continuous basis, supported by overseas bases, access agreements, and global logistics networks. In 2025, carrier groups from all three countries transited or visited Indonesia, offering Jakarta a direct look at how blue-water navies sustain operations far from home. Yet this does not mean Indonesia should mimic these three countries’ model.

For example, regarding fleet sustainment support, given its long-standing non-aligned foreign policy, less expeditionary defense policy tradition, and limited resources, Jakarta will most likely avoid pursuing permanent overseas bases or formal alliance-style basing arrangements. A more realistic and politically workable pathway is an “access, not bases” approach that relies on temporary — perhaps mission by mission — support from foreign ports, shipyards, and navies.

All these countries’ experiences point to the same conclusion: Blue-water capability is built and maintained through sustained overseas presence that allows a nation to continuously test its navy under real-world conditions.

18 Years of Distant Operations

From 2009 until early 2026, the Indonesian Navy accumulated that kind of experience. Through continuous participation in the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon  Maritime Task Force , the service regularly deployed its most capable corvettes to the Mediterranean Sea, with each rotation typically lasting close to a year. These long deployments gave Indonesian crews a rare opportunity to operate far from home waters, interact frequently with more advanced partner navies, and function under genuinely unscripted conditions.

This was especially valuable over the past three years, as the eastern Mediterranean grew more volatile, forcing ships to adapt to security dynamics, political constraints, and operational uncertainty. The mission also exposed the Indonesian Navy to the practical realities of sustaining vessels overseas, including conducting maintenance and repairs in foreign shipyards, such as those in Turkey.

That experience, however, has now come to an end. With the U.N.’s Lebanon maritime mission set to conclude on Dec. 31, 2026, Indonesia’s final deployed vessel — KRI Sultan Iskandar Muda (367) — returned home in January, closing a chapter that had quietly underpinned the Indonesian Navy’s long-range operational credibility for more than a decade. The loss of this sustained overseas deployment leaves a gap that exercises and near-seas deployments alone cannot fill. If Indonesia is serious about developing a blue-water navy, it will need to find alternative mechanisms to maintain and expand the institutional learning that the U.N. mission to Lebanon once provided.

Finding A New Adventure

Based on the experience of other countries, Indonesia effectively has two broad options. It can independently form and sustain its own long-range task force, or it can embed itself within an existing multinational mission. Given Indonesia’s limited resources and experience in generating and sustaining independent blue-water task groups, the latter option is far more realistic.

One option is Combined Task Force 151, a multinational counter-piracy coalition that is primarily active in the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa. There are six main reasons that Indonesia should seriously consider this mission.

First, it has operated continuously since 2009 and has demonstrated a tangible impact on improving maritime security in its area of responsibility. Its longevity and established procedures would allow the Indonesian Navy to integrate relatively quickly and contribute to a mission with real operational relevance, rather than a symbolic presence.

Second, the task force was established in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolutions, providing a clear and widely accepted legal basis for participation.

Third, participation in a counter-piracy coalition aligns closely with Indonesia’s broader national interests. As an archipelagic country whose prosperity depends on stable global trade and secure sea lines of communication, Indonesia has a direct stake in combating piracy and ensuring freedom of navigation. Indonesia has already benefited from the task force’s work, most notably during the 2011 hijacking of the MV Sinar Kudus off the coast of Somalia, when two Indonesian officers assigned to the task force — presumably as some sort of liaison officers — played an important role in freeing the vessel and its crew. The incident also triggered discussions about Indonesia joining the mission.

Fourth, the coalition includes current and former contributors who already maintain close naval ties with Indonesia. These include Association of Southeast Asian Nations members such as Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines, as well as Japan and South Korea, both of which — as mentioned earlier — have pursued their own blue-water ambitions through sustained overseas deployments. This creates a unique opportunity for the Indonesian Navy to draw on partners’ know-how, therefore reducing the learning curve. Moreover, their presence creates real opportunities to establish a bilateral or multilateral logistics partnership agreement. For example, Indonesia could align deployment schedules with Singapore or Thailand to coordinate replenishment stops and share logistic shipments, limited spare parts, and technical teams, especially for common systems.

Fifth, the Indonesian Navy would not be starting from zero. Thanks to more than a decade of deployments to the Mediterranean under the U.N. Lebanon mission, the Navy’s ships and crews are already familiar with operating far from home, joining a multinational fleet, and transiting the waters where the task force primarily operates.

Finally, Indonesia’s participation would likely be well received. The multinational fleet has long been relatively open to new contributors and the resurgence of piracy in the area since late 2023, driven in part by reduced international patrols, means that new muscle from a growing maritime power like Indonesia is needed. The task force’s leadership structure is also rotational and open, and other Asian navies have previously held the command role. This makes participation more than a deployment: It can become a venue for the Indonesian Navy to learn coalition management skills.

The Price of Blue-Water Experience

Nevertheless, joining Combined Task Force 151 would not be without challenges. The most immediate constraint is resources. One key reason Indonesia was able to sustain long-term participation in the Lebanon mission was that the United Nations covered most, if not all, of the operational cost as a U.N.-mandated peacekeeping operation. In contrast, each participating country in the task force generally covers the cost of its contributions.

While Indonesia’s defense budget has increased significantly under the current administration, those additional funds are being stretched by the ongoing massive land-centric expansion of the Indonesian military. At the same time, Jakarta is considering new international commitments, including plans to dispatch a peacekeeping force with embedded naval assets to Gaza. Taken together, these demands could limit the resources and leadership focus available for a sustained and self-funded deployment.

A second challenge lies in capability readiness. Although Indonesia’s fleet is expanding and becoming more capable, many of its newest hulls are still being fully equipped, integrated, and crewed. It will take time for the Indonesian Navy to build the confidence to deploy its new combatants on long-duration, far-seas missions. This consideration is particularly important because the task force is operationally more demanding than the Lebanon mission due to its task to secure vital international shipping lanes across a much larger area — thus requiring a constant presence that results in higher operational tempo. This helps explain why contributing navies typically deploy frigates or destroyers rather than smaller vessels.

Attacks on both commercial and naval vessels that took place in and around the task force area of operations further increase the complexity and risk compared to the Lebanon operation. However, this also presents an opportunity for the Indonesian Navy to level up its overseas engagement by operating in a more demanding theatre. In this sense, effective participation may require Indonesia to deploy frigates rather than corvettes given their typically superior endurance and firepower.

Some may argue that joining the task force entails geopolitical risks, especially given that the framework operates under the broader U.S.-led Combined Maritime Forces. However, this risk appears manageable. The Combined Maritime Forces currently includes 47 member nations, some of which are non-aligned states and Muslim-majority countries like Indonesia. Framed as a contribution to the protection of global commerce — rather than alignment with or against any single power — specific participation in the multinational counter-piracy fleet should not be hard to justify to both domestic and international audiences.

Ultimately, sustained far-seas operations are the core enabler for Indonesia to fulfil its blue-water ambition. The experience of other navies clearly shows that blue-water status is not defined by having large and advanced platforms alone, but by the willingness and ability to deploy them repeatedly under real-world conditions. For the Indonesian Navy, a long-term overseas mission would provide a practical means to test its force generation mechanisms, which cannot be fully stress-tested through domestic operations. Without such sustained deployments, Indonesia risks creating an increasingly modern fleet whose true potential remains unproven and strategic value remains underexploited.

Muhammad Fauzan Malufti is an Indonesian defense analyst. His analysis mostly focuses on Indonesia’s defense diplomacy, arms modernization, and civil-military relations. He runs @Jatosint on X (formerly Twitter), which tracks national security issues related to Indonesia.

Image: Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Indonesia via Wikimedia Commons