RMAF and BAF are blood bothers with a shared disregard for national security of their respective countries.
Both suffer from ADHD when it comes to buying anything useful.
RMAF has made progress in recent years but the fleet is still quite pathetic considering their economy and geopolitical landscape.
They are pragmatic due to their economic problem, they face slower economic growth if we compare with ASEAN countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Philippine. With this Covid pandemic, their problem is getting much worse, while Indonesia is still able to just post minus 2 percent growth last year, Malaysia economy was severely hit and posted minus 6 % growth in 2020. For 2021, Malaysia economy is projected by their Government to grow about 3-4 % due to prolong Pandemic situation where Fitch Rating even downgrade their previous projection on Malaysia into Zero percent growth this year. Actually I still believe Malaysia can get at least 3 % growth this year, but this growth is still not enough to bring back their GDP like in 2019.
On the other hand RCEP will get effective maybe around 2023 and most ASEAN nations inside it will try to strengthen their competitiveness since the competition will be more fierce than before. Any one wants to be a winner in this FTA framework, and it includes my nation, Indonesia. Indonesia is also pragmatic and focus more in bringing the financial healthiness into our economy after debt to GDP ratio increases from 30 % (2019) into 43 % this year ( end of 2021) due to Economic stimulus and Health/Social spending to cushion Pandemic impact. We have hard experience during Asian Financial Crisis and dont want the same experience happen again in the future.
This is why ambitious Prabowo plan on Rafale/F 15 EX/ FREEM get hurdles to be executed due to conservative and strategic calculation by our economic team (MoF, MoP, MoI). Not surprising that instead of ordering Rafale, our government choose C 130 J SuperHercules and additional T 50 Golden Eagle to be acquired soon. Hercules is needed because we only have 23 of them and many are already old while T 50 Golden Eagle is choosen since we are preparing more MRCA in the future and get at least 11 MRCA squadrons to fulfil our MEF (Minimum Essential Force) plan.
In term of MRCA, the highest possible acquisition is F 16 V for just 10-12 planes as our MoF only approve 1.1 billion USD foreign loan for this Jokowi final term (2020-2024). This is intended to make our former F 5 squadron get permanent fighters while Today they only can operate 3 SU 30 which is borrowed from other squadron.
