The Limits of Russia-Southeast Asia Military Ties

While Vladimir Putin’s unprecedented appearance at 2018’s East Asia Summit in November highlighted Russia’s ongoing diplomatic efforts to boost ties with Southeast Asian states, equally important are the inroads Moscow has been trying to make in the defense realm with ASEAN countries in recent years.

The gains that Moscow has recorded are notable. Beyond individual headline-grabbing deals, they cumulatively suggest that a strategic and comprehensive effort by Moscow to deepen security ties with Southeast Asian countries is underway. At the same time, while those successes deserve emphasis, they also conceal the continued challenges Russia faces in improving ties with ASEAN countries.

Russian defense relationships with Southeast Asian states are not new. Moscow has ideological or historical links with several countries dating back to the Cold War, and its status as a leading military partner has continued over the past few decades, through mostly focused on a few countries – chiefly Indonesia, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

Recent years have seen Russia try to boost these ties further as part of a broader pattern of increased activism abroad, particularly in Asia. Some of these efforts have been met with success as Southeast Asian states see benefits, whether in terms of maintaining a diverse array of partners or purchasing cheaper equipment.

Some of this success has come in the form of individual sales, such as fighter aircraft to Myanmar. But more strategic aspects include inking new, wide-ranging military agreements and establishing regional maintenance centers, which have targeted not just traditional partners, but also U.S. treaty allies Thailand and the Philippines.

These moves unquestionably represent new and notable inroads for Moscow in terms of its defense relations with Southeast Asian states, even compared to just five years ago. Nonetheless, a focus on these realized opportunities alone also conceals some of the lingering challenges that Russia faces even as it makes inroads in expanding ties.

The first challenge has to do with the nature of Russian equipment itself. While Russian military equipment may be cheaper up front, it is not always the most reliable in terms of longer-term maintenance. This is less of an issue when it comes to one-off, small purchases of arms or ammunition, but becomes more pronounced when it comes to bigger, more expensive purchases such as aircraft.

A recent case that reinforced this challenge was Malaysian Defense Minister Mohamad Sabu’s revelation earlier this year that only four out of the 28 fighter jets Malaysia had ordered from Russia were now functioning. The issue was subsequently raised directly by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad during his summit meeting with Vladimir Putin.

A second challenge is that Russia is facing greater competition from other actors in the defense realm in Southeast Asia. As noted earlier, because Russia is often viewed as just one of several sources for Southeast Asians looking to buy defense equipment, the key question is not just what Moscow offers, but how it fares relative to other players in the region on a growing list of indicators including price, quality, and alignment with domestic priorities, including developing domestic defense industries.

From that perspective, competition has gradually heated up in Southeast Asia. Increasingly, Russian weapons are competing not just against Western offerings from the United States or European countries, which come with higher price tags and expectations on rights, but also newer players that offer other alternatives, such as China, which often has greater economic leverage over countries in the region.

A third challenge relates to the scrutiny that Russia’s troubling behavior on the international stage motivates. While Southeast Asian states themselves may be willing to delink concerns they may have about Moscow from some collaboration in the defense realm, other countries, including some of their other partners, are more circumspect, and may be willing to either impose costs or limit collaboration as a result.

Of particular concern is the United States, which under the Trump administration now has sanctions on the books targeting countries deemed to have defense links with Russia. While the Pentagon has shown some flexibility in obtaining waivers for the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) in certain cases, CAATSA nonetheless reinforces the point that it is difficult to insulate defense ties from Russia’s broader behavior.

Of course, this is not to say that Russia and Southeast Asian states cannot overcome or manage some of these challenges. Russia, to its credit, has proven to be creative in how it advances defense ties, pushing easier sells such as port calls with newer partners like the Philippines, and maximizing coverage of symbolic events such as regionwide equipment exhibitions.

Southeast Asian states, for their part, continue to to maximize their flexibility as best they can. Thailand has slow-walked some strategic aspects of defense collaboration with Russia even as it continues to gradually purchase more equipment, while Vietnam and Indonesia have thus far escaped CAATSA imposition while boosting defense ties with both Washington and Moscow.

Nonetheless, these limits should give one pause whenever the next round of headlines emerges on a specific Russian defense interaction with a Southeast Asian state. As with other major powers that engage with the region, beyond symbolism, any substantive opportunities that are realized should be weighed against the challenges that remain in order to gain a fuller assessment of how well or badly they are faring.