French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Indonesia has just purchased 42 Rafales from France. His Defense Minister, Florence Parly, signed the contract with her Indonesian counterpart, Prabowo Subianto, on 10 February 2022.

However, hours later the Indonesian side clarified that the transaction involved only 6 aircraft and that the other 36 are on hold.

A little later still, the US State Department announced that it had sold 36 F-15s to Indonesia.

In September 2021, the United States and the United Kingdom had succeeded in obtaining the cancellation of a mega-contract for the sale of French submarines to Australia [1]. President Joe Biden apologized for this double-crossing.

Everything seems to indicate that Washington might be up to the same tricks in Indonesia.

[1] “US to equip Finnish Air Force”, Voltaire Network, 14 December 2021.