Facing shared threats from terrorism, piracy and cross-border crime, Indonesia and Malaysia reaffirmed their defense partnership during a high-level military meeting in April 2025 as they seek to deepen operational coordination and bolster regional stability.
The engagement between top commanders comes ahead of the 18th High Level Committee (HLC) Malindo, where the nations are expected to advance joint strategies to counter transnational security challenges and manage border issues through sustained military diplomacy.
“This visit further strengthens our commitment to deepening the relationship between Indonesia and Malaysia, especially in the field of defense,” Gen. Agus Subiyanto, commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI), said during his mid-April meeting with Gen. Datuk Mohd Nizam Jaffar, chief of the Malaysian Armed Forces, at the TNI headquarters in East Jakarta.
The HLC Malindo, meanwhile, is designed to “strengthen defense cooperation between Indonesia and Malaysia amid increasingly complex regional security dynamics,” Khairul Fahmi, co-founder of Indonesia’s Institute for Security and Strategic Studies, told FORUM. He said the meeting, which is expected to be held in Jakarta in August 2025, aims to bolster border coordination and promote joint exercises, among other priorities.
The Malacca Strait, a maritime choke point between Malaysia and Indonesia, is a vital shipping route for global trade. The strait and surrounding waters are vulnerable to piracy and armed robbery. While coordinated patrols by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have reduced such incidents in recent years, the first three months of 2025 saw a spike, with 36 incidents compared to 11 during the same period in 2024.
Fahmi said Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur aim to align operational visions at the policy and technical levels. He highlighted the need for force interoperability, intelligence sharing, and patrols in sensitive areas such as the Sulawesi Sea and the nations’ shared border on the island of Borneo.
Strategic imperatives such as global shipping are driving bilateral cooperation in vulnerable maritime corridors, Pudji Astuti, an analyst at Indonesia’s Defense Ministry, told FORUM.
While the Indonesian Navy is highly capable, it must operate across the nation’s 3.1 million-square-kilometer maritime zone, making coordination with Malaysia vital, particularly in the Malacca Strait, she said.
Initiatives such as the trilateral Malacca Strait patrols “have shown tangible progress in countering armed robbery at sea and militant threats,” Budi Riyanto, an international relations lecturer at Indonesia’s London School of Public Relations, told FORUM.
Addressing transnational threats, including terrorism, piracy, smuggling and human trafficking, “are the main drivers of the change in bilateral cooperation from merely symbolic to more operational,” with coordinated patrols and intelligence exchanges becoming increasingly institutionalized, Fahmi said.
