Subject: Re: New defense partnership with Indonesia announced

The second bolded part is music to my ears: Indonesia has extensive ship yards and can take ~900,000 dry weight tons in their docks. That means maintenance and repair depots for fully crewed US Navy vessels.

What is *really* important, to the Pirate King, is he could charge tolls to transit the Malacca Strait, just like he has floated the notion of charging tolls to transit Hormuz.

Steve