Indo-Pacific — 2026-09-27

Indonesia Commissions First Aircraft Carrier Former Italian Giuseppe Garibaldi as KRI Sriwijaya

BLUFIndonesia's new carrier delivers a diplomatic headline but lacks a fixed concept of operations, confirmed fixed-wing aircraft, or interoperable communications to function as a combat platform.

Indonesia formally commissioned KRI Sriwijaya-100, the former Italian Navy carrier ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi, at a ceremony at Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta on Thursday, with TNI Commander Gen. Agus Subiyanto presiding and Italian Navy Chief Adm. Giuseppe Berutti Bergotto attending 12. The 180.2-meter, 13,850-tonne vessel, retired from Italian service in 2024, sailed roughly 6,870 nautical miles from Italy over 25 days with port calls in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Sri Lanka before reaching Jakarta on September 18 3. Indonesia's navy chief of staff said NATO-standard communications systems aboard the ship will be replaced with Indonesian equipment, a retrofit expected to take four to five months; officials have not decided whether the carrier will operate before or after the work 3. The ship is designed to operate helicopters and STOVL aircraft, including the AV-8B Harrier during its Italian service, and Indonesia's Ministry of Defense described its role as supporting maritime command operations, defense diplomacy, and humanitarian assistance 12.

Analysis
Whether Sriwijaya-100 becomes an interoperable command node or a stand-alone asset hinges on the NATO-to-Indonesian communications retrofit, and Jakarta's failure to fix whether the carrier operates before or after that four-to-five-month overhaul indicates no settled concept of operations yet exists. With only helicopters confirmed for near-term flights and no Harrier-equivalent in Indonesia's inventory, the ship's initial value lies in command-and-control and humanitarian missions, not strike capability. The commissioning may instead function primarily as diplomatic and domestic messaging ahead of full technical integration. Reporting rests on convergent sourcing anchored by Indonesia's Ministry of Defense, with wire outlets corroborating ceremony and technical details, though none independently verifies the retrofit timeline. Naval modernization signaling to regional audiences currently outpaces the navy's demonstrated capacity to operate the platform.

4 sources

KRI Sriwijaya-100 Resmi Memperkuat Kekuatan Pertahanan Maritim Indonesia - Kementerian Pertahanan RI (Indonesian Ministry of Defense)
Indonesia commissions first aircraft carrier Kri Sriwijaya-100 - The Star (Malaysia)
Indonesias first aircraft carrier, former Giuseppe Garibaldi, enters service - Naval Today
Indonesia reflags a former Italian warship as its first aircraft carrier - The Washington Post