Military exercise amid crisis

Practice makes perfect: Smith speaking during a news conference ahead of the Super Garuda Shield 2022 joint excercise, at the US embassy in Jakarta. — Reuters

Some 4,000 soldiers mostly from Indonesia and the United States will conduct a joint military exercise next week that underscores “the importance we place on a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” a senior US military official said.

The annual “Super Garuda Shield” exercise, which the United States called “significantly larger in scope and scale than previous exercises”, comes against a backdrop of heightened tensions with China over the latter’s growing assertiveness in the region.