Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961–1965

The Vietnam War, particularly for scholars of American foreign relations, has dominated studies of Western involvement in South East Asia during the 1960s. The destructiveness and significance of that conflict makes this entirely understandable, yet this emphasis has led to comparative neglect for the major events and upheavals taking place elsewhere in the region. Above all, another destabilizing conflict erupted during the course of 1963, as a new state, the Federation of Malaysia, was brought into being under the protective wing of its British patron, in the face of the hostility of its vast neighbour, Indonesia. The resulting Malaysian–Indonesian konfrontasi (confrontation) saw a low-intensity guerrilla war fought out across the inhospitable terrain of Borneo, punctuated by raids into peninsular Malaya itself, as Jakarta tried to undermine the fledgling Federation before it could take root. An official agreement
ending hostilities and resuming normal diplomatic relations between the two states was eventually concluded in August 1966, but in the meantime both had also witnessed profound internal transformations.