Suharto's Cold War: Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the World

by Mattias Fibiger

Overview

After the murder of senior generals in the Indonesian army by elements of the country's communist party in 1965, General Suharto orchestrated the mass killing of some half a million leftists and fellow travelers. But his ambitions spanned far beyond perpetrating a politicide. Seeking to ensure that communism could never again take root in the archipelago, he constructed a New Order to reverse Indonesia's descent into political instability and economic crisis.

Based on unprecedented access to Indonesian archives and a wealth of international sources, Suharto's Cold War masterfully narrates the first decades of the Suharto regime at the national, regional, and global levels. Suharto mobilized international aid and investment to build his counterrevolutionary dictatorship and ignite processes of economic development. He then aimed to project authoritarianism elsewhere in Southeast Asia by assisting right-wing dictators across the region. International capital made available through the global Cold War enabled Suharto to achieve the dictatorial and developmental ambitions that lay at the heart of his domestic and regional Cold Wars. Material realities at home and abroad disciplined Suharto's political project, while political considerations in Indonesia and around the world shaped his economic programs.

Paying close attention to the interrelationship between the domestic and the international, the political and the economic, Suharto's Cold War makes a pathbreaking contribution to understanding Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197667224
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/07/2023
Series:	OXFORD STUDIES IN INTL HISTORY SERIES
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Mattias Fibiger is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. He is a historian of Asia's twentieth century specializing in political economy and international relations in Southeast Asia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Note on Spelling, Names, and Translation
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Path to Power
Chapter 2: In the Shadow of Vietnam
Chapter 3: A New Order
Chapter 4: An Anti-Chinese Axis
Chapter 5: Internationalizing Counterrevolution
Chapter 6: Capital and Consolidation
Chapter 7: The Travails of Development
Chapter 8: The Age of Oil
Chapter 9: Realignments
Conclusion
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"In Suharto's Cold War, Mattias Fibiger not only situates the consolidation of the Suharto regime in Indonesia in the late 1960s and 1970s within the global Cold War context but also shows the consequences of the anti-communist turn in Indonesia under Suharto for the direction of the Cold War across Southeast Asia during this period. The book thus offers a major contribution to our understanding of the history of modern Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and of the Cold War." — John T. Sidel, London School of Economics and Political Science

"Fibiger's well-researched book provides an incomparably detailed account of an all-important moment in the story of the Cold War in the Third World: the violent ending in the mid-1960s of President Sukarno's project of non-alignment and the founding of President Suharto's US-allied dictatorship. By revealing what the Cold War looked like from Jakarta, Fibiger re-orients our understanding of international relations history." — John Roosa, author of Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965-1966 in Indonesia

"Mattias Fibiger's Suharto's Cold War is an important and ambitious study. Here, Fibiger provides compelling evidence that Suharto not only played a central role in orchestrating the annihilation of the Left in Indonesia, but also a vanguard role in promoting anti-communist authoritarian rule throughout Southeast Asia. He presents Suharto as a savvy yet brutal leader capable of negotiating changing political alliances over his three decades in power, while reshaping the Indonesian state in his own image. In doing so, Fibiger presents a multi-lensed approach to Indonesia's modern history, which helps to explain the enduring prominence of the military and New Order oligarchs in Indonesia today." — Jess Melvin, The University of Sydney

"The book contributes to a greater understanding of how a post-colonial country navigates its domestic interest amidst immense global ideological tensions...Mattias Fibiger's Suharto's Cold War presents a highly original study to help make sense of the actions of Indonesia under Suharto in its interaction with other countries both in the region and beyond. The book reaffirms the importance of understanding the domestic context and political situation in explaining a country's foreign policy behaviour." — Yosef Djakababa, South East Asia Research

"Suharto's Cold War is a major achievement and promises to be a key reference in years to come for the study of Indonesia, the Global Cold War,Third World counterrevolution, and the IR of Southeast Asia." — Deepak Nair, The Australian National University, Canberra

From the Publisher