War From the Ground Up (27 page)

The conflict proper began in the following third phase, when the formation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963 triggered a violent Indonesian response. Symbolically, a mob smashed the British Embassy in Jakarta on that day.
⁶
More seriously, from late September, much bigger and more aggressive raids were conducted by Indonesian regular forces into Sarawak and Sabah. Indonesia began limited (and unsuccessful) sea and airborne raids on peninsular Malaysia in August 1964 that were conducted intermittently until March 1965. The fourth and final phase opened in October 1965. A successful Indonesian army counter-coup against an attempted PKI coup brought General Suharto to power. This resulted in the Confrontation winding down to the old pattern of guerrilla raids. Secret peace feelers were sent to Kuala Lumpur in March 1966, which resulted in the Confrontation formally ending on 11 August 1966.

In diplomatic terms, the central problem the British faced from the outset of the Confrontation was to convince the United States that British policy was not a self-serving colonial construct, but supported the fight against communism in Southeast Asia. The US was worried that Indonesia, with a population of 100 million, and with the PKI as the third largest communist party in the world, would become communist.

Matthew Jones in
Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961–65
(2002) notes the powerful effect on President Kennedy of First Secretary Khrushchev's famous January 1961 speech encouraging anti-colonial revolutions in Africa and Asia. The effect in relation to the Indonesian situation was underscored by the fact that the Indonesian Army Chief of Staff, General Nasution, and the Foreign Minister, Dr Subandrio, were at that very time in Moscow to sign a $400 million contract for military hardware.
⁷
Jones also notes how by 1963 Indonesia's relationship with China, advertised by the visit of the People's Republic of China (PRC) Chairman, Liu Shaoqi, to Jakarta in April of that year, also became a pressing US concern, especially in the Southeast Asian regional context, in which several countries (not least Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) appeared under threat.
⁸

Britain's international position at the outset of the Confrontation was difficult, caught between Commonwealth and Cold War interests. Britain simply could not ignore Kennedy's position which was that, in defeating Indonesia militarily, Sukarno would lose face and the Indonesian Army might lose its political power, leaving the PKI dominant.

British policy-makers approached the problem with a pragmatic mindset. This was not pragmatism as a formal strategic approach; there is no evidence of that. Nor was it pragmatism in terms of trying to find the answer through a conscious notion of ‘common sense', which is often associated with being pragmatic, because contradictory views on policy could legitimately claim to be based on common sense. Thus there were significant private disagreements on policy in 1963 between senior British officials. The key seam was formed between those who advocated negotiating a settlement with Indonesia (such as Peter Thorneycroft, the Minister of Defence) and those who wanted to hold the line militarily (such as Rab Butler, the Foreign Secretary). Both points of view were not particularly ideological; they were both anchored in practical ‘common sense' considerations. The credibility of these views is reflected in the nature of Cabinet discussions, which entertained both
seriously. Nor were more genuinely ideological ideas seen as suspect. The Cold War ‘domino theory' played a significant role in shaping British policy. So what then was pragmatic?

Pragmatism can be identified as the mentality by which the coterie of senior British policy-makers, civil servants and soldiers involved in the Borneo Confrontation dealt with the problem on its own terms. They recognised ideological and doctrinal lenses through which to understand the issue, but were not slaves to them; they modified or discarded ideological positions when they did not suit the government's perception of its national interests. In this way the issue was dealt with not generically, but in terms particular to itself.

In January 1964 Butler presented the Cabinet with a major policy paper on Indonesia that reviewed possible options.
⁹
As this was the British government's key policy document in the conflict, it merits particular attention. The paper was acutely sensitive to how the conflict should be conceptually configured in relation to various target audiences. This had two benefits. First, the strategic narrative was formally considered at the highest level of government, which set definite and clear parameters within which the armed forces, the diplomatic service and other agencies could develop operational plans. Second, the government was clear in its own mind about which audiences were priorities, and evaluated various courses of action against the degree of purchase they would have in relation to those strategic audiences (the term ‘strategic audience' was not actually used, but the sense was the same, of an audience against whom a policy aim was defined).

The first option was offensive military action. Butler recalled the Dutch failure to check Indonesian guerrillas during the war of Indonesian independence (1945–9); this was despite the fact that they were technologically superior and had twice inflicted major defeats on the Indonesians (even capturing Sukarno himself at one point): ‘The importance of this is that no military action we contemplate could make it militarily impossible for the Indonesians to continue and even intensify guerrilla activity'. A military offensive could only succeed by breaking the will of the Indonesian government or their authority over their people. Yet, ‘in the light of past experience it seems unlikely that military action on our part could achieve this, unless such action were of so drastic a character (i.e. nuclear bombing) that it would invite retaliation from, for instance, the Soviet Union'. Moreover, overt military
action would probably hinder Britain's international position ‘because international opinion generally does not regard fomenting a rebellion in someone else's country (which is all the Indonesians admit to doing) as justifying the victim in openly carrying the war into his tormentor's country'.

The second option was an appeal to the UN, which would bring the currently ‘undeclared' conflict into the open and put pressure on Indonesia. While Malaysia had more support there than Indonesia, there was little support in the wider international community for the United Kingdom's military presence in Southeast Asia. Approaching the UN, argued Butler, would probably lead to either a vote of sympathy for Malaysia without sanctions against Indonesia, or a demand that Malaysia and Indonesia resume negotiations, but almost certainly not under the conditions demanded by Malaysia.

Even if the UN could be persuaded to send peace-keepers or observers, they would hamper the operations of British regular forces more than Indonesian infiltration and subversion. Essentially, the more the UN intervened, the more Malaysia would be subjected to international pressure to find a negotiated settlement: ‘and once negotiations are internationalised, Malaysia will be subjected to pressure, as the price of peace with Indonesia, to abandon her defence agreement with us [the Anglo-Malaysian Defence Agreement of 1957] and to deprive us of the Singapore base'.
¹⁰
On balance, recourse to the UN would ‘not significantly assist to end the Indonesian Confrontation on acceptable terms'.

All of these options would bring the conflict into the open. However, the benefits of this would be limited to Commonwealth and US public opinion. Elsewhere it would probably encourage a resumption of negotiations rather than support for Malaysia and Britain:

Its greatest disadvantage [bringing the conflict into the open] would be to diminish the range of options available to us. As long as our conflict with Indonesia remains unofficial and bilateral, we retain the initiative. We can choose either to intensify it or to seek a settlement. Once we either internationalise it or turn it into a war (declared or undeclared) against a wicked aggressor, Her Majesty's Government will be restricted in their freedom of action by both public opinion at home and by international pressure.
¹¹

Hence the policy paper advanced that bringing the conflict into the open would cause other problems, as the ambiguous conflict would evolve into a situation where neither side could withdraw without
admitting defeat: ‘the Indonesian Government, whose pretence that they are only giving limited help to an indigenous resistance movement, however irritating in its mendacity, does at least leave the possibility (which we should be careful not to destroy) of withdrawing from the Confrontation without intolerable loss of prestige'. The paper also stressed the limitation of information to avoid the British public perceiving that the military had been committed to an interminable conflict.

The course of action recommended by Butler was accepted, acted upon, and remained the basis of British policy during the Confrontation. This entailed: ‘a prolonged but restricted struggle to protect Malaysia against Indonesia'.
¹²
This was not an ideal policy, namely because it sought to manage and contain the issue, rather than to offer a more definite solution. The plan was essentially to make Indonesia weary of the struggle, especially under the pressure of internal, especially economic, stresses. Indonesian weariness was to be expedited by soliciting international diplomatic and economic pressure.

Butler's policy paper steered a course between a set of bad options. It dealt with the problem in its particular terms, in the sense that each policy option was evaluated in terms of how given strategic audiences would react, namely: the UN, the US, the Indonesian army, the Indonesian communist party, President Sukarno, the new Malaysian state, Commonwealth allies and the British public. The utility of a pragmatic mentality realised itself when, by deliberately having retained flexibility in the presentation of the conflict, which in this particular context made sense, Britain was able to remain agile in terms of its strategic narrative.

With regard to the Indonesian Confrontation, the British government advantageously adapted its strategic narrative to what it perceived to be the British national interest as the international situation evolved. Two key moments of evolution can be identified.

The first, which Matthew Jones emphasises in his diplomatic account, followed Lyndon Johnson's assumption of the presidency after President Kennedy's death. In parallel, and in the forefront of US foreign policy, was the significant escalation in the US commitment to Vietnam. The British government deliberately altered its strategic narrative in late 1963/early 1964 by equating the US engagement in Vietnam with the British fighting in Borneo. This required a narrative that presented both conflicts as part of a larger fight over ‘Western interests' in Southeast Asia. One of the key British arguments was that retention of British
military bases in Malaysia, particularly in Singapore, would support this. John Subritzky in
Confronting Sukarno
(2000) stresses the significance of the Australian and New Zealand influence in the repackaging of the Commonwealth position.
¹³

The new narrative was put forward at quadripartite talks in February 1964 between the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, which were followed by a separate meeting between Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home and President Johnson. The result of this last meeting was that, despite the endurance of US concerns as to Indonesia's internal political stability, the US gave its tacit political support to Britain in Borneo. In return, the US received British political support for its commitment to Vietnam.
¹⁴
This turned out to be a significant diplomatic achievement for the British government. Yet, as Subritzky argues, the actual linkage between the conflicts was ‘not substantial'.
¹⁵

The second key evolution in the British strategic narrative occurred shortly after fighting in the Borneo Confrontation had ended. While the Vietnam War was reaching its climax, the British government in 1967 announced that it would withdraw all forces from Malaysia and Singapore by the mid 1970s, and in January 1968 accelerated this to 1971. The British government's rapid jettisoning of the concept of ‘Western interests' in Southeast Asia illustrates the pragmatic quality of British strategic thought: financial imperatives were prioritised in the face of the huge expense of maintaining forces east of Suez, and British troops were kept out of Vietnam. However, it also shows the limits of pragmatism. Britain did not follow through on the commitments to its US, Australian and New Zealand allies (who were all militarily involved in Vietnam) that stemmed from a strategic concept of a unified Western position in Southeast Asia which Britain had itself previously pushed for. Pragmatism may be the most effective way to associate strategic actions with the national interest, but its value in more general philosophical terms evidently depends on how the national interest is defined in a given case.

This is exemplified in a powerful vignette that Matthew Jones presents to illustrate the official US reaction to Britain's announcement of withdrawal east of Suez. In January 1968 Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State (1961–9), said to an American colleague how he could not believe that the British viewed that ‘free aspirin and false teeth were more important than Britain's role in the world'.
¹⁶
Rusk's argument
would be divisive in Britain today, and illustrates that the utility of pragmatism in the case of British strategy in the Borneo Confrontation was as a mentality used to formulate strategy, which is to be distinguished from the ideological values that inform a given policy position.

To this point the case study has examined the theme of pragmatism above the jungle canopy, in the diplomatic arena. But a pragmatic mindset was also a feature below the canopy where the fighting actually took place, to which we shall now turn.