Konfrontasi 1964
Since the 1961 proposal of a Malaysian federation uniting the territories of the British Commonwealth in South East Asia, regional tensions have ratcheted up between the newly-formed Malaysia and its neighbor, the Republic of Indonesia. The government of Indonesian President Sukarno, who had characterized the formation of the federation as a neo-colonial project to retain local British hegemony, announced in January 1963 an active policy of Konfrontasi, or confrontation towards Malaysia after a Bruneian independence movement was quashed by Commonwealth forces in 1962. In his 1964 address to the nation on Indonesian Independence Day, President Sukarno declared that it was to be the “Year of living dangerously,” while simultaneously launching naval and air landings on the mainland Malay peninsula. The stage is now set for an escalation of the previously low-intensity conflict between the newly-formed Malaysia, its Commonwealth allies, and their rival Indonesia. Time will tell if the tightrope antics of Indonesia will result in the dissolution of the federation, the end of Sukarno’s “Guided Democracy,” or a descent into all-out war.