March 2021
Article
Modern Asian Studies

A Diplomatic Counterrevolution: Indonesian Diplomacy and the Invasion of East Timor

Format:Print

Abstract

This article reinterprets the Indonesian invasion of East Timor as a "diplomatic counterrevolution." Using the central archival records of the Suharto regime for the first time in English-language scholarship, it argues that Indonesian diplomats pursued diplomacy in Southeast Asia, non-aligned and Afro-Asian networks, Western capitals, international institutions, and global capital markets to secure international support for their impending invasion of East Timor. The success of this diplomatic offensive tipped the balance of power in Jakarta away from advocates of restraint like Adam Malik and toward advocates of annexation like Ali Murtopo. The diplomacy behind Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor reveals that the architecture of globalization, lauded by some scholars as inherently liberatory, was far more agnostic—capable of being turned to counterrevolutionary purposes in addition to revolutionary ones. And it suggests that diplomacy itself had been counterrevolutionized, as geopolitical and geoeconomic change combined to make the international system, particularly the states of the Global South, far more hostile to state-making claims and transformative worldmaking projects.