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  • 2023
  • Book

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

By: Mattias Fibiger
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:384
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Abstract

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 also 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.

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.

Keywords

Indonesia; Cold War; Political Economy; Foreign Aid; International Investment; International Relations; International Finance; History; War; Economic Systems; Government and Politics; Indonesia; Southeast Asia

Citation

Fibiger, Mattias. Suharto's Cold War: Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.
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About The Author

Mattias E. Fibiger

Business, Government and the International Economy
→More Publications

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  • Review of Widy Novantyo Susanto, "U.S.-Japanese Relations, ASEAN, and Economic Power in Southeast Asia, 1969–1981," April 2024 By: Mattias Fibiger
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