/u/veratrin

To understand this, you must understand how the Big Elephant in the Arena -- namely the United Sates -- perceived the Indonesian National Revolution.

Indië verloren, rampspoed geboren

The relationship between newly-independent Indonesia and the Netherlands was fraught from the get-go. See for example, 1, 2, 3.

At the end of WW2, the US had followed the same indecision (or indifference, depending on your view) toward the looming conflict between colonial interests and emerging nationalism that it displayed during the fighting days of WW2. Provably, it bypassed almost all of Indonesia and Vietnam, and most of Malaysia, in spite of pleas from the Dutch, French, and British for help in securing those colonies back for themselves. Roosevelt may have been cited as saying that he wanted "to discontinue colonialization," however this meant restraining US activities to focus on marching toward Japan's home islands. As a result, nationalists in those regions were perfectly positioned to begin their movements toward independence, and in the Dutch East Indies this was proclaimed by Sukarno and Hatta.

Dutch justification for bringing a colonial war to their former Dutch East Indies is that they needed the economic resources of their colonies to regain their strength, and to become effective allies of the US in the coming fight against Communism in Europe. This was expressed in the slogan Indië verloren, rampspoed geboren. The Truman administration, fearful of USSR's inroads in Europe, accepted this stance. Critics contended that Truman was being shortsighted, and that it over-emphasized the importance of helping their allies in Europe at the cost of rising anti-US enmity everywhere else. Another line of rationale was that if the Dutch failed to re-gain their East Indies, a power vacuum would arise that the British and French (nor the US) could fill, thus allowing the USSR a gap into which they could project their influence.

However, when the Dutch launched the Police Action they faced opposition almost everywhere, even if they were largely not yet fully organized with each other. The Dutch leveraged a combination of post-war loans, British military presence, and available British war materiel. The 1945-1947 period saw chaotic fighting with all sides committing atrocities against opposing civilian and military groups, prisoners of war, civilians recently liberated from internment camps.

The Specter of Communism

By this point, the US was becoming concerned that continuing instability in Indonesia would provide an inroad for Communism: and it did. To quote George F. Kennan's communication to US Secretary of State George C. Marshall in December 1948, "Curiously enough, the most crucial issue at the moment in our struggle with the Kremlin is probably the problem of Indonesia." In short, the Asianists in US government had raised their profile relative to the Europeanists.

It was known that the Dutch East Indies had a large population and significant mineral wealth -- a key flashpoint in the new emerging world order. But Sukarno and Hatta's suppression of the 1948 Communist uprising in Madiun demonstrated to the US that they may end up being friendly to US interests in the region.

But, how to rationalize the perceived Dutch dependence on their (former) colony, and the Indonesia wish for independence? Enter the insistence on a weak federal republic, the call for a Republic of the United States of Indonesia (RUSI). The Dutch still had significant economic goals to pursue in the negotiations. Thus, they launched their last major offensive at the end of 1948.

The US and UN strongly opposed this offensive and forced the Dutch to negotiate. Unable to secure further loans -- the cost of the Police Action had risen to 20% of the Dutch national budget -- the Dutch had no choice. Truman also threatened to withhold further Marshall Plan aid. Indonesian negotiators agreed to a federation, RUSI, in a symbolic union with the Netherlands. They also agreed to return and respect the properties of Dutch companies and to allow Dutch nationals to continue to control those companies. This satisfied the goals of all sides: stability in SE Asia under theoretical Dutch guidance, maintenance of Dutch economic interests, and theoretical independence for Indonesia.

However, the Dutch insisted that RUSI assume the total cost of war, a magnificent 6 billion guilders in debt ($1.7 billion USD), and income from exports of tin and foreign exchange!!! The translation of this, that RUSI had to assume the cost of war against it. Unsurprisingly, Indonesians refused, instead offering to assume debts but only up to 1942. The US envoy finally forced a compromise that RUSI accept the agreement to assume 4.3 billion guilders of debt, and at the same time that West Papua remain under Dutch control. All this in exchange of promise of aid from the US which didn't come -- this is for another post.

From RUSI to a Unitary Republic

RUSI was an unwieldy state. Rebellions such as APRA (who demanded a fully independent Pasundan in West Java) was a challenge. However, the successful suppression of APRA led to absorption of the Pasundan state by the Republic of Indonesia. As emergency powers were declared, anti-Dutch and anti-RUSI sentiment rose and under pressure from Jakarta, constituent states of RUSI were dis-empowered and absorbed. Pragmatically, Java (and in particular Jakarta) was the most populated area by far, so as the disproportional political powers of the constituent states were dismantled through emergency decree, so did their political independence in the absence of overt Dutch support.

Not all was well as the Republic of Indonesia was formed in 1950. There was widespread social upheaval, regional tension, and challenges to the government. On one hand, the formation and rise of the national armed forces strengthened government power and unity of the nation. On the other hand, Sukarno's popularity did not lead to political unity.

There were notable regional revolts, many of which followed the territorial lines of the member states of RUSI, such as South Maluku (RMS), PRRI-Permesta movement, and Darul Islam in West Java. RMS had many former soldiers who fought for the Dutch, and they were majority Christian. The US supported PRRI-Permesta, which was associated with Sutan Syahrir, as they feared Sukarno's increasing alignment with Communist powers elsewhere, and they wished to protect investments in the oilfields in Sumatra. And as the name suggests, Darul Islam wanted to form an Islamic state in West Java.

Of course, US policy changed radically as Sukarno was replaced by Suharto, who swiftly brought Indonesian politics to be strongly anti-Communist, much to the benefit of US interest. This led to US support of Suharto's centralist, Java-centric policy, at the cost of regional autonomy.

References

• J. Bresnan, Indonesia: The Great Transition, ISBN-13: 978-0742540118, 2005.

• R.E. Elson, Constructing the Nation: Ethnicity, Race Modernity and Citizenship in Early Indonesian Thought, Asian Ethnicity (2005) 6 (3): 145-160.