The Giant Next Door: The evolution of Australian Government threat perceptions of Indonesia within the policy development process, 1957-1965

Abstract

Between 1957 and 1965 the Australian Government’s threat perceptions of Indonesia changed from viewing it as a weak but relatively friendly country, to eventually see it by 1965 as posing a ‘direct threat’ to Australia’s security. This thesis analyses how this transition in threat perception occurred within the three-stage policy development process of the Menzies Government. In doing so the thesis links the broader historical literature analysing Australian policy during the period with the more generalised literature analysing the Australian Government’s strategic perceptions of Indonesia.

By analysing the policy development process the thesis is able to make broader conclusions regarding Australia’s strategic history and the way it has perceived threats. The thesis demonstrates that between 1958 and 1964, Indonesia was the most prominent threat in Australian defence planning, frequently being debated and discussed ahead of Communist China, even though it never rivalled the China threat in sheer magnitude. Indonesia was mostly conceived as being a ‘low-level’ threat, but this nevertheless led to a significant shift in Australian defence planning in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The result was a push to create ‘self-supporting’ forces and a focus on the defence of the Australian continent and its maritime approaches, well before these ideas matured and became better known in the 1970s under the ‘Defence of Australia’ concept. Finally, the rise of the Indonesia threat caused a significant rift in Australian defence planning, with the Department of Defence chaired Joint Planning Committee preferring to focus on the worst-case scenario of a strong and hostile Indonesia while, in contrast, the Department of External Affairs chaired Joint Intelligence Committee preferred to focus on the more likely scenario of a low-level Indonesia threat. This difference in focus aggravated tensions in Australia’s defence planning regarding whether to focus on developing Australia’s maritime deterrent capabilities, more suited to resisting a strong and hostile Indonesia, or to focus on developing the Australian Army, more suited towards responding to low-level contingencies on the New Guinea-Indonesian border.

Although Defence and External Affairs remained attentive to providing Cabinet with accurate analysis of Indonesia’s evolving capabilities and intentions, at times the reliability of their assessments was cast into serious doubt by events such as the Indonesian Civil War, the escalation of the West New Guinea dispute, and Sukarno’s ‘Year of Dangerous Living’. Such events tended to cause a general converging of threat perceptions across the Government’s policy machinery towards recognising an increased Indonesia threat, whilst fostering lingering uncertainty regarding Indonesia’s current and future capabilities.