The Malayan Emergency (1948-1960) and the Indonesian Confrontation (1963-1966) represent significant turning points in both Australian military history and the history of Australia’s international relations. An understanding of these conflicts also helps explain why Australia became involved in the Vietnam War (1962-1972).
The Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation were disputes over the fate of former British colonial possessions in South-East Asia. They were end-of-empire conflicts, and they were the last occasions in which Australians fought alongside other Commonwealth forces in what was basically a British cause. At the same time, however, the Emergency and the Confrontation represented increasing Australian involvement in developments in South-East Asia, and therefore suggested the emergence of a foreign policy that would be ideologically pro-Western, but no longer oriented towards Europe.
The Emergency and the Confrontation were the Australian military’s first experiences in counter-insurgency operations. The communist guerrillas in Malaya and the Indonesian infiltrators in Borneo were practising what has become known as ‘asymmetrical warfare’. In other words, their resources, methods, and aims were vastly different to those of their opponents. Marking a contrast with ‘conventional’ modern conflicts up to the Korean War (1950-1953), asymmetrical warfare (including terrorism) became the norm in the late twentieth century.
The Commonwealth forces’ counter-insurgency campaigns in the Emergency and the Confrontation were also significant because – against prevailing fears and expectations – they succeeded. The Malayan Emergency in particular led to the belief that a method of defeating communist insurgencies had been found. Western leaders saw similarities between Malaya and Vietnam, but failed to recognise differences such as the existence in Vietnam of a tradition of resistance to foreign invaders. The Vietnamese communists were able to associate themselves with this tradition, thereby elevating their essentially ideological cause into a popular struggle for national liberation.
A new orientation towards South-East Asia and a move out of the orbit of Britain and into that of America were the preconditions to Australia’s involvement in Vietnam. But while the Australian Government had hesitated over Britain’s requests for assistance in Malaya and Borneo, Prime Minister Menzies was eager to send troops to Vietnam – even before the Americans had asked. Menzies’ optimistic appraisal of the outcome of the conflict in Vietnam, and of the contribution that Australians might make to that outcome, was based almost wholly on the experience of the Malayan Emergency.
View map showing Malaysia and Indonesia.
2009 Australian involvement in South-East Asian Conflicts