AHC: Escalate the Malay Confrontation

Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia–Malaysia_confrontation

Between 1963 - 66, there was a small somewhat undeclared war between the Commonwealth of Nations and the recently formed Indonesia. The Indonesians, in essence, fought due to their disagreement with the formation of the Federation of Malaysia.

The combat was low-level ground fighting that never really exploded into anything bigger.

But, I offer a AHC due primarily to my curiousity...can the Malay Confrontation grow bigger?

Could a minor series of in essence border clashes over the existence of Malaysia turn into all-out war or something of a vastly more serious nature in South East Asia. Can you turn the Malay Confrontation into the Malay War/something worse than what happened OTL?
 
Britain had escalation dominance throughout the entire episode. They had the HMS Victorious carrier battle group do a freedom of navigation exercise through Indonesia during the crisis and deployed V Bombers to Malaysia during the crisis. Indeed the RAF flew V Bombers low and slow over the Indonesian side of the border on moonlit nights to remind the TNI who was the real big kid on the block.

The Indonesians had to operate at a level below that which would elicit a Carrier Battle Group and V Bomber response.

They did fly some obsolete planes around where they shouldn't, perhaps the Commonwealth forces could have shot some of those down.
 
You'd have to to get either the Soviets or the Chinese involved. Given how well liked the Chinese are in the region it would be more likely that the Indonesians would look to the Soviet Union for support. The Soviets or Chinese could see the confontation as a way to divert Commonwealth attention away from Vietnam, and itnwould almost certainly work. If the Indonesians are getting modern weapons and training from the Communists and using them against Commonwealth forces in the region then there is practically no chance of Australia and New Zealand joining the Americans in Vietnam. That such a conflict would stretch Britains resources almost to breaking point would be seen as a welcome bonus. A real flash point in this conflict would be West Papua. If the conflict was escalated into a true war instead of the actuall border clashes and sabre rattling the Australia would have to gain control of the province. I can't remember when the Dutch pulled out but the Australians would have to either take over crom the Dutch then or if it's too late for that invade and merge it into the rest of New Guinea.
 
The Indonesians were getting extensive help from the Soviets. They received in the years leading up to the Confrontation Tu16 bombers with anti ship missiles, Mig 21s, 19s and 17s, Su7s, Il28s, a Sverdlov cruiser, 12 whiskey class submarines and assorted other naval vessels. This wasn't enough to make them escalate the issue but it was enough to make Australia rush out and buy F111, M113, Adams class DDG, more Mirages, Bloodhound SAMs amonst other things.
 
the reason that the Malay confrontation didn't escalate further was because the main supporter for confrontation in Indonesia, the communist got slaughtered and Sukarno got ousted. the new, anti-communist government of Suharto didn't have the interest to continue the confrontation and then sue for peace.

mind you, before 1965, Sukarno was not the sole face of Indonesia's politics nor he reign alone. under him, there was 3 main powers (we could said the "three pillars" of sukarno's power) in Indonesia, all of them struggle to topple the others and put themself on the top: Nationalist (army), Religious (political Islam), and the Communist. Sukarno, to maintain his power, tried to balanced these 3 powers by promoting the NASAKOM (nasionalisme, agama(religion), komunisme) ideology.

the communist, meanwhile, to show that they are the most avid supporter of Sukarno, fully supported his "ganyang (crush) Malaysia" (the confrontation) project.

all of this went crashing down the hall by october 1st 1965, when 7 army generals were killed. The army, now under Suharto, quickly blamed the communist for their death (view still supported by the government till this day in Indonesia). The aftermath was clear, then. one of the 3 pillars of Sukarno's power (communist) got slaughtered by the other two (army teamed up with the religious). and Sukarno himself got deposed shortly after by Suharto.

so, to escalate the Malay confrontation is not as easy as it seemed, because even in Indonesia, it was a half-heartly fought war, not supported by all factions within Indonesian politics. even in an alternate history where the communist won the power struggle, we must remember that in 1965, indonesia experienced 650% hyper-inflation. there's no way a country experiencing that could wage a war for long before collapsing.
 
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