Review of Related Theories

11 On the other hand, this confrontation also can be seen as a wider event when the tension of the Cold War kept escalating in 1963. Noam Chomsky espouses the establishment of Malaysian Federation was the Western bloc’s political strategy to prevent the domino theory. The capitalists feared a successful unaligned socialist state because it would provide an example of an alternative path to the communist or capitalist ones. It would cause others to fall like dominoes into the socialist neutralist pattern as cited in McColl, 2005, p. 256. This fear is explicable as Hughes 1968 describes that under the leadership of D.N. Aidit, the PKI was the third largest Communist party in the world after the Soviet Union and China. Meanwhile, the results of the election in 1955 positioned the PKI as the fourth largest party in Indonesia p. 81-84. Furthermore, Rotter 2010 analyzes that this fear was compelled by a political inclination that “Sukarno was generally seen to be sympathetic to the Communists” p. 231. Therefore, the flourishing Communist in Indonesia and the Sukarno’s leftism become the Western Bloc’s concerns for risking their influence in Southeast Asia if Indonesia fell into the Communist Eastern Bloc. If it happened, as Chomsky had assumed, the Western bloc would have lost their control in Southeast Asia. For that reason, apparently the establishment of the Malaysian Federation was to anticipate such condition while the tension of the Cold War kept escalating. However, Kosut 1967 explains that when the political instability in Indonesia occurred as the aftermath of the 30 th September Movement G30S, the tension of the confrontation began to subside in 1966 p. 84. Beeson 12 2006 grants that the New Order quickly “ended Sukarno’s confrontation with Malaysia” p. 167. The next review attempts to relate the confrontation with its consequences regarding the economic matter in Indonesia. Crouch 1978 examines that the economic downturn approaching 1965 was the result of political tensions between Indonesia and the Western Bloc when Sukarno launched a military campaign to crush the Malaysian Federation p. 57. Rotter 2010 explains that the United States US was involved in this confrontation because the United States “schemed to keep Malaysia under British control” p. 273. As a financially influential country, the United States played the role to overcome the situation. Washington threatened to cut off all aid unless Sukarno ceased the confrontation. Haplessly, the situation became worse since Sukarno challenged the Washington’s threats p. 273. As Weinstein 2007 notes, Sukarno adamantly continued the confrontation and took the risk for losing the economic assistances p. 219. Later, as Beeson 2006 explains that Sukarno’s Go to hell with your aid was a clear decision that confrontation had to be continued. Consequently, the decision had made Indonesia withdrawn from “the World Bank, the IMF, and the United Nations p. 166. Furthermore, this economic downturn has also caused another problem; food shortages. As stated by Rosin, Stock, and Campbell 2012, during the early 1960s, a combination of drought, a rat plague on Java, the destruction of crops due to the eruption of the Gunung Agung volcano on Bali, and imprudent economic policy resulted in large-scale food shortages across the