Winter 1990

The 1945-1949 Dutch-Indonesian Conflict:

Lessons and Perspectives in the Study of Insurgency
by
Lucian Ashworth
INTRODUCTION
On the subject of insurgent war Clausewitz wrote that "this sort of
warfare is not as yet very common", and that information on it was lacking.1
Since Clausewitz's time we have experienced many insurgencies, and there is
a wealth of observer accounts now available. Some of these observers have
been fascinated by the nature of insurgent war, and particularly by its
dissimilarity with the processes of more conventional and symmetrical
modern wars. Insurgent wars are asymmetrical in the sense that the two sides
involved do not have the same capabilities and strengths, since one side is an
established state government, while the other is some form of rebel
organization. As a result, insurgencies tend to escalate as the insurgents
become stronger and begin to resemble the counter-insurgents, or de-escalate
as the insurgents are contained and forced to use less direct methods of
combat. From these observations many analysts have formulated models of
escalation. By examining this escalatory model, and then testing it against the
case study of the Dutch-Indonesian war, this article attempts to increase our
understanding of the dynamics of insurgency. Of particular importance are the
questions of how the Dutch-Indonesian war differs from the escalatory model
of insurgency and why? This study also offers an opportunity to examine the
Dutch-Indonesian war as an insurgency. This war has not received as much
coverage in the insurgency literature as Vietnam, China, or Cuba, despite the
wealth of primary and secondary sources that are available in both English and
Dutch.

A MODEL OF INSURGENT WAR

When a conventional war breaks out the infrastructures of the belligerents
are already in place, and it only remains for the armed services of both sides to
fight it out for possession of the battlefield. In insurgent war one side has to
build itself up from a small band of committed activists, to an army and an
alternative government. The conflict, therefore, will go through stages, as
the insurgents attempt to construct an infrastructure, and the counter-
insurgents try to stymie this development. The best-known examination of
the stages of insurgent war is the escalatory model of Mao Zedong, which
consists of three stages.
Mao's first stage is marked by the counter-insurgents' strategic offensive,
and the insurgents' strategic defensive.2 The insurgents employ mobile
warfare, while the counter-insurgents make territorial gains. Towards the end
of the first stage, the "firm resistance" of the insurgents and a shortage of
troops force the counter-insurgents to "fix terminal points to his strategic
offensive . . . and enter the stage of safeguarding his occupied areas."3 This

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marks the beginning of the second stage, which involves the counter-
insurgents' strategic consolidation and the insurgents' preparation for the
counter-offensive. In the second stage the insurgents adopt guerrilla warfare,
in preference to mobile fighting.4 At this stage in Mao's model the
countryside is divided into three types of areas: enemy and insurgent base
areas, and guerrilla areas contested by both sides. Two factors influence the
duration of this, the most important of the three stages. They are the degree
of shift in the balance of forces, and changes in the international system.5 To
Mao fluctuations in the counter-insurgents' will to fight and their level of
international support are of vital importance, and it is through the insurgents'
spirited resistance that these changes will come about.6 The third, and final,
stage comprises the insurgents' strategic offensive, and the counter-insurgents'
strategic defeat. Here, the insurgents finally abandon guerrilla war in favor of
positional warfare.7
Despite the fact that Mao developed his escalatory model specifically for
the Sino-Japanese war, the model has been applied to other insurgent wars,
and (with certain modifications) has become the orthodoxy. Nevertheless,
Julian Paget is very far from the truth when he asserts that Mao's writings
have the same level of acceptance among revolutionaries, as the gospels have
among Christians.8 The escalatory model has undergone many revisions
since Mao. Ernesto 'Che' Guevara re-affirmed Mao's view that guerrilla war
was not an end in itself, but the precursor to a conventional (positional
warfare) stage.9 He added that an insurgency can begin before all the
conditions in the state are right for a popular rising, and that the insurgents
can create popular discontent, rather than wait for it.10 Thus, there exists the
possibility of another stage, in which the insurgents must woo the
population. It is interesting, and ironic, that Guevara's strategy succeeded
only in Cuba, but failed in Bolivia, partly because of a lack of public
support. The history of insurgency in Latin America has tended to show that
Guevara's ideas have had a narrower application than Mao's writings. Carlos
Marighella went further than Guevara, by defying Mao's prohibition on short-
cuts. He wrote that an insurgency can destroy a government's will to fight by
bringing about a "climate of collapse."11 Although this notion is a useful
one, it has to be borne in mind that Marighella's rebellion in Brazil was
unsuccessful, a fact which tends to endorse Mao's prohibition on short-cuts.
A further modification of Mao's stages was made by the Vietnamese
communists, who put more emphasis on the role played by international
opinion and "war frustrations." To the Vietnamese victory could be achieved
with "militarily indecisive strikes" and the "mobilization of external support",
in conjunction with guerrilla war.12 This was an important break with Mao's
emphasis on the military situation: "Mao Tse-Tung was not insensitive to
psychological warfare issues . . . but he never based his strategy on these
tactics."13
Counter-insurgent experts have also used and amended Mao's escalatory
model. The French army's Guerre Révolutionnaire thinkers, fresh from their
colonial experiences, emphasized the importance of terrorism as a method of
undermining the government in the initial period of the war. They advocated

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the use of counter-terror against the pro-insurgent population.14 The fact that
no insurgent war has ever been won by counter-terror tactics has tended to
tarnish their image. Robert Thompson stressed the role of political
subversion in insurgent warfare. A period of political subversion, that might
include terrorism, would lead into the guerrilla (Thompson calls it 'insurgent'
rather than 'guerrilla') period. Thompson's preferred strategy was to
concentrate on defeating the political subversion, but through a recognized
legal framework.15 Other analysts, like Robert Taber and Andrew Scott, have
used escalatory models of insurgent war that are not dissimilar to Mao's.
Taber envisaged insurgent war passing through set phases, and postulated that
both escalation to an insurgent victory, and de-escalation to insurgent defeat
were possible.16 He agreed with E.L. Katzenback's interpretation of Mao,
that the insurgents trade control of territory for time — for without time to
mobilize the population, insurgents cannot escalate the war into a higher
stage.17 In another attack on Mao's blanket prohibition on short-cuts, Taber
identified three categories of insurgency. First, there are those insurgent wars
where the insurgents, through a steady campaign, bring about a general
rising, or an overthrow, of the discredited government (e.g. Cuba). Secondly,
we find those wars fought in colonies, or peripheral territories, in which a
guerrilla war makes the running of the territory too expensive for the
occupiers (e.g. Cyprus). Finally, there are wars, like the Chinese civil war,
where the insurgents and counter-insurgents must fight to the bitter end of the
conventional war stage.18 Andrew Scott formulated a similar escalatory
model, in which an insurgency would rise and fall through various phases.
As with Taber's model, downward movement is as likely as upward.19
Among these writers and practitioners there is a general consensus that
insurgent wars have many parts, and that different issues are important at
different times. In this sense, there is not only an asymmetry between the
two parties to the conflict, but also an asymmetry between the stages in the
conflict. Following this premise, it is possible to identify four characteristics
of insurgent war, each being important to the conduct of the war at different
times and at different places. The diplomatic characteristic is the most
political since it involves international opinion and discussions between the
two sides before, during and after the war. The least attractive, but
nevertheless oft discussed, feature is terror, which involves the use of violence
to gain the support, or neutrality, of the population. The guerrilla
characteristic is most frequently associated with insurgent war; that is fighting
between lightly armed bands of guerrillas and the security forces (who control
the communication network of towns, roads, railways, sea and air). Finally,
there is the conventional feature, where the guerrillas have formed themselves
into conventionally organized units, and fighting occurs for the control of the
communication network.20
These characteristics can be applied to the escalatory model: an
insurgency will begin witii a period where diplomacy will predominate, as the
future insurgents attempt to involve themselves in the civil politics of the
country. As this becomes increasingly difficult they will gradually turn to
more violent means, until they no longer believe they can change the system

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peacefully. At this stage the population may be either hostile or indifferent

to the insurgents. If this is so, the insurgents will institute a campaign of
propaganda and terror designed to attract support for the insurgency, and to
encourage the belief that the counter-insurgents can no longer maintain law
and order. At this point the war is dominated by the terror characteristic. If
terrorism is successful the insurgents can begin to scale down their campaign,
and concentrate on building guerrilla bands. The security forces will react with
a series of anti-guerrilla operations, which if successful will return the war to
a stage dominated by terrorism. If the guerrillas are able to attract enough
recruits and arms they may begin to form conventional units that permanently
occupy "liberated zones." On the other hand, the government may collapse as
a result of a popular rising or coup. A major conventional victory for the
insurgents will force the counter-insurgents to negotiate a peace in the final
stage (dominated by diplomacy).
Although it is accepted as the orthodox, the escalatory model of insurgent
war often appears to fail us. While it explains the Chinese civil war, and can
be adapted to explain conflicts like Cuba and Cyprus, many insurgencies
seem to develop with little reference to the model. Taber has already
explained how, in certain circumstances, insurgencies may end in an insurgent
victory well before the guerrilla phase has matured. Yet there has been little
attempt to explain why a number of insurgencies appear to "jump about"
from one stage to another. For example, recent insurgencies in the
Philippines, Central America and Sri Lanka have gone through diplomatic
stages before returning to guerrilla warfare. The Irgun insurgency in Palestine
never developed beyond the terror phase, but instead became subsumed by the
international diplomatic processes that led to the establishment of the state of
Israel. Other insurgencies, like those of Tito's partisans or the Viet
Cong/NLF, were incorporated into conventional wars. However, it is the
intervention of diplomacy, rather than the role of insurgencies in conventional
conflicts, that is the particular concern of this article. The role of diplomacy
in insurgent war will be explored using the case study of the Dutch-
Indonesian War of 1945-1949.

THE HISTORICAL SETTING

Indonesia, or rather the Dutch East Indies as it was called until the
Second World War, had been dominated by the Dutch since the seventeenth
century. The economy of the islands was organized to meet Dutch needs,21
and until the 1920s there were few native Indonesians in the government
apparatus of the colony. Nationalist anti-Dutch feeling had been growing
since the nineteenth century. By the 1920s there were several communist and
nationalist organizations operating in the colony, but by 1933 most of their
leaders had been arrested by the Dutch authorities. While the threat of
nationalist agitation had been removed, the growth of Japanese power in Asia
became a more immediate and intractable problem for Dutch rulers in
Indonesia. In March 1942 the Japanese invaded, and soon after the Dutch
colonial government surrendered.

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The speed of the Dutch defeat taught the Indonesians that their colonial
masters could be overthrown, and that the pre-war nationalists had been right
to believe that the Dutch could be replaced by a native government.22 In
addition, the Japanese came to rely on local Indonesians to administer and
police the islands of Java and Sumatra. As a result, when the Japanese
surrendered to the Allies the Republicans23 had a body of trained soldiers and
the nucleus of a bureaucracy. When Allied troops landed in Indonesia to take
the surrender of the Japanese and to reinstate a Dutch colonial administration,
the Republicans were prepared to fight. Similarly, the Dutch, who had
experienced occupation and a government of collaborators, were unwilling to
negotiate with the Republicans. To the Dutch the Republican leaders,
particularly Sukarno and Hatta, were Axis puppets and traitors. Despite the
Japanese legacy, the Republicans were still comparatively weak. Although
unable to prevent the Dutch returning, they were able to resort to diplomacy
and insurgency in order to prevent the return of the status quo ante bellum.

PHASES OF THE INDONESIAN INSURGENCY

The Dutch-Indonesian war can be divided into six distinct periods. The
first covers the time between the Japanese surrender and the Linggajatti
agreement, which shall be called the SEAC period, since it corresponds to the
period of Allied occupation by the South-East Asia Command (SEAC). The
second is the Linggajatti diplomatic period, while the first Dutch military
action gives its name to the third period. The final three periods are the
second diplomatic period, the second Dutch military action, and the third
diplomatic period.

1. The SEAC Period (August 1945 to November 1946)

The situation in Indonesia during the latter part of the 1945 was
confused. In August the Japanese were still technically in control, pending
the arrival of Allied forces. In many areas, however, Indonesian nationalists
of various political hues had taken control from the Japanese. The Dutch,
with grudging Allied and Japanese help, only gradually regained a grip on the
central government. In fact, the Dutch relied on the military assistance of the
remaining Japanese, Australian and British forces throughout the SEAC
period.
The disruption caused by the Japanese occupation was not sufficient to
allow the Indonesian nationalist Republicans to build an administration and
armed forces strong enough to engage the Dutch and Allied forces in
conventional or full-scale guerrilla war. As a consequence, the priority for the
Republican leadership seems to have been the building of an administrative
and political structure parallel to that of the returning Dutch. Indonesians who
had held lower posts under the Japanese were speedily promoted, and
Indonesian Republican government organs were established in many parts of
the country. At the same time, independent groups of Republican supporters
engaged in acts of terrorism, that soon convinced the populace that the Dutch
no longer had any authority, and also helped to rally Indonesians to the cause

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of independence. With the absence of disciplined armed forces in most areas,

terror represented the most effective way for the Indonesian nationalist groups
to express their hatred of the Dutch and Allied administration.24 Lacking a
structure through which to express their dissatisfaction with Dutch rule, but
possessing confiscated Japanese weapons, young Indonesians reacted by
rioting and killing. The disorders in Surabaya from October 1945 are perhaps
the clearest examples of the dynamics involved in the independence-inspired
terror.25
During the SEAC period the cutting edge of the revolution was the
rioter.26 There were in this period about 120,000 regular Republican soldiers
trained by the Japanese, and organized under the Republican Sukarno-Hatta
leadership. 27 Some of these units took part in the battle for Surabaya.
However, such examples of regular Republican unit involvement in this
period cast them in a reactive role. Eyewitness accounts, such as that of
Shibata (see note 25), reveal that Republican authorities, like Sukarno and
Amit Sjarifuddin, followed and restrained, rather than lead the crowd. It seems
that while the more radical nationalists saw terror as the first act of
revolution, the leadership saw its restraining influence on the rioters as a
diplomatic bargaining chip. Although violence was just as common and
spontaneous in the countryside as in the cities, it was the urban terror and
rioting that had the most effect on the Dutch, and produced the Indonesian
national myths. The battles in the streets of Surabaya, although a military
disaster for the fledgling Indonesian army, became a glorious moral victory
for the Republicans.

2. The Linggajatti Period (November 1946 to July 1947)

In the wake of this urban lawlessness and strong prodding from the
Allies, the Dutch signed a compromise agreement with the Republican
leadership in Linggajatti. The Republican leadership had aided the Dutch in
their decision by replacing the formerly pro-axis Sukarno as prime minister
with the pro-Allied Sjahrir.28 It was agreed that the Dutch would cooperate
with the Republic in forming an independent United States of Indonesia
comprised of the Republic and pro-Dutch governments in East Indonesia,
Borneo, and (possibly) New Guinea by 1949.
While the Dutch authorities and the Republican administration were at
peace, violence and guerrilla war flared up in the Dutch occupied areas
between the Dutch and Republican sympathizers. These nationalist guerrillas
were loyal to the Republican central government, yet they also enjoyed more
than a little autonomy. At this time the Republican government in
Jogjakarta had, in practice, little control over many of its military units in the
more isolated parts of the country. The activities of these guerrilla bands,
along with a mistaken belief that they were directly controlled by the
Republican government, aggravated the Dutch authorities to the point where
they broke the Linggajatti accords, claiming that the Republic's supposed
sponsoring of terrorism meant that the Republicans had broken the accords
first.

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3. The First Dutch Military Action (July to August 1947)

The ensuing Dutch attack on the Republic was a conventional military
action, and judged on conventional military criteria it was a success. The
Dutch captured over half of Java and certain important areas of Sumatra. The
regular nationalist forces reacted by retreating or breaking up and waging a
guerrilla war against the advancing Dutch. Thus, in practice, the Dutch won
for themselves a larger area to police, while failing to solve the policing
problem that the invasion was meant to deal with.
Although domestic Indonesian opposition to the Dutch offensive became
widespread, it was international diplomacy that finally brought the advance to
a halt.29 The central figures in the Republican government, Sukarno, Hatta
and Sjahrir, proved adept at gaining international support. Singapore, India,
and Australia imposed limited sanctions. Most damaging of all, however,
was the United States who, through the United Nations, put pressure on the
Dutch to stop the offensive. From this point on the United Nations became
the forum for the diplomatic dimension of the conflict, and the war was
internationalized.

4 The Second Diplomatic Period (August 1947 to December 1948)

After the official cease-fire between the Dutch troops and the Republican
regulars took effect, the conflict continued in the guerrilla and diplomatic
arenas.
Guerrilla war in the Dutch occupied zones did not subside, even after the
terms of the Renville agreement affected the withdrawal of many Republican
regulars who had turned guerrilla. By the time of the second military action
the Dutch were losing control of the countryside in their two-thirds of Java.30
At the same time some of the most crucial battles were being fought at the
diplomatic level.
The climax of the second diplomatic period was the Renville agreement.
At face value the agreement was a victory for the Dutch, a view held by many
of the more radical Republicans. The new cease-fire line (the van Mook line)
was recognized as the division between Dutch and Republican authority,
giving the Dutch control of most of Indonesia, while the Republic was
relegated to the position of a state within the proposed federation of the
United States of Indonesia, which was in turn one half of the Dutch-
Indonesian Union. Yet on three counts the Republicans compensated for
these diplomatic losses. First, Renville reaffirmed the position of the
Republic as the main representative of Indonesian nationalism, as well as the
government of most of Sumatra and large parts of Java. Second, the very
existence of an internationally recognized agreement placed the United Nations
in the role of a moderator and protector of the Republican cause. Finally, the
whole affair ended with the Dutch looking unreasonable and aggressive, while
the Republican leadership, by contrast, appeared statesmanlike. International
sympathy for the Dutch point of view in Indonesia had run out.31
Nevertheless, while the Renville agreement served the purpose of the
incumbent Republican leadership, it also helped to highlight the major

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differences between the supporters of the moderate leadership and the more
radical groups, including the communist party (PKI), who wished to fight an
all-out war with the Dutch. The conflict between the moderate advocates of
Diplomasi and the radical Pejuangan came to a head on 18 September 1948,
when left wing units took control of the town of Madiun. The leadership
reacted swiftly, arresting the PKI leadership, and suppressing the Madiun
revolt with high loss of life. The crushing defeat of the revolt was a set-back
for the hopes of those Indonesian leaders who wished to fight the war as an
all-out protracted war along the lines of Mao's teachings, and strengthened the
moderate's control of the army. The removal of the left from mainstream
Indonesian politics also encouraged support for the Republic from the United
States and the United Nations.32

5L The Second Dutch Military Action (December 1948 to May 1949)

It became a common belief among Dutch officials in 1948 that the only
way to destroy the pro-Republican guerrillas that plagued the Dutch side of
the van Mook line was to capture the government of the Republic, thereby
destroying the centre of anti-Dutch resistance.33 Towards the end of the year
the situation was so bleak for the Dutch military that the order was given to
invade the Republican territories.34 Although most of the Republican leaders
were captured, the Republican army fought on in guerrilla formations. As in
the first military action, the Dutch army succeeded in increasing the area it
had to defend while not significantly decreasing the forces opposed to it.
The most striking features of the second military action were the Dutch
loss of support among moderate nationalists for their federal plans for
Indonesia — since these plans now seemed to have more to do with
maintaining Dutch hegemony, than creating a lasting political solution —
and the condemnation of the Netherlands in international fora.35 The
governments of the Dutch occupied states of East Indonesia and West Java
resigned in protest at the Dutch attack,36 while the U.S. cancelled Marshall
aid to the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) — and even discussed the
possibility of suspending aid to the Netherlands itself.37
While the second military action successfully removed conventional
Republican military power in Java and parts of Sumatra, it converted the
fighting in Java into a prolonged guerrilla war, which the Dutch were not
prepared to fight to a conclusion. Diplomatically the Dutch were now
isolated, while in Indonesia the Netherlands became increasingly unpopular
with the middle ground of Indonesian politics.38

6. The Third Diplomatic Period (May to December 1949)

The Dutch, forced to negotiate with the Republican leaders whom they
had imprisoned so recently, now changed their priority from one of defeating
the Republic, to saving as much face as they could while pulling out of
Indonesia. Similarly, the Republican leadership, threatened with a resurgence

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of radical Pejuangan feelings, was prepared to negotiate with the Dutch. On

27 December 1949 the independent United States of Indonesia was
established, with the Republic as only one of the many states in the Union.
Yet within eight months the Republic had incorporated the other federal states
into the unitary republic it had desired from the beginning. In effect, the
peace gave the Netherlands an honorable and inexpensive way out of an
escalating guerrilla conflict, while the Republic got half of what it wanted,
with an option on the other half — without a long drawn-out Vietnam-style
conflict. A negotiated peace also guaranteed the victory of the moderates in
the Indonesian Republican government.

CONCLUSIONS
The order in which each of the four characteristics of insurgent war
predominate in the Dutch-Indonesian war does not seem to favor the
escalatory model. To begin with, there was no real initial diplomatic phase;
it was the power vacuum left by the Japanese surrender that triggered the
insurgency. The terror characteristic did dominate the SEAC period. This
gave way, however, not to a predominantly guerrilla phase, but to the
diplomacy-dominated Linggajatti period. During the Linggajatti period
diplomacy was rapidly replaced as the dominant feature by the guerrilla
characteristic, until the Dutch reacted with conventional attack on the
Republic. The period of the first Dutch military action was by and large a
conventional phase with a strong subsidiary guerrilla characteristic.
International diplomatic intervention precipitated the diplomacy-dominated
second diplomatic period, although the guerrilla characteristic again came to
be as important as the diplomatic in this period. The second military action
was the period of guerrilla domination. Yet, before this could be allowed to
develop into a conventional dominated phase, international diplomacy and
Dutch political problems conspired to produce a final diplomatic phase that
ended the war. Thus the Indonesian war went through the following stages:
1) a terror stage;
2) a diplomatic stage;
3) a conventional and guerrilla stage;
4) a diplomatic stage;
5) a guerrilla stage; and,
6) a diplomatic stage.
While parts of the Indonesian war seem to fit into the escalatory model
— most notably the need for an initial propaganda/terror period, and the
development of a strong guerrilla movement that became more organized over
time — the phases of the war are at odds with the model. There are two
reasons for this: the role of international diplomacy, and the goals of the
Republican leadership.
The terror stage was rapidly moving towards a guerrilla dominated stage,
helped along by the large quantities of armaments left behind by the Japanese.
This development was altered by the intervention of SEAC, and the
willingness of the Republican leaders to negotiate. The diplomatic

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intervention did not stop tenor in the Dutch areas, but it did arrest the
development of an all-out guerrilla war, and allowed the Republican forces to
form a proper conventional army. After the Dutch conventional attack, and
the beginning of a large scale guerrilla war in the Dutch occupied regions,
diplomacy again prevented the war from following the escalatory model.
Without the cease-fire it is likely that the Dutch would have occupied all of
Java, and that a protracted guerrilla war would have begun. International
interests now guaranteed that the two sides would not be allowed to fight to a
conclusion without interruption. However, protracted guerrilla war was
escalating in the Dutch occupied areas, and the second Dutch military action
did finally produce an all-out guerrilla war in Java.
Although the Dutch were seeking a military solution, the Republican
leaders chose to put their trust in diplomacy. Allowing themselves to be
captured, the Republican leadership waited for international pressure to force
the Dutch to release them and give them their place at the negotiating table.
This trust in diplomacy by the leadership was not shared by the more radical
advocates of Pejuangan who favored a protracted guerrilla war along the lines
discussed by Mao. Luckily for the leadership the diplomatic campaigns they
waged were successful, and only after the controversial Renville agreement
was concluded, were the supporters of Pejuangan able to muster an effective
challenge to the policy of Diplomasi. In the end, it was Dutch vulnerability
to international pressure, and the acceptability of the Republic's demands to
the international community, that assured the primacy of diplomacy. In turn,
it was the primacy of diplomacy that ensured that the leadership of the
Indonesian revolution stayed with the moderates, and did not fall into the
hands of radicals.
The Dutch-Indonesian war demonstrated that international intervention,
and the exploitation of international opinion, can severely disrupt the
development of an insurgent war along the lines of the escalatory model. In
the cases of the Chinese and Cuban civil wars the warring factions did not
wish to compromise, and either the country involved was too large to give
intervention force (China), or there was a lack of international will to
intervene (Cuba). As a result, diplomatic intervention was at a minimum,
and the wars followed the escalatory model. In this case study the Netherlands
was vulnerable to international pressure, both sides exhibited a certain degree
of flexibility, and international opinion became deeply involved in the
conflict. Today insurgent wars are endemic to a number of smaller states
around the world. It is reasonable to assume that, through regional security
interests (eg. in Sri Lanka and Central America) and/or the willingness of
belligerents to compromise (eg. Namibia and the Philippines), many of these
wars will come to resemble the Dutch-Indonesian war more than the Chinese
civil war.
Therefore, a fourth type of conflict can be added to Taber's categories of
insurgent war: namely those wars in which there are regular diplomatic
interventions. This does not mean that the escalatory model is redundant. In
the Dutch-Indonesian war there was significant movement toward a complete
guerrilla stage a number of times during the war, particularly during the latter

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halves of the Linggajatti and Renville periods. The escalatory model serves
the same role for insurgency as Clausewitz's notion of absolute war did for
conventional conflicts; it is an ideal that is never quite reached.39 When
examining an insurgency we should bear in mind the escalatory model —
then look for the circumstances that make it different.

Endnotes
1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 483.
2. Mao did not use the terms "insurgent" and "counter-insurgent." I use them for clarity.
3. Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung (Peking: Foreign Languages
Press, 1963), p. 212.
4. To Mao guerrillas are static forces.
5. Mao, Selected Military Writings, p. 213.
6. Ibid., p. 214.
7. Ibid., p. 214.
8. Julian Paget, Counter-Insurgency Campaigning (London: Faber & Faber, 1967), p. 27.
9. Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1961), p. 75.
10. Ibid., Chapter one.
11. John Baylis et al., Contemporary Strategy (London: Croom Helm, 1975), p. 141. See
also Carlos Marighella, "The Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerrilla," in Robert Moss,
"Urban Guerrilla Warfare," Adelphi Papers, no. 79, 1971.
12. Chalmers Johnson, Autopsy on People's War (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1973), p. 49. See also Chalmers Johnson, "The Third Generation of Guerrilla
Warfare," Asian Survey 8, no. 6 (June 1968), pp. 435-47.
13. Johnson, Autopsy on People's War, p. 49.
14. Chalmers Johnson, "Civilian Loyalties and Guerrilla Conflict," World Politics 14, no. 4
(July 1962), p. 650. The basic ideas of the Guerre Révolutionnaire thinkers are reiterated
in Virgil Ney, "Guerrilla War and Modern Strategy," Orbis 2, no. 1 (Spring 1958), pp. 74-
5.
15. Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency (London: Chatto and Windus, 1966),
pp. 21-49, 50-57.
16. Robert Taber, The War of the Flea (London: Paladin, 1970), pp. 44-58.
17. E.L. Katzenbach, Jr., "Time, Space and Will: The Politico-Military Views of Mao Tse-
tung," in Col. T.N. Green, éd., The Guerrilla — and How to Fight Him (New York:
Praeger, 1962).
18. Taber, pp. 46-7.
19. Andrew Scott, et al.. Insurgency (Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina Press, 1970).
20. This list of the characteristics of insurgency is adapted from many sources. Andrew Scott
divided insurgent war into times when different forms of conflict predominated, which
included a political period. Mao mentions the use of different kinds of warfare at different
stages. The use of terror for mobilization is discussed by Thompson, Marighella, and Paret
and Shy Guerrillas in the 1960s (New York: Praeger, 1962), p. 34. John Baylis divides
insurgent war into what he calls dimensions. My characteristics of insurgent war were first
used in Lucian Ashworth, "Political and Military Factors in Insurgent Warfare: The Case
of Indonesia 1945 to 1949," (Dalhousie University, unpublished M.A. thesis, 1987), pp.
86-88.
21. Genevieve Collins Linebarger, "Indonesia (1946-9)" in D.M. Condit et al., Challenge and
Response in Internal Conflict, Vol. I (Washington: Social Science Research Institute,
1968), p. 275.

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 Conflict Quarterly

22. Anthony Reid, The Indonesian National Revolution 1945-50 (Hawthorn: Longman, 1974),
p. 10.
23. In this article "Republican" refers to the anti-Dutch forces that grouped around the
government at Jogjakarta. They are the insurgents in this case study.
24. Anthony Reid, "The Revolution in Regional Perspective," in J. van Goor, éd., "The
Indonesian Revolution," Utrechtse Historiche Cahiers, Jaargang 7 (1986), nr 2/3, p. 192.
25. See Shibata Yaichiro, "Surabaya After the Surrender," in Anthony Reid and Oki Akira, eds.,
The Japanese Experience in Indonesia: Selected Memoirs of 1942-1945 Monographs in
International Studies South-East Asia Series, no. 72, Ohio University, 1986, pp. 340-74.
26. Reid, "The Revolution in Regional Perspective," p. 191; Ashworth, p. 30.
27. Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows: the Guerrilla in History (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1975), p. 834.
28. Oey Hong Lee, "British-Dutch Relations and the Republic of Indonesia," Asian Affairs 7,
(February 1976). However, Sjahrir was not universally liked by the Dutch. See H.N.
Boon, Indonesische Dagboeknotities van Dr. HM. Boon 1946-9 (Houten: De Haan, 1986),
p. 22.
29. Ashworth, p. 54.
30. E.A.R. (monogrammed only), "Indonesia, Political and Economic Realities," The World
Today 5, no. 2 (February 1949), p. 59.
31. For analyses of the Renville agreement see Anthony Reid, The Indonesian National
Revolution; and Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung, Renville als Keerpunt in de Nederlandse-
Indonesische Betreklcingen (Alphen aan den Rijn: A.W. Sijhoff, 1980).
32. Ashworth, pp. 63-4. A smaller revolt in 1946, led by the veteran left-wing politician Tan
Malakka, was similarly brought to heel.
33. See General Spoor's telegram of 16 November 1948 to Lt. Gen. Kruls, quoted in Roland
Gase, Beel in Batavia (den Toren: Anthos, 1986), p. 284.
34. Reid, Indonesian National Revolution, pp. 150-51. Patra M.H. Groen, "Dutch Armed
Forces and the Decolonization of Indonesia: The Second Police Action (1948-49) A
Pandora's Box," War and Society 4, no. 1 (May 1986), pp. 83-4.
35. Time Magazine, 17 January 1949, p. 20.
36. George Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1952), pp. 368 and 374; B.H. M.V. (monogrammed only), "Settlement in Indonesia.
The Final Stage," The World Today 6, no. 1 (January, 1950), pp. 27-8.
37. Boon, p. 148.
38. Gase, p. 286.
39. Clausewitz, p. 77.

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