This refreshing and challenging collection of essays invites a reassessment of the place of Southeast Asia in the Cold War. In approaching this question, the strategies followed by the authors vary. Some pursue issues particularly illustrative of the approach taken by the great powers to Southeast Asia, often employing unusual or not previously exploited sources. Thus Brian P. Farrell, focusing on American nuclear doctrine as it was applied to the region, considers in some detail the British response to American plans. Despite some scepticism of the utility of using nuclear weapons against a concerted Chinese invasion, and having in any case few forces of their own to contribute, the British nevertheless cooperated in the development of ‘Plan 4’ for collateral reasons:

In this case the Cold War seems certainly to have been a key determinant of British policy towards Southeast Asia. The book contains other similarly focused studies. Mining an archive of training papers produced by US military officers, Brian M. Linn explores the conceptions of Southeast Asia held by the coming generation of military leaders, in whose analyses Cold War assumptions were powerful but not always determining. Sutayut Osornprasop approaches the question of Thailand's position by way of Bangkok's policy of countering the communist movement in Laos, where Thai irregulars were active participants for 15 years.

In addition to these issue-oriented pieces there are competent survey chapters of specific countries, including Bruce Lockhart on Cambodia and Laos, Ricardo T. Jose on the Philippines, and Tan Tai Yong on Singapore. A model of clarity as well as of documentary grasp is the chapter by the editor on the British military commitment to Malaysia and Singapore.

One of the consistent themes in the book is the extent to which this period in Southeast Asia's history cannot be reduced to the machinations of external powers. Of all Southeast Asian nations, this generalisation might be thought to apply especially to Indonesia, usually held to be the core or essential nation of the region, its distinctiveness and independence reflected not least in its prominent membership during these years of the non-aligned movement. Indeed, in the book's chapter on Indonesia, this distinctiveness is represented as an objective which transcended regime type: ‘in terms of his envisioned regional order, Soeharto was not fundamentally different from Sukarno: he sought to reduce the influence of extra-regional powers and at the same time enhance the ability of the regional members to be masters in their own house’. (p. 310)

It is remarkable therefore that the chapter's author, Dewi Anwar Fortuna, in her overview of the Soeharto era, should characterise its policies as largely the reflection of external influences. In short, ‘The “New Order” system of governance … [she argues] could only have been possible in the enabling environment of the Cold War’ (p. 296); furthermore, its development policies were largely to be attributed to the priorities of the Ford-funded and US-trained ‘Berkeley mafia’ technocrats who rose to prominence after 1970. That her analysis should take this direction is perhaps partly explained by her remarks on East Timor. While a policy of Indonesian annexation was actively pursued by various factions around Soeharto, in this account Indonesian manoeuvres are consistently traced to Cold War rationales. Thus, the December 1975 invasion, represented as motivated by the fear of a left-wing regime in the region, occurred with ‘the blessing of the United States and other major Western powers’ (p. 315). The fact that the military — and their civilian supporters, notably in CSIS — then ruthlessly plundered the territory, thereby almost guaranteeing that a sense of grievance would fester and sustain a psychology of resistance, is ignored. If Cold War foreign policy objectives had been the operative reason for annexation, the governance of the territory would have been a much higher priority, and 24 years might then have been just enough to turn East Timorese into Indonesians. Dewi Fortuna Anwar's lack of focus on the crucial issue of domestic governance is reflected in her extraordinary claims regarding the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre. Twice (p. 313, n.23 and p. 316) she refers to ‘several pro-independence East Timorese demonstrators’ being killed during the ‘Santa Cruz incident’ whereas the well-documented number of fatalities was in the hundreds and may have been as many as 500. It is also manifest in her discussion of events in East Timor following 1991. The turning point occurred apparently when, post-Cold War, ‘new international priorities’ led to a much more critical view of human rights abuses and of the regimes that perpetrated them; ‘from then on [she argues] the United States, among others, began to cultivate new Indonesian elites who could be partners in pushing for the democratisation of Indonesia and challenging the legitimacy of the “New Order” political construction.’ (p. 321) Yet neither Gus Dur nor his successor Megawati answer to this description.

The magisterial concluding chapter by Merle Ricklefs returns to the issue of agency. He suggests that the historiography of the Cold War in Southeast Asia may yet follow the same path as studies of the colonial era. Whereas the latter was once a narrative in which the impact of the colonial powers was central, more recently issues of collaboration, hybridity, and mutual learning have come to occupy the foreground. In retrospect, it may ultimately appear that during the Cold War it was the great powers who were largely constrained by inflexible doctrines and policies, whereas in many cases the Southeast Asian nations were able to exploit those preoccupations to their own benefit. This stimulating book is a useful contribution to this debate.