Indonesian War (Alternity)

The Indonesian War was a conflict of the Cold War-era (non-Communist aligned) that occurred mainly in the southeast Asian and Oceanian nation of Indonesia, as well as former Indonesian territory on the island of New Guinea. It was fought from May 10, 1973, and June 13, 1979 between the forces of the Philippine Empire supported by its West Australian ally and the Republic of Indonesia, supported by its allies, mainly the United States of America, Korea, Siam, and the Netherlands. Unofficially beginning as early as 1970, the war was initially fought between the allied militaries of Indonesia and Malaysia, and the Philippine Empire, whose forces had already annexed Malaysian Borneo and had begun establishing beachheads in western New Guinea. In August 1971, the Netherlands, former colonial masters of Indonesia and a close ally of the beleaguered nation, warned the Philippines to halt further aggression, but the Filipino Imperial Command simply brushed away the warning and continued to engage Indonesian forces in New Guinea and Borneo. Four months later, on December 22, Brunei fell to Philippine troops and finally, on January 10, 1972, the Netherlands declared war on the Philippine Empire. Two days later, West Australia declared war on the Netherlands and Indonesia in accordance with the Manila Pact of 1968. The United States soon entered the conflict, along with Australia and Korea, on the side of the Netherlands and Indonesia. Over the next seven years, the war followed a course much like that of the Korean War over twenty years earlier, with Philippine troops making significant gains in the first two years (nearly occupying all of Indonesian New Guinea and Borneo), and West Australians occupying Java, but the Allied coalition retook nearly half of Borneo in a costly campaign lasting nearly two years itself. The Borneo Campaign ended with a static trench war in July 1976 that lasted until war's end in June 1979. The First New Guinea Campaign proved the most costly of the war, with coalition forces suffering nearly 145,000 casualties, and ended in unfortunate and dismal failure, with Philippine troops backed by West Australians completely occupying the west half of the island in August 1977. The 2nd New Guinea Campaign (also called the Papua New Guinea, or PNG Campaign) was a mainly defensive campaign that favored coalition forces and lasted until war's end as well. No major naval engagements took place, as the US Navy was the dominant seapower, but Philippine landings throughout the war were conducted in nighttime stealth operations to avoid massacre by USN vessels. Coalition forces also dominated the air as well, thanks to the United States' far superior numbers of aircraft and experienced personnel, exacting heavy tolls on Philippine and WA troops in multiple bombing campaigns, as well as decimating their inferior-numbered and equipped air forces. Concluding in the Treaty of Singapore on June 13, 1979, the war yielded an estimated 1,236,440 military casualties, while civilian casualties have been estimated to be as high as 3.6 - 5.2 million, though exact figures are unknown to this day. The war revived flagging American spirits after their defeat in Vietnam by the Philippines and established the current American policy of foreign aid, military and otherwise, to its allies. It also ended the final phase of Philippine Imperial Expansion and resulted in tenous peace between the Empire and much of the western world.