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In the 1950s and early 1960s the Indonesian–Dutch dispute over the sovereignty of West New Guinea was of great concern to the Australian government. Canberra pursued policies to deny Indonesia control of the territory and encourage the Netherlands to retain its presence there. However, in mid-January 1962, the Australian Cabinet realised the disadvantages of continuing to resist Indonesian claims and gave de facto approval for annexation by Indonesia. This paper examines the reasons for Canberra's policy reversal, arguing that the primary factor was Australia's desire to avoid an Indonesian–Dutch war and prevent the possible Communisation of Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1958 onwards, the Amsterdam–Jakarta dispute on the determination of sovereignty over the western half of New Guinea began to be affected by the developments of Indonesia's civil war and the tug of war between the US and the Soviet Union over Indonesia. This paper explains how this influenced Australia's WNG diplomacy. It argues that the major impact of Indonesia's internal war and of the US–Russian tug of war was that they destroyed Australia's assumption that the Dutch would maintain its presence in the Pacific permanently. The second principal impact was that Indonesia's internal war and the Washington–Moscow tug of war urged Canberra to set another new objective in relation to the WNG dispute, and produced a new policy for the achievement of this objective. With the outbreak of an Indonesian–Dutch war over Netherlands New Guinea becoming a real possibility, Australia set the avoidance of the war and the prevention of Indonesia falling into the communist orbit as another new objective. In order to keep a war from occurring in the Southwest Pacific, Canberra developed a policy of appeasing Jakarta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]