Foreign policy
On the international front, Sukarno organized the Bandung Conference in 1955, with the goal of uniting the developing Asian and African countries into the Non-Aligned Movement to counter both the United States and the Soviet Union.
As Sukarno's domestic authority was secured, he began to pay more attention to the world stage. He embarked on a series of aggressive and assertive policies based on anti-imperialism to increase Indonesia's international prestige. These anti-imperialist and anti-Western policies, often employing brinkmanship with other nations, were also designed to unite the diverse and fractious Indonesian people. In this, he was aided by his foreign minister Subandrio.
After his first visit to Beijing in 1956, Sukarno began to strengthen his ties to the People's Republic of China and the communist bloc in general. He also began to accept increasing amounts of Soviet-bloc military aid. By the early 1960s, the Soviet bloc provided more aid to Indonesia than to any other non-communist country, while Soviet military aid to Indonesia was equalled only by its aid to Cuba. This substantial influx of communist aid prompted an increase in military aid from the Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy administrations, which worried about a leftward drift should Sukarno rely too much on Soviet-bloc aid.
Sukarno was feted during his visit to the United States in 1956, where he addressed a joint session of the United States Congress. As of 2025, it was the only time any Indonesian president has addressed a joint session of the US Congress. Soon after his first visit to America, Sukarno visited the Soviet Union, where he received an even more lavish welcome. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev paid a return visit to Jakarta and Bali in 1960, where he awarded Sukarno with the Lenin Peace Prize. To make amends for CIA involvement in the PRRI-Permesta rebellion, Kennedy invited Sukarno to Washington, D.C., and provided Indonesia with billions of dollars in civilian and military aid.
To follow up on the successful 1955 Bandung Conference, Sukarno attempted to forge a new alliance called the "New Emerging Forces" (NEFO), as a counter to the Western superpowers dubbed the "Old Established Forces" (OLDEFO), whom he accused of spreading "Neo-Colonialism and Imperialism" (NEKOLIM). In 1961, Sukarno established another political alliance, called the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM, in Indonesia known as Gerakan Non-Blok, GNB) at the 1st Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade together with Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, India's Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Yugoslavia's President Josip Broz Tito, and Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah, in an action called The Initiative of Five (Sukarno, Nkrumah, Nasser, Tito, and Nehru). NAM was intended to provide political unity and influence for nations who wished to maintain independence from the American and Soviet superpower blocs, which were engaged in Cold War competition. Sukarno is still fondly remembered for his role in promoting the influence of newly independent countries. His name is used as a street name in Cairo, Egypt and Rabat, Morocco, and as a major square in Peshawar, Pakistan. In 1956, the University of Belgrade awarded him an honorary doctorate.
During the Cold War, Sukarno’s neutral stance got him in trouble with both the Soviet KGB and American CIA, who tried blackmailing him with sex tapes. Around 1960, during Moscow visits, the KGB allegedly filmed him with women, maybe flight attendants, to push his policies their way. Sukarno laughed it off and even asked for copies of the tapes. In an effort to damage his reputation, the CIA produced a fake pornographic film featuring a Sukarno look-alike and Russian women, which they claimed had been created by the KGB. Both plans flopped; Indonesians saw Sukarno as a tough guy, and he kept his non-aligned path till his 1967 ouster.
In 1960 Sukarno began an aggressive foreign policy to secure Indonesian territorial claims. In August of that year, he broke off diplomatic relations with the Netherlands over the continuing failure to commence talks on the future of Netherlands New Guinea, as was agreed at the Dutch-Indonesian Round Table Conference of 1949. In April 1961, the Dutch announced the formation of a Nieuw Guinea Raad, intending to create an independent Papuan state. Sukarno declared a state of military confrontation in his Tri Komando Rakjat (TRIKORA) speech in Yogyakarta, on 19 December 1961. He then directed military incursions into the half-island, which he referred to as West Irian. By the end of 1962, 3,000 Indonesian soldiers were present throughout West Irian/West Papua.
On 28 August 1961, Elizabeth II invited Sukarno for a state visit to London which was scheduled in May 1962. But on 19 September, Juliana of the Netherlands, who heard the news, felt unhappy due to the breakdown of Indonesia's diplomatic relations with the Netherlands after the West Irian dispute. Upon hearing the news, she stated that negotiations with Indonesia regarding West Irian would not take place and did not allow Elizabeth, who was still her distant niece, to invite Sukarno, which resulted in a worsening of Indonesia's diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom. On 21 April 1962, Sukarno canceled the visit due to a Dutch attack on the Indonesian Navy fleet in the Arafuru Sea.
A naval battle erupted in January 1962 when four Indonesian torpedo boats were intercepted by Dutch ships and planes off the coast of Vlakke Hoek. One Indonesian boat was sunk, killing the Naval Deputy Chief-of-Staff Commodore Jos Sudarso. Meanwhile, the Kennedy Administration worried of a continuing Indonesian shift towards communism should the Dutch hold on to West Irian/West Papua. In February 1962 U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy travelled to the Netherlands and informed the government that the United States would not support the Netherlands in an armed conflict with Indonesia. With Soviet armaments and advisors, Sukarno planned a large-scale air- and sea-borne invasion of the Dutch military headquarters of Biak for August 1962, called Operasi Djajawidjaja. It was to be led by Major-General Suharto. Before these plans could be realised, Indonesia and the Netherlands signed the New York Agreement in August 1962. The two countries agreed to implement the Bunker Plan (formulated by American diplomat Ellsworth Bunker), whereby the Dutch agreed to hand over West Irian/West Papua to UNTEA on 1 October 1962. UNTEA transferred the territory to Indonesian authority in May 1963.
After securing control over West Irian/West Papua, Sukarno then opposed the British-supported establishment of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, claiming that it was a neo-colonial plot by the British to undermine Indonesia. Despite Sukarno's political overtures, which found some support when leftist political elements in British Borneo territories Sarawak and Brunei opposed the Federation plan and aligned themselves with Sukarno, Malaysia was established in September 1963. This was followed by the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation (Konfrontasi), proclaimed by Sukarno in his Dwi Komando Rakjat (DWIKORA) speech in Jakarta on 3 May 1964. Sukarno's proclaimed objective was not, as some alleged, to annex Sabah and Sarawak into Indonesia, but to establish a "State of North Kalimantan" under the control of the North Kalimantan Communist Party. From 1964 until early 1966, a limited number of Indonesian soldiers, civilians, and Malaysian communist guerrillas were sent into North Borneo and the Malay Peninsula. These forces fought against British and Commonwealth soldiers deployed to protect the nascent state of Malaysia. Indonesian agents also exploded several bombs in Singapore. Domestically, Sukarno fomented anti-British sentiment, and the British Embassy was burned down. In 1964, all British companies operating in the country, including Indonesian operations of the Chartered Bank and Unilever, were nationalised. The confrontation came to a climax during August 1964, when Sukarno authorised landings of Indonesian troops at Pontian and Labis on the Malaysian mainland, and all-out war seemed inevitable as tensions escalated. However, the situation calmed by mid-September at the culmination of the Sunda Straits Crisis, and after the disastrous Battle of Plaman Mapu in April 1965, Indonesian raids into Sarawak became fewer and weaker.
In 1964, Sukarno commenced an anti-American campaign, which was motivated by his shift towards the communist bloc and less friendly relations with the Lyndon Johnson administration. American interests and businesses in Indonesia were denounced by government officials and attacked by PKI-led mobs. American movies were banned, American books and Beatles albums were burned, and the Indonesian band Koes Plus was jailed for playing American-style rock and roll music. As a result, USA aid to Indonesia was halted, to which Sukarno made his famous remark "Go to hell with your aid". Sukarno withdrew Indonesia from the United Nations on 7 January 1965 when, with U.S. backing, Malaysia took a seat on the UN Security Council.
As the NAM countries were splitting into different factions, and as fewer countries were willing to support his anti-Western foreign policies, Sukarno began to abandon his non-alignment rhetoric. Sukarno formed a new alliance with China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cambodia which he called the "Beijing-Pyongyang-Hanoi-Phnom Penh-Jakarta Axis". After withdrawing Indonesia from the "imperialist-dominated" United Nations in January 1965, Sukarno sought to establish a competitor organisation to the UN called the Conference of the New Emerging Forces (CONEFO) with support from the People's Republic of China, which at that time was not yet a member of United Nations. With the government heavily indebted to the Soviet Union, Indonesia became increasingly dependent on China for support. Sukarno spoke increasingly of a Beijing-Jakarta axis, which would be the core of a new anti-imperialist world organization, the CONEFO.
