ABSTRACT
Since the end of World War II in 1945, Indonesia and Vietnam have been the two main indigenous political actors in Southeast Asia. Between them, they account for 250 million of the region's 440 million inhabitants, or more than half of the total population of Southeast Asia. It is in the political realm that developments in these two countries have tended to shape the destiny of the region as a whole, as well as relations with outside powers such as the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China. The success of revolutionary struggles in Indonesia and Vietnam and the withdrawal of the Dutch and the French sounded the death knell for colonialism in Southeast Asia. Military power had become institutionalized in Indonesia to a degree almost unparalleled elsewhere in the Third World. The vigilance of the country's security apparatus ensured that no significant revolutionary opposition to the government emerged.
