ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses be on Michael Leifer's writings regarding how the resources, capabilities and understandings of the world available to the states of Southeast Asia have been brought to bear on their practice of regional and foreign policy. In 1983 Michael Leifer was able to suggest that both Indonesian regimes, though proclaiming non-alignment, had in fact rendered themselves dependent upon external powers in pursuit of their ends. Indonesia's ambition to exercise a leading regional role was realized through the formation of ASEAN. Michael Leifer's extensive knowledge of Indonesia was the fruit of many field trips, and also of his growing connections with those of his former students who ascended the ranks of the intellectual elite within Indonesian society.
