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This paper examines United States-Indonesian cooperation in the training of Indonesian teachers during the early decades of the Cold War. Indonesia badly needed teachers but the government's efforts to train new teachers were hampered by the tremendous lack of teachers who could train new teachers. The aid provided by the United States enabled the Indonesian government to send its prospective teachers to study in the United States and to have American educationists help develop teachers' colleges in Indonesia. How far did the decolonisation of teacher training and the making of a new education standard in postcolonial Indonesia reflect the conflicting ideological undertones and the US strategy of the Cold War? This paper argues that the US-Indonesian cooperation in teacher training marked a significant stage in the decolonisation of Indonesia. Yet, it also fostered the US cultural strategy of the Cold War in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with the United States' much-celebrated security collaboration with its more formal Asian allies, it is fair to say that its security cooperation with Indonesia is 'still under the radar.' Cooperation is limited not only by domestic pressure in the United States with regard to human rights issues, but also from Indonesia's perspective that U.S. policy consistency is often found wanting. Bilateral security relations appear to be relevant in the contemporary Southeast Asian security environment, given increasing tensions in the South China Sea and emerging challenges relating to counterterrorism. This relevance is qualified, however, by both countries' policymakers' tendencies to be intermittently detached-if not actually disinterested-in each other's core national security objectives. This article examines the development of Indonesia-U.S. defense and security relations, analyzing how Indonesia views U.S. presence in the region, and to what degree its own interests and policies benefit from or are complicated by security cooperation with the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]