Before european intrusions into the islands by Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch seeking to monopolize the lucrative trade in spices and other marketable products, the more than 13,000 islands constituting the Republic of Indonesia were home to a various array of cultures and civilizations that had been determined by HinduBuddhist ideas from India and by Islam, as well as indigenous beliefs. Although the Portuguese and Spanish presence in the archipelago had limited impact, the Dutch United East India Company accomplished a trading post on the north coast of Java--what later became known as Jakarta--seized control of the spice trade, and gradually asserted military and political control over the archipelago. This process of colonization was well advanced on Java by the mid-eighteenth century and largely completed in the rest of the archipelago by the first decade of the twentieth century.

Suharto's New Order regime placed ABRI firmly in control of Indonesia's political system and, to an extent, its economy as well. Friendly ties were restored with Western countries and Japan, and Indonesia accepted large amounts of Western and Japanese aid and private investment. Under rational economic planning policies, the nation experienced orderly development and increases in the standard of living for most of the population. But Suharto's strong anticommunism and insistence on using the Pancasila as the ideological foundation of all groups in society contributed to a tightly controlled, centralized system. The regime's occupations of West New Guinea and East Timor were a focus of international criticism, stemming from charges of human rights violations. Reelected repeatedly to the presidency, Suharto was regarded by many observers as indispensable to the system's stability and continuity.