Police actions (Indonesia)

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The police actions (Dutch: Politionele acties, also politiële acties),^[1] were two major military offensives that the Netherlands carried out on Java and Sumatra against the Republic of Indonesia during its struggle for independence in the Indonesian National Revolution.^[2][3] In Indonesia they are collectively known as the Dutch Military Aggressions (Indonesian: Agresi Militer Belanda), although the less common translation Aksi Polisionil is also used.

In Dutch historiography and discourse, the entire Indonesian War of Independence was for a long time euphemistically referred to as 'the police actions', as coined by the government of the time. In the Netherlands, the impression prevailed that there had only been two separate, short-lived police actions, intended to restore Dutch authority over a rebellious overseas territory. This perspective ignores the fact that between the arrival of Dutch troops in March 1946 and the cession of sovereignty in December 1949, there had been a full-scale military occupation and an ongoing counterinsurgency involving 120,000 conscripts.^[4]