Editing Decolonization (section)

===== Netherlands =====
[[File:Een groep gevangenen zit op de grond, bewaakt door soldaten voorbeeld van goe…, Bestanddeelnr 15865.jpg|thumb|210px|Dutch soldiers in the East Indies during the [[Indonesian National Revolution]], 1946]]
The Netherlands had spent centuries building up its empire. By 1940 it consisted mostly of the [[Dutch East Indies]], corresponding to what is now Indonesia. Its massive oil reserves provided about 14 percent of the Dutch national product and supported a large population of ethnic Dutch government officials and businessmen in [[Batavia, Dutch East Indies|Batavia]] (now Jakarta) and other major cities. The Netherlands was overrun and almost starved to death [[Reichskommissariat Niederlande|by the Nazis]] during the war, and Japan sank the Dutch fleet in seizing the East Indies. In 1945 the Netherlands could not regain these islands on its own; [[Battle of Surabaya|it did so by depending on British military help]] and [[Marshall Plan|American financial grants]]. By the time Dutch soldiers returned, an independent government under [[Sukarno]] was in power, originally set up by the [[Empire of Japan]]. The Dutch both abroad and at home generally agreed that Dutch power depended on an expensive war to regain the islands. Compromises were negotiated, but were trusted by neither side. When the [[Madiun Affair|Indonesian Republic successfully suppressed]] a large-scale communist revolt, the United States realized that it needed the nationalist government as an ally in the Cold War. Dutch possession was an obstacle to American Cold War goals, so Washington forced the Dutch to grant full independence. A few years later, Sukarno nationalized all [[Dutch East Indies]] properties and expelled all [[Indo people|ethnic Dutch]]—over 300,000—as well as several hundred thousand ethnic Indonesians who supported the Dutch cause. In the aftermath, the Netherlands prospered greatly in the 1950s and 1960s but nevertheless public opinion was bitterly hostile to the United States for betrayal. The Dutch government eventually gave up on claims to Indonesian sovereignty in 1949, after American pressure.<ref>{{cite book|author=Frances Gouda|title=American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism, 1920–1949|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zh1VtsxRlRAC&pg=PA36|year=2002|publisher=Amsterdam UP|page=36|isbn=978-90-5356-479-0}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 259796|title = The Netherlands after the Loss of Empire|journal = Journal of Contemporary History|volume = 4|issue = 1|pages = 127–139|last1 = Baudet|first1 = Henri|year = 1969|doi = 10.1177/002200946900400109|s2cid = 159531822}}</ref> The Netherlands also had one other major colony, Dutch Guiana in [[South America]], which became independent as [[Suriname]] in 1975.