In 1945, the Western powers had secured an overwhelming but in many ways ambiguous victory over Japan, and it remained to be seen how long they could preserve their formal presence in South East Asia faced with the assertive forces of nationalism that had been unleashed by that conflict. Among the Europeans, the Dutch retreated from their East Indies Empire in 1949, and had their assets seized and remaining citizens driven out of Indonesia in December 1957, while the French had the even more painful experience of defeat on the battlefield and eviction from Indochina in 1954. The British, by contrast, felt they had achieved the right balance through progressive colonial policies and the prudent exercise of force, with a benevolent United States to support them. The Malayan settlement of 1957 was the model to be emulated; a conviction existed that new Asian states could be directed towards stable Western-derived models of economic development and a foreign policy that was alert to the dangers of Communist domination. ‘South East Asia is … politically adolescent with teenage weaknesses of exuberance, xenophobia, inexperience and irresponsibility’, Sir Robert Scott condescendingly remarked to Macmillan in May 1959, ‘Guiding the strong new forces of nationalism into constructive channels and coping with the hydra of communist penetration in all its forms demand patience and perseverance.’