Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation of the action occurring in the border area between Indonesia and East Malaysia on the island of Borneo (known as Kalimantan in Indonesia). The conflict was characterised by restrained and isolated ground combat, set within tactics of low-level brinkmanship. Combat was usually conducted by company- or platoon-sized operations on either side of the border. Indonesia's campaign of infiltrations into Borneo sought to exploit the ethnic and religious diversity in Sabah and Sarawak compared to that of Malaya and Singapore, with the intent of unraveling the proposed state of Malaysia. The challenging jungle terrain of Borneo and lack of roads straddling
Indonesia–Malaysia border dispute originated in 1969 when the two countries negotiated to delimit the common border of their continental shelf. As the two countries could not agree on the soveignty of the two islands, the continental shelf border was left off the 1969 agreement between the two countries. Indonesia claimed that the islands were theirs by virtue of the fact that they were located south of 4° 10" North which it said formed the maritime border between it and Malaysia by virtue of a straight line extension of the land border which ended on the east coast Sebatik island. Malaysia however, claimed