This attempt to set up a "Asian NATO" is destined to meet the fate of SEATO, the first "ASIAN NATO" that was set up in 1954 and dissolved in 1977, after its members lost interest.
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, signed in September 1954 in Manila, Philippines. The formal institution of SEATO was established on 19 February 1955 at a meeting of treaty partners in Bangkok, Thailand.[1] The organization's headquarters were also in Bangkok. Eight members joined the organization.
Primarily created to block further communist gains in Southeast Asia, SEATO is generally considered a failure because internal conflict and dispute hindered general use of the SEATO military; however, SEATO-funded cultural and educational programs left long-standing effects in Southeast Asia. SEATO was dissolved on 30 June 1977 after many members lost interest and withdrew.
Membership
8 nations
The Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, was signed on 8 September 1954 in
Manila,
[2] as part of the American
Truman Doctrine of creating anti-communist bilateral and collective defense treaties.
[3] These treaties and agreements were intended to create alliances that would contain communist powers (
Communist China, in SEATO's case).
[4] This policy was considered to have been largely developed by American diplomat and Soviet expert
George F. Kennan. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles (1953–1959) is considered to be the primary force behind the creation of SEATO, which expanded the concept of anti-communist collective defense to Southeast Asia,
[2] and then-Vice President
Richard Nixon advocated an Asian equivalent of NATO upon returning from his late-1953 Asia trip.
[5] The organization, headquartered in Bangkok, was created in 1955 at the first meeting of the Council of Ministers set up by the treaty, contrary to Dulles's preference to call the organization "ManPac"[
citation needed].
SEATO was intended to be a Southeast Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),
[6] in which the military forces of each member would be coordinated to provide for the collective defense of the members' country. Organizationally, SEATO was headed by the Secretary General, whose office was created in 1957 at a meeting in
Canberra,
[7][8] with a council of representatives from member nations and an international staff. Also present were committees for economics, security, and information.
[8] SEATO's first Secretary General was
Pote Sarasin, a Thai diplomat and politician who had served as Thailand's ambassador to the U.S. between 1952 and 1957,
[9][10] and as Prime Minister of Thailand from September 1957 to 1 January 1958.
[11]
Unlike the NATO alliance, SEATO had no joint commands with standing forces.
[12] In addition, SEATO's response protocol in the event of communism presenting a "common danger" to the member nations was vague and ineffective, though membership in the SEATO alliance did provide a rationale for a large-scale U.S. military intervention in the region during the
Vietnam War (1955–1975).
[13]
