SEATO’s 70th Anniversary: Lessons for Asia’s Emerging Multilateral Alliances

September 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of the much forgotten and often maligned Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). However, its legacy in fact provides invaluable insights for Asia’s emerging multilateral alliances, such as the “Quad,” “Quad Plus,” and the much-hyped but still hypothetical idea of an “Asian NATO.” Despite criticisms of its impotency and disunity, understanding how SEATO emerged and the internal divisions that led to its demise is crucial for navigating today’s complex geopolitical terrain.

SEATO, also known as the “Manila Pact,” was an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia, aimed at combating communist expansion in the region. Established on September 8, 1954, it emerged during a strategic interregnum when postcolonial independence struggles intersected with the United States’ ascent as a superpower and emerging priorities to contain the global expansion of communism.

Back in 1949, Washington had just formed NATO to counter the Soviet threat in Europe and contemplated withdrawing from Asia as communists took over China. Fears of a resurgent Japan and the Chinese communist threat initially led countries like the Philippines, South Korea, and the Republic of China to propose an Asian equivalent of NATO, the “Pacific Pact” (the precursor of SEATO), while Australia and New Zealand sought regional security arrangements against Japan and the Soviet Union.

The Americans, wary of regional suspicions of imperialism, preferred a “consultative council” under an “Association of Free Nations of Asia and Pacific” to address concerns about Japan and promote anti-communism. However, disagreements arose over the inclusion of Japan, the United Kingdom, and France at an inopportune time when the Korean War escalated in the 1950s. The urgent need to resolve the Japan issue led the United States and its prospective allies to minimally agree on separate mutual defense treaties – what former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the architect of SEATO, described as a “spokes on a wheel” approach, now commonly known as the “hub and spoke” system.

None of the parties viewed this system as adequate or final but rather as a prelude to “a more comprehensive system of regional security in the Pacific area.”

In March 1953, ideas for a multilateral alliance emerged once more after Dulles urged Asian partners to undertake “United Action” in Indochina to counter the looming threat of a “Red Asia.” Dulles envisioned a coalition comprising the U.S., U.K., France, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, and the Associated States (Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam), committed to defending Southeast Asia against communist aggression. However, internal disputes quickly arose as prospective allies jostled for their own interests and membership status. It became clear no one would accept this proposal unless the United States committed forces to Indochina and undertook long-term commitments to Thailand and Malaya.

Growing concerns over French military setbacks at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu soon prompted Washington to take concrete actions toward Dulles’ proposal, leading to backroom meetings to negotiate the formation of SEATO during the Geneva Conference of 1954. During these formative months before its inauguration, significant divisions emerged, particularly among the U.S., U.K., and France. The Americans were frustrated by the French and British reluctance to “hold the balance of Indochina,” reportedly “blocking everything” they wanted to do. The British appeared to be dragging their feet by attempting in vain to expand SEATO to include the Colombo powers (Burma, Indonesia, Ceylon, India, and Pakistan): all except Pakistan were rejected due to suspicions of imperialism. The British also opposed French imperial ambitions to include Cambodia and Laos. Except for the U.S. and Thailand, everyone else avoided specifying “communist aggression” as a threat since it would appear unduly provocative to Beijing.

By August 20, 1954, U.S. concern over its declining prestige in Asia, driven by a perceived failure to lead the fight against communism, compelled it to establish at least some form of security arrangement. Dulles insisted that he “c[ould]n’t come back without a treaty.” The resulting product was a compromised treaty that reflected the divergent interests of member-states. The reluctance to come to a consensus on the nature of communist threat led to a diluted and unrealistic goal of meeting the common danger of communist “aggression by means of armed attack” – an aggression that never materialized. Ultimately, Washington’s reluctance to commit ground forces in Indochina reduced SEATO to a symbol of anti-communist unity, serving more to preserve U.S. prestige than to facilitate effective military intervention.

SEATO’s institutional structure created impediments that hindered collective action over the subsequent decades. When the civil war in Laos and Vietnam escalated in the 1960s, the internal divisions became apparent. SEATO members, prioritizing unity over action, avoided measures that could threaten the alliance. As former Thai Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman put it, they aimed to “save SEATO from impotency.”

In 1973, Pakistan withdrew from SEATO in the wake of East Pakistan's breaking away in 1971 to become Bangladesh. In 1977, the organization formally disbanded.

SEATO’s history is a cautionary tale for today’s multilateral alliances like the Quad. Both emerged from divisive geopolitical landscapes marked by significant doubts about their desirability – whose interests they serve – and their practicality – whether they would fulfill their intended purpose as a warfighting alliance given the subversive nature of modern great-power conflicts.

Today, the Quad does not suffer from the same suspicions of Western imperialism that bedeviled much of SEATO’s existence. However, fears of entrapment in a great-power conflict have sparked renewed debates about nonalignment, a relic of the Cold War. The fact remains that most Asian countries do not share the same regional threat perception regarding China that the United States does and do not want the Quad to develop into a countervailing alliance.

Should China pursue territorial expansion beyond Taiwan, such multilateral alliance proposals might emerge as cohesive and credible. But this scenario appears distant. China’s current challenges to the Indo-Pacific order are of a fundamentally different nature, requiring a hybrid approach to risk mitigation. If even at the height of the Cold War SEATO never faced a armed Chinese communist attack, contemporary policymakers must reconsider whether such alliances are genuinely useful or merely a means to mask insecurities about declining U.S. capacity to maintain regional order.

SEATO’s past also teaches us about the kind of problems that may emerge with a multilateral alliance in Asia. Allies often expect more than what is provided for in the casus foederis, testing each other’s commitment even on less critical matters to assess their reliability in more challenging times. During the Cold War, the inflated expectations of SEATO allies compelled the alliance to provide security against threats it was never meant to defend, such as communist subversion, the failure of which resulted in great disillusionment. Some decried SEATO as a “paper tiger,” appearing powerful against communist China but actually ineffectual, while others called it “deterrent diplomacy,” concealing the inadequacy of their defenses through diplomacy.

Yet SEATO was not to blame. The threat of communist subversion loomed large in its first decade, and SEATO needed to act or risk undermining broader regional confidence in the U.S. security architecture in Asia. SEATO’s experience is telling. Aspiring members of an Asian multilateral alliance must be prepared for the over-expectations of their members, especially in the face of China’s gray-zone operations, lest they be criticized for being just a talk shop.

SEATO’s history, with all its twists and turns, remains relevant even 70 years after its formation and nearly 50 years since its demise.