Question

Cold War agreements -

SEATO Agreement

Answer 1

1. England, America, France, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand and Philippines came together and signed a treaty on 8th September 1954 in Manila (Philippines), to ensure the collective defense of the countries in Southeast Asia.
2. This treaty is also known as ‘Southeast Asia Collective Defence Treaty’ or ‘Manila Pact’. The pact was mainly intended to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.
3. It was decided that if any of the nations included in the pact was attacked, then other nations signing the pact would collectively stand up against it and in times of peace, they would extend help for the social and economic development of each other.
4. Although it was named as a treaty of southeast Asian countries, only three countries from Asia, namely, Thailand, Philippines and Pakistan, were included in it. Rest all were western nations, who neither geographically, nor historically had any affiliation with the three Asian countries.
5. They were geographically distanced from Asia by thousands of kilometers. They did not have any deep understanding of the problems of the Asian countries.
6. Therefore, the military viability of this treaty was very limited. The headquarters of SEATO was located in Thailand.
7. However, the organisation did not have its own military. In 1973, Pakistan withdrew from it. In 1975, France stopped providing monetory help to this organisation. On 30th June 1977, this organisation was officially dissolved.