19541776 Club
Eight nations sign a Pacific defense pact in Manila, modeled on NATO
The treaty commits the U.S., Britain, France, and five Pacific and Asian partners to collective action against communist expansion in Southeast Asia.
Six weeks after the Geneva Agreements split Vietnam and barred its neighbors from joining military alliances, diplomats from eight nations gathered in Manila to build a defense around them instead. On September 8, 1954, Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, creating the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles led the American delegation, extending the containment logic already at work in Europe to a new front in Asia. The organization would formally stand up the following February in Bangkok…
