Creating SEATO: understanding the limited success of Eisenhower’s NSC in Southeast Asia

Abstract

“Creating SEATO” uses primary sources primarily from the Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library to investigate an overlooked aspect of the Eisenhower administration’s “New Look” grand-strategy foreign policy of how the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) affected the National Security Council’s (NSC) ability to achieve its objective for the nations of Southeast Asia during Eisenhower’s presidency. The New Look, SEATO, and the Eisenhower administration’s foreign relations with the nations of Southeast Asia were inextricably linked. The NSC’s objective for Southeast Asia was to have pro-West nations with stable and free governments. The New Look was multifaceted. Its primary component was deterring the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from militarily invading Western Europe by increasing the US’ nuclear capabilities significantly and threatening massive retaliation. This would contain communism long term and avoid war at a reasonable cost. Its secondary components were to use collective security to share costs and responsibilities with allies, and economic development and propaganda would attract nations to cooperate with the West. This dissertation’s main thesis in a sentence is: Eisenhower’s NSC had limited success achieving its objective for the nations of Southeast Asia because SEATO reflected the New Look, and the New Look was not a good strategy for the region. To elaborate more on the dissertation’s main thesis, the New Look’s nuclear and Eurocentric focus presented three major contradictions when it was applied to Southeast Asia. The contradictions were: 1) the most likely regional communist threat was from insurgencies, 2) US allies were halfhearted about regional collective security, and 3) popular support for anti-Westernism and neutrality pervaded the region. Although the NSC had success in its primary component, it had limited success achieving its objective for the nations of Southeast Asia where it used SEATO to implement different components of the New Look. A significant reason for the lack of success was because the NSC tried to apply the New Look universally through SEATO even though Southeast Asia had a different set of challenges than Europe, which the previously explained contradictions for the New Look in the region did not adequately address. Therefore, the NSC’s regional objective was unrealistic, but it implemented the New Look through SEATO anyway because the New Look was a global strategy that mitigated overall risk. In addition, the NSC was focused on preventing the spread of communism in Southeast Asia because the domino theory held that if one nation fell to communism, then soon, they all would. By taking a new look at the New Look, “Creating SEATO” makes historiographical contributions to scholarship about the New Look, SEATO, and the Eisenhower administration’s foreign relations with the nations of Southeast Asia. It adds how an important reason why the NSC struggled to achieve its objective with the nations of Southeast Asia was because of major contradictions in the New Look when it was applied to Southeast Asia through SEATO.