Failed Alliances of the Cold War

Britain's Strategy and Ambitions in Asia and the Middle East

Panagiotis Dimitrakis

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781848859746
• eBook ISBN: 9780857730978
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Cold War was a period of intense political rivalry, in which diplomacy and international relations in Asia and the Middle East acquired huge global significance. In this study, Panagiotis Dimitrakis explores British policy towards SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organisation) and CENTO (Central Treaty Organisation). Designed in the 1950s to counter the Soviet Union's attempts to expand its global influence, these alliances with Asian and Middle Eastern powers were at the centre of western efforts to maintain regional influence. Yet they failed to bring together the differing aims and ambitions of their regional members and were dissolved in 1977 and 1979 respectively. This study examines the Cold War policies of the United States, Iran and Pakistan as well as the effect of British diplomacy on the war in Vietnam and SEATO planning. The formation of CENTO in 1959 – an alliance comprising Britain, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan with the support of the USA – was one of the grandest Cold War gestures of solidarity. The emergence of new diplomatic records, however, questions the true commitment of Britain and the United States to come to the defence of their new allies in Asia and the Middle East. In fact, even in cases of aggression on the part of the Soviet Union, the priorities of Britain and the USA were ultimately self-serving, despite their Cold War rhetoric of ideological unity and common purpose. As the 1950s came to a close, serious irreconcilable differences in the defence policies of the SEATO and CENTO members began to emerge. Citing the latest declassified British and American intelligence assessments, diplomats' dispatches and military plans, Dimitrakis shows how nations across South East Asia fought for material supremacy; how Britain and the United States avoided supporting SEATO and CENTO; and how détente led to the demise of these alliances. Failed Alliances of the Cold War will be a crucial point of reference for scholars of the Cold War, and those working in the fields of History, Politics and International Relations.

1

BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES: SHAPING ALLIANCES BEYOND NATO

‘Pactomania’ is a term referring to the American urge to form anti-communist alliances in Asia and the Middle East during and after the Korean War, in order to contain Russia.¹ In the world of the Cold War the USA promoted the establishment not only of bilateral alliances but of international organisations for collective defence, following the creation of NATO in 1949. However, the word ‘mania’ here is misleading, implying American over-willingness to make military commitments in advance of war planning, demonstrating strong interest in their allies’ security. As this chapter documents, the drive for anti-communist alliances was checked by the desire of Britain and the USA not to upset their relations with key third countries (e.g. India and Israel), as well as to avoid putting ‘boots on the ground’ – costly troop deployments under the auspices of allied war planning. The ‘New Look’ policy examining the employment of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons from the outset of any new world war was a key factor that inhibited the dispatch of US troops. While military staffs were trying to cope with the nightmarish scenarios of nuclear war, London and Washington based their qualified alliance-making commitments on the premise of low conventional Russian and/or Chinese military threats in Asia or the Middle East.

The domino theory – as perceived by the Eisenhower administration, the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA – was a key factor in the spread of American defence, security and economic-aid programmes in Asia and the Middle East in the 1950s. The President grasped the attention of his audience in 1954 with his simplistic but influential metaphor: states were similar to dominos, thus: ‘You have a row of dominos set up, you knock over the first one, and … the last one … will go over very quickly. So you could have … disintegration that would have the most profound influences.’² The domino theory was based on the fear that if one country went communist (either by invasion, subversion or opting to align with Moscow or Beijing), more would follow, especially in Southeast Asia. The domino metaphor sounded reasonable to statesmen and military officers who in their mid-career had witnessed the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain, giving Hitler a free hand in Czechoslovakia without securing peace. Nonetheless, President Eisenhower, a shrewd and cautious player, was not eager to give his regional allies all they asked for, and would not commit US forces even in draft war-planning.

On the British side, the key motivations for building alliances had been two: first, Britain needed to preserve her world-power status in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, as argued by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden in a memorandum of 18 June 1952 entitled ‘British Overseas Obligations’, and by the Chiefs of Staff study ‘Review of Defence Policy and Global Strategy’, completed in the same month. The second strategic motivation was that Britain needed a great deal of help in this endeavour – by 1951 the balance of payments was in deficit to the tune of £369 million, with defence spending rising from 8 to 14 per cent of GDP. Eden, in a bid to shore up Britain’s prestige, urged the cabinet to concur in a policy of creating alliances, with Washington evolving into a key funding source for these organisations, whose existence would support British policy in Asia and the Middle East. The prime minister’s argument was Machiavellian enough, and assumed that the Americans would be naïve enough to foot the immense bills:

[We] should persuade the United States to assume the real burdens in such organisations [alliances in Asia and the Middle East] while retaining for ourselves as much political control – and hence prestige and world influence – as we can … the more gradually and inconspicuously we can transfer the real burdens from our own to American shoulders, the less damage we shall do to our position and influence in the world.³

This was the power-by-proxy concept – a fine theoretical exercise.

However, by 1953 John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State, suspected his allies of seeking to check American policy initiatives in the future because they ‘would be exposed to veto by those consulted, with subsequent handicaps of freedom of action’; policy options would have to focus on ‘the lowest denomination of boldness and capacity among the consulting nations’.⁴ Indeed, the Foreign Office feared that unless Washington was not bound by some sort of formal alliance in Asia and the Middle East, they would ‘drag, by unilateral action, the western world into a full scale war with China – or worse.’⁵ British diplomats had in mind the attitude of General Douglas MacArthur during the first phase of the Korean war, and were justified in worrying about American ‘freedom of action.’ Ironically, once SEATO and CENTO were established, the USA avoided boosting these alliances and limited its investment in them, focusing on its bilateral agreements with regional allies. (With reference to Vietnam, however, Washington pressured its SEATO allies – largely without success – to confront Hanoi.)

Eventually, in their effort to build new alliances, Britain and USA stood together in conferences, but Washington worried about being identified with the return of colonialism, as post-war British policy was viewed by regional nationalists. The Malaya insurgency that commenced in June 1948 was a notable example: the Americans abstained from supporting the British, even refused to supply them with 10,000 carbines for the constabulary, following a request from the British deputy police commissioner.⁶ In British eyes, ‘the full development of [Southeast Asia] can only be brought about with United States assistance, but at present there is an obvious reluctance on the part of the Americans to risk a further loss after their 0experience in China [with the victory of communist leader Mao Tse-tung]’.⁷

The conflict in Indochina and the end of French rule there preoccupied British and French policy in Asia in the early 1950s. Eventually, on 21 July 1954, the Geneva Final Declaration on Indochina was drafted by British, Russian, French and Vietnamese representatives – though the Americans refused to sign it, while stating that the agreement was to be respected:

The Conference also takes note of the declarations made by the Governments of Cambodia (4) and Laos (5) of their resolution not to request foreign aid, whether in war material, in personnel or in instructors except for the purpose of the effective defence of their territory and, in the case of Laos, to the extent defined by the agreements on the cessation of hostilities in Laos. [article 4]

The Conference takes note of the clauses in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Viet-Nam to the effect that no military base under the control of a foreign State may be established in the regrouping zones of the two parties, the latter having the obligation to see that the zones allotted to them shall not constitute part of any military alliance and shall not be utilized for the resumption of hostilities or in the service of an aggressive policy. The Conference also takes note of the declarations of the Governments of Cambodia (6) and Laos (7) to the effect that they will not join in any agreement with other States if this agreement includes the obligation to participate in a military alliance not in conformity with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations or, in the case of Laos, with the principles of the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Laos or, so long as their security is not threatened, the obligation to establish bases on Cambodian or Laotian territory for the military forces of foreign Powers.[article 5]

In their relations with Cambodia, Laos and Viet-Nam, each member of the Geneva Conference undertakes to respect the sovereignty, the independence, the unity and the territorial integrity of the above-mentioned states, and to refrain from any interference in their internal affairs. [article 12]⁸

Essentially, the 1954 Geneva Declaration would hold until the Bay of Tonkin incident in August 1964, and the commencement of considerable US military involvement in Vietnam. According to the Geneva conference ruling, national elections would be held in 1956, reunifying the country. Dulles assumed that these elections would secure a quick victory for the communists, and was pleased by the attitude of Ngo Dinh Diem, the President of the ‘Republic of Vietnam’, to cancel the elections in the south, which prompted attacks by communist guerrillas backed by Ho Chi Minh’s ‘Democratic Republic of Vietnam’. In response, American military advisers were dispatched to train the South Vietnamese military.

Some two months earlier, in spring 1954, Dulles had aired the concept of creating ‘some lasting collective security system for Southeast Asia’ during a conversation with Eden. The latter readily offered to examine such an option, believing that he could promote the setting-up of a regional Locarno-type security arrangement in parallel with the search for a diplomatic solution (at that time the Geneva talks had not been concluded). In this scheme the membership of India, Indonesia and Ceylon (in siding with Britain, the Commonwealth and the USA) would add much to the credibility of a collective security arrangement; but Eden was too optimistic – the three countries were unwilling to compromise their neutrality in a scheme sponsored by non-Asian powers, as Ceylon’s prime minister pointed out. Britain had a colonial past, and the peoples of the region, including their elites, feared the advent of neocolonialism. In addition, American policy with respect to communist China left no room for manoeuvre by regional powers.⁹ Of course the Chinese premier and foreign affairs minister, Zhou Enlai, did not miss the opportunity to emphasise to Eden during the Geneva talks that a Southeast-Asia defence organisation would ‘split the area just as NATO had split Europe’.¹⁰

The absence of a serious and immediate threat in the Middle East and Asia (a threat in the form of enemy divisions rather than of communist subversion and propaganda, which could be countered by police action and counter-propaganda), and the presence of regional nationalisms led London and Washington to negotiate treaty provisions that lacked the commitment of the NATO treaty. Comparing key articles in the NATO treaty with the corresponding parts of the SEATO treaty and the Baghdad Pact [the legal foundation of CENTO] it is easy to see how robust the NATO alliance structure was meant to be. On 4 April 1949, the representatives of Britain, the USA, Denmark, France, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, Iceland and Luxembourg (to be joined in 1952 by Greece and Turkey) signed the NATO treaty, agreeing on certain key articles:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all, and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually, and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security. [article 5].

For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

– on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of Fra0nce, on the territory of Turkey or on the islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;- on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer. [article 6]¹¹

Only after 20 years could a member state renounce the treaty (article 13). All these provisions established a benchmark for alliance standards (for the contemporary strategist as well as for the future scholar), and the level of automatic aid to the victim of communist aggression; but SEATO and CENTO, in their founding treaties (neither alliances ever had a charter), would never match NATO’s stringent requirements. The USA, Britain, France, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, France, New Zealand and Pakistan signed the Southeast Asia Collective Defence Treaty (the Manila Pact) on 8 September 1954, agreeing in article 4 that:

1. Each Party recognizes that aggression by means of armed attack in the treaty area against any of the Parties or against any State or territory which the Parties by unanimous agreement may hereafter designate, would endanger its own peace and safety, and agrees that it will in that event act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes. Measures taken under this paragraph shall be immediately reported to the Security Council of the United Nations.

2. If, in the opinion of any of the Parties, the inviolability or the integrity of the territory or the sovereignty or political independence of any Party in the treaty area or of any other State or territory to which the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article from time to time apply is threatened in any way other than by armed attack or is affected or threatened by any fact or situation which might endanger the peace of the area, the Parties shall consult immediately in order to agree on the measures which should be taken for the common defense.

3. It is understood that no action on the territory of any State designated by unanimous agreement under paragraph 1 of this Article or on any territory so designated shall be taken except at the invitation or with the consent of the government concerned.¹²

The treaty was for an indefinite period of time. Cambodia, Laos and South Vietnam were not members but were included in the SEATO defence area under a separate protocol. However, Ngo Dinh Diem did not hesitate to question SEATO’s willingness to defend his South Vietnamese state. In a May 1957 conversation with Eisenhower, Diem asked for more military aid; Eisenhower, unwilling to comply with the request, reassured him of SEATO’s response in the event of aggression. Replying, Diem pointed out that only two neighbouring countries, Thailand and the Philippines, had joined; their forces in the event of war would be preoccupied with defending their own territories, and Pakistan was too far away to provide any meaningful help. Diem was perceptive also in referring to the low value of atomic weapons, and ‘questioned whether th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Author biography
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Britain and the United States: Shaping Alliances Beyond NATO
• 2. Pakistan’s Strategy
• 3. CENTO’s Nuclear Bombers and Cyprus
• 4. SEATO: Planning and Divisions
• 5. SEATO and Vietnam
• 6. The Shah and CENTO
• 7. Demise of the Alliances
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography