European influence was all but erased from southeast Asia by the 1950s. France fought a bloody insurrection in Vietnam and left the country split in two. Britain left Burma and the Malay peninsula. There was a vacuum of power, the West felt, that could be readily exploited by the Soviet Union. To keep communism away, they set up a regional organization modeled on NATO, to cooperate against the Soviet threat.

On this day, September 8, 1954, the United States along with France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, or SEATO.

The signatories to the agreement were compelled to “act to meet the common danger” in the event of an armed attack on one them, but stopped short of making the act armed defense. Instead, it called for consultations — a non-military commitment. Nevertheless, the U.S. used SEATO as the pretext for defending South Vietnam.