To tame a paper tiger: New Zealand's part in SEATO 1954-1977

Abstract

This study examines New Zealand's participation in the SEATO alliance, a pact signed in 1954 by Western and regional states to guarantee Southeast Asia against communist encroachment. It aims to identify New Zealand's interests in the alliance and to explain its political and strategic behaviour as a member, within the context of official foreign policy-making procedures. First, it investigates the Government's interests in the alliance at its formation. This is set against the background of New Zealand's security concerns: its postwar search for an effective guarantee, its allegiance to the Western powers, its ambivalence towards Asian states, and the low level of threat to its security. It is argued that New Zealand had neither military nor political interests in a pact with Asian states, seeking instead the political and military support of Western states. In this respect the 1951 ANZUS Treaty contained several imperfections. Nevertheless the decision of April 1954 to pursue a pact in Southeast Asia was the result of allegiance to the West rather than for reasons of national security. These attitudes led the Government to acquiesce in the creation of an alliance which was based on American power, but whose security role was characterised by severe structural and operational deficiencies. The study then analyses the political, strategic and administrative factors which determined New Zealand's part in the workings of the Organization, established between 1955 and 1957. A considerable difference emerges between the Government's attitude to the small SEATO military organisation, which usefully remedies the deficiencies of ANZUS, and the larger civil secretariat which, in the Government's view, is unsuitable for dealing with the covert threat to the region. In examining New Zealand's role in military planning and other SEATO programmes, discrepancies emerge between the strategic requirements of the Southeast Asian partners, the range of options provided by SEATO, and New Zealand's willingness to use them. In general the structure of the alliance and national preferences precluded New Zealand from supplying the economic or internal security assistance which the region needed. The Government took greater interest in military cooperation, but was unwilling to contemplate military action. In examining the political, strategic and legal aspects of New Zealand's attitude to high-level politics in SEATO (particularly the crises in Laos and Vietnam) it becomes clear that the Government preferred the alliance to play a cautious role in meeting communism in the region, while retaining its unity and military institutions. Some other members, however, did not share these priorities, and so the study then traces New Zealand's concern at the breakdown of alliance and the creation of more effective methods of fulfilling the treaty obligations. The analysis then turns to deal with the residual value of the treaty and the organisation into the 1970s and 1980s, charting New Zealand's concern to maintain Western power in Southeast Asia against the range of political, military and organisational considerations. From this study it is concluded that New Zealand's strategic interests in Indochina were fairly small in the 1950s and early 1960s, thereby working against its fulfilment of collective defence guarantees and impairing its role in alliance institutions. However, the Government felt bound to bow to the United States' wishes that it should do more. Overall therefore, New Zealand performed unevenly as an alliance partner, but was at all times a marginal, weak member. Through these developments some insight is also gained into inter-party differences in this field of foreign policy, and into the variety of approaches to foreign policy exhibited by government agencies.