The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was created in 1954 with a treaty signed in Manila by Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States. It was a defensive alliance to shelter the Asian signatories in addition to Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam. Those who signed pledged collective action in case of external aggression or internal subversion against any one of the signers. SEATO's creation was urged by U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in the wake of the French defeat in 1954 in Indochina by communist forces. SEATO members were reluctant to support U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1972, following the Indo-Pakistani War, Pakistan withdrew from SEATO. In 1977 the organization was dissolved.