The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) came into being on 8 August 1967, some four decades ago. The founding of a regional organization among small- and medium-size states in Asia, without the involvement of a hegemonic power, was as unprecedented as it was path-breaking. If one discounts the earlier ill-fated attempt by the Philippines, Thailand, and the Federation of Malaya to form the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA), this was the first time that any of the newly independent Asian states had come together in a coordinated effort to weather the challenges of the international environment and to create a peaceful and stable regional framework for development. ASEAN has often been described as the most successful regional cooperation scheme outside Europe, second only to the European Union (EU). Indeed it has become the model for regionalism in many other parts of the world.

ASEAN was the brainchild of an elite group of policymakers who responded to a clear and straightforward pattern in world politics. The Association was born of the Cold War, which had just been reinforced by the escalating Vietnam War. Although they did not officially say so, ASEAN's founders saw intensified regional cooperation as a way to strengthen Southeast Asia's position in the Asia Pacific area and thereby to reduce their region's risk of falling victim to global rivalry among the great powers.

While the Bangkok Declaration, ASEAN's founding document, stressed the importance of regional economic cooperation and cultural exchange among the nations of Southeast Asia—most of them only recently independent—the main objective was undoubtedly security. Washington had just revived President Eisenhower's “domino theory” of 1954, in which world communism was seen as aggressively expansionist. Southeast Asian leaders were well aware of this American perception. Having so recently gained their freedom from colonial rule, they wanted to avoid at all costs a situation of fresh dependence on outside powers.