The Association of South East Asian Nations, or ASEAN, from its very beginning, has had two objectives. The first is to prevent the historical disputes among its member-states from developing into armed conflict. The other is to keep the major external powers from using the region as an arena for their quarrels. At the beginning, all five founding states were threatened by the rise of Communism, then abetted by like-minded external powers. Soon, however, Communism ceased to be an armed threat.

The formation of ASEAN in 1967 was also made possible by the transformation taking place in Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest country in terms of population, land area, the economy, and activism in international affairs. It would not do for Indonesia simply to join the young Association of Southeast Asia, or ASA, ASEAN's template-association composed of three future members of ASEAN — Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand — and taking over most of ASA's practices and structures. An entirely new association had to be set up not only because of Indonesia's status but also because of her ideological predilections. Thus, Indonesia's highest-ranking point-man for ASEAN, Vice President Adam Malik, Presidium Minister for Political Affairs and Minister for Foreign Affairs, invited Burma and Cambodia to join the new association. Unfortunately, those two states, like Indonesia staunchly non-aligned, demurred, said to be suspecting that ASEAN would be a replacement for SEATO, another brainchild of the United States in its web of military alliances. The U.S. was then mired in its Indochina war, although the U.S. was showing signs of her determination to get out of the Indochina quagmire. At the same time, Indonesia was transforming itself from the Sukarno to the Soeharto era, from autarky in economic policy to relative openness to international markets, foreign aid and investments, from the Left in foreign policy to a more balanced posture in international affairs.

Malaysia had territorial and other jurisdictional disputes with all of its immediate neighbours. There were occasional tensions between Thailand and Malaysia over several issues. Indonesia was opposed, militarily and otherwise, to the formation of Malaysia as a British-inspired enterprise. The Philippines was hostile to the inclusion of Sabah in the new Federation of Malaysia.