The Cold War was a period of intense geopolitical rivalry, in which diplomacy and international relations in Asia and the Middle East acquired huge global significance. In this study, Panagiotis Dimitrakis explores British policy towards SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organisation) and CENTO (Central Treaty Organisation). Designed in the 1950s to counter the Soviet Union's attempts to expand its global influence, these alliances with Asian and Middle Eastern powers were the focus of Western efforts to maintain their regional presence, yet they failed to bring together the differing aims and ambitions of their regional members and were dissolved in 1977 and 1979 respectively.

This study, based on recently declassified archival documents, examines the Cold War policies of the United States, Iran and Turkey as well as Pakistan's relations with India and the effects of British diplomacy on the war in Vietnam. Charting the repeated failures of Britain and the United States to come to the defence of their allies in Asia and the Middle East, Failed Alliances of the Cold War will be a crucial point of reference for scholars of the Cold War.