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Description
USEAN officially the Union of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of nine member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes socialism, intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, military, educational, and sociocultural integration between its members and countries in the Asia-Pacific. USEAN's primary objective was to accelerate economic growth and through that social progress and socialism. A secondary objective was to promote regional peace and stability based on the rule of law and Cultural Development. With some of the fastest growing economies in the world, USEAN has broadened its objective beyond the economic and social spheres. In 2003, ASEAN moved along the path similar to the European Union (EU) by agreeing to establish an USEAN community that consists of three pillars: the USEAN Security Community, the USEAN Economic Community, and the USEAN Socio-Cultural Community. The ten stalks of rice in the ASEAN flag and insignia represents the ten Southeast Asian countries (the tenth being Brunei until its unification with North Kalimantan in 1969) bound together in solidarity.

The organization was preceded by an organization formed on July 30, 1961 called the Southeast Asian Revolutionary Front which comprises of a newly-independent Malaya, Marhaenist Indonesia, The People Republics of Sarawak and Sabah and finally the Philippine Revolutionary Socialist Republic, which started as a revolt against the Japanese occupation that sparked into a full-blown revolution when the American invasion of Leyte failed after a series of miraculous victories by the Japanese navy against the American landing force. The organization was formed as a way to combat the return of colonial powers in the region and to cooperate in spreading communism in the region, culminating in their support for North Vietnam during the war against the United States, resulting to their victory in 1969. The following year, the SARF would re-organize into the Union of Southeast Asian Nations in August 8, when the foreign ministers of five countries: Indonesia, Malaya, the Philippines, North Kalimantan, Vietnam, and Burma, signed the USEAN Declaration. As set out in the Declaration, the aims and purposes of USEAN are to accelerate economic growth, social progress, and cultural development in the region, to promote regional peace, collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest, to provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities, to collaborate for better utilization of agriculture and industry to raise the living standards of the people, to promote socialism in Southeast Asia and to maintain close, beneficial co-operation with existing socialist countries like the Soviet Union and China. The creation of USEAN was also motivated by the desire to spread communism, but this would change in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took power in Kampuchea after a Civil War. The Khmer Rouge and Vietnam held very tense diplomatic relations, as Cambodia had already been involved in the Third Indochina War and differences in communist ideology and the incursion of Vietnamese military presence within Cambodian borders contributed further to the tensions further. Nonetheless, Democratic Kampuchea was allowed to join USEAN on September 30, 1976, followed by Laos in the following year. Despite their admission, Kampuchea and Vietnam's relations continue to decline, along with relations with other members states as the Khmer Rouge began to isolate themselves within USEAN itself, with increasing disputed reports of atrocities within Kampuchea reaching the ears of other countries. When the first wave of refugees began to reach Thailand and Vietnam, the stories of horrors within Kampuchea only seem to get worse, eventually forcing the governments of Malaya, the Philippines, and Vietnam to began reconsidering the Khmer Rouge's membership within the organization, culminating in Kampuchea's sudden resignation from USEAN in April 12, 1977. A few weeks later, Kampuchea would suddenly launch a major military operation against Vietnam, who responded with their own retaliatory strike by the end of the year in an attempt to force the Kampuchean government to negotiate. The Vietnamese military withdrew in January 1978, even though its political objectives had not been achieved; the Khmer Rouge remained unwilling to negotiate seriously. Small-scale fighting continued between the two countries throughout 1978, as China and USEAN tried to mediate peace talks between the two sides. China heavily supported the Khmer Rouge, while Vietnam was unanimously supported by USEAN, whose member-states began to show condemnation towards Kampuchea's alleged atrocities within their borders.

Eventually in 1978, when the latest series of negotiations failed to provide any compromise, the Vietnamese leaders decided to intervene and overthrow the Khmer rouge when a Vietnamese village near the border was massacred by Kampuchean Forces. The USEAN council would rule in favor of the intervention, and soon Indonesia and the Philippines would send volunteers to aid the Vietnamese intervention. On 25 December 1978, 150,000 Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Filipino troops invaded Democratic Kampuchea and overran the Kampuchean Revolutionary Army in just two weeks, ending the Khmer Rouge's rule and confirming that the atrocities within Kampuchea was indeed real, with several mass graves and slave camps being discovered along the way. The combined forces would chase the remaining Khmer Rouge forces into Thailand, which would unintentionally spark a communist revolution and almost brought the member-states of USEAN at war with India and the United States, and a short war with the Chinese in 1979 when they invaded North Vietnam and had several naval skirmishes with the Indonesian and Philippine Navies over disputed territories in the South China Sea, wherein both sides claimed to be victors of the last Indochina wars. After a lengthy Civil War, Thailand finally fell to communist forces on 1981 and would join USEAN in the following year. Cambodia was placed under a combined United Nations - USEAN occupation that ended with the establishment of the People's Republic of Kampuchea after an election in 1986. They would later rejoin USEAN in 1993. After their coordination with the United Nations, USEAN eventually began to open up to international trade, ironically opening trade relations first with the United States in 1990. This relationship further deepened with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Eventually, the USEAN market expanded further to Japan, Europe, and finally the Chinese in 1999. As of 2022, the organization is one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Description
USEAN officially the Union of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of nine member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes socialism, intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, military, educational, and sociocultural integration between its members and countries in the Asia-Pacific. USEAN's primary objective was to accelerate economic growth and through that social progress and socialism. A secondary objective was to promote regional peace and stability based on the rule of law and Cultural Development. With some of the fastest growing economies in the world, USEAN has broadened its objective beyond the economic and social spheres. In 2003, ASEAN moved along the path similar to the European Union (EU) by agreeing to establish an USEAN community that consists of three pillars: the USEAN Security Community, the USEAN Economic Community, and the USEAN Socio-Cultural Community. The ten stalks of rice in the ASEAN flag and insignia represents the ten Southeast Asian countries (the tenth being Brunei until its unification with North Kalimantan in 1969) bound together in solidarity.

The organization was preceded by an organization formed on July 30, 1961 called the Southeast Asian Revolutionary Front which comprises of a newly-independent Malaya, Marhaenist Indonesia, The People Republics of Sarawak and Sabah and finally the Philippine Revolutionary Socialist Republic, which started as a revolt against the Japanese occupation that sparked into a full-blown revolution when the American invasion of Leyte failed after a series of miraculous victories by the Japanese navy against the American landing force. The organization was formed as a way to combat the return of colonial powers in the region and to cooperate in spreading communism in the region, culminating in their support for North Vietnam during the war against the United States, resulting to their victory in 1969. The following year, the SARF would re-organize into the Union of Southeast Asian Nations in August 8, when the foreign ministers of five countries: Indonesia, Malaya, the Philippines, North Kalimantan, Vietnam, and Burma, signed the USEAN Declaration. As set out in the Declaration, the aims and purposes of USEAN are to accelerate economic growth, social progress, and cultural development in the region, to promote regional peace, collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest, to provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities, to collaborate for better utilization of agriculture and industry to raise the living standards of the people, to promote socialism in Southeast Asia and to maintain close, beneficial co-operation with existing socialist countries like the Soviet Union and China. The creation of USEAN was also motivated by the desire to spread communism, but this would change in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took power in Kampuchea after a Civil War. The Khmer Rouge and Vietnam held very tense diplomatic relations, as Cambodia had already been involved in the Third Indochina War and differences in communist ideology and the incursion of Vietnamese military presence within Cambodian borders contributed further to the tensions further. Nonetheless, Democratic Kampuchea was allowed to join USEAN on September 30, 1976, followed by Laos in the following year. Despite their admission, Kampuchea and Vietnam's relations continue to decline, along with relations with other members states as the Khmer Rouge began to isolate themselves within USEAN itself, with increasing disputed reports of atrocities within Kampuchea reaching the ears of other countries. When the first wave of refugees began to reach Thailand and Vietnam, the stories of horrors within Kampuchea only seem to get worse, eventually forcing the governments of Malaya, the Philippines, and Vietnam to began reconsidering the Khmer Rouge's membership within the organization, culminating in Kampuchea's sudden resignation from USEAN in April 12, 1977. A few weeks later, Kampuchea would suddenly launch a major military operation against Vietnam, who responded with their own retaliatory strike by the end of the year in an attempt to force the Kampuchean government to negotiate. The Vietnamese military withdrew in January 1978, even though its political objectives had not been achieved; the Khmer Rouge remained unwilling to negotiate seriously. Small-scale fighting continued between the two countries throughout 1978, as China and USEAN tried to mediate peace talks between the two sides. China heavily supported the Khmer Rouge, while Vietnam was unanimously supported by USEAN, whose member-states began to show condemnation towards Kampuchea's alleged atrocities within their borders.

Eventually in 1978, when the latest series of negotiations failed to provide any compromise, the Vietnamese leaders decided to intervene and overthrow the Khmer rouge when a Vietnamese village near the border was massacred by Kampuchean Forces. The USEAN council would rule in favor of the intervention, and soon Indonesia and the Philippines would send volunteers to aid the Vietnamese intervention. On 25 December 1978, 150,000 Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Filipino troops invaded Democratic Kampuchea and overran the Kampuchean Revolutionary Army in just two weeks, ending the Khmer Rouge's rule and confirming that the atrocities within Kampuchea was indeed real, with several mass graves and slave camps being discovered along the way. The combined forces would chase the remaining Khmer Rouge forces into Thailand, which would unintentionally spark a communist revolution and almost brought the member-states of USEAN at war with India and the United States, and a short war with the Chinese in 1979 when they invaded North Vietnam and had several naval skirmishes with the Indonesian and Philippine Navies over disputed territories in the South China Sea, wherein both sides claimed to be victors of the last Indochina wars. After a lengthy Civil War, Thailand finally fell to communist forces on 1981 and would join USEAN in the following year. Cambodia was placed under a combined United Nations - USEAN occupation that ended with the establishment of the People's Republic of Kampuchea after an election in 1986. They would later rejoin USEAN in 1993. After their coordination with the United Nations, USEAN eventually began to open up to international trade, ironically opening trade relations first with the United States in 1990. This relationship further deepened with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Eventually, the USEAN market expanded further to Japan, Europe, and finally the Chinese in 1999. As of 2022, the organization is one of the fastest growing economies in the world.