NATO and the Warsaw Pact

After World War II, the Soviet Union wants to extend its influence. It installs communist governments in several countries in eastern Europe. These countries are technically independent, but heavily controlled by the Soviet Union. They are Soviet satellite states. In 1948, the Soviet Union overthrows a democratic government in Czechoslovakia and then cuts off supply routes to the democratic West Berlin.

The United States and Western Europe grow nervous. Who will the Soviet Union target next? In April 1949, foreign ministers from twelve Western European and North American countries meet in Washington DC. They sign an agreement that says an attack against any of them by, for example… the Soviet Union… will be treated as an attack against all of them. The agreement is called the North Atlantic Treaty and the signing countries form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.

Soon, tensions arise between NATO and the Soviet Union over the status of Germany. Germany has been a divided nation since the end of World War II. The Americans, British and French occupy different zones in Western Germany and West Berlin; the Soviets control Eastern Germany and East Berlin. Now, the Americans, British, and French combine their zones to establish a new country: the Federal Republic of Germany. The Soviets respond by establishing the German Democratic Republic in East Germany.

Although “democratic” in name, all decision-making power really lies with the East German Communist party. The United States and its allies want West Germany to form its own army and join NATO. This way, it can help in the effort to defend western Europe against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is not happy about this idea. The Soviets warn that, if West Germany raises an army and joins NATO, the Soviet Union will make its own alliance.

Nevertheless, West Germany does join NATO, and prepares to establish an army. So the Soviet Union does just as it warned… In May 1955, the Soviet Union gathers its communist satellite states in Warsaw, Poland to sign the Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, or The Warsaw Pact. Like NATO, the Warsaw Pact countries are bound to come to each other’s defence if attacked by an outside power. The pact also establishes a military headquarters in Moscow for all the signing countries, putting the Soviet Union firmly in charge. When Hungary, and later Czechoslovakia and Poland, try to rise up against Soviet control, the Soviet Union uses Warsaw Pact troops to quash the uprisings.

The Pact will remain in effect until 1991. NATO and the Warsaw Pact: two agreements that bring together the western democracies on one side, and the Soviet Union and its communist satellite states on the other. While these alliances are not explicitly in conflict with one another, it is clear that a quarrel between any two members of opposing sides could easily escalate into a much larger conflict.