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The Warsaw Pact (formally, the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance, sometimes, informally WarPac, akin in format to CSTO.[7]
In the military alliance—abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Elsewhere, in the former member states, the Warsaw Treaty is known as:
The Warsaw Treaty's organization was two-fold: the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces.[8]
The strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to dominate Central and Eastern Europe. This policy was driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism and act as the leader of the global socialist movement. A corollary to this idea was the necessity of intervention if a country appeared to be violating core socialist ideas and Communist Party functions, which was explicitly stated in the Brezhnev Doctrine.[9] Geostrategic principles also drove the Soviet Union to prevent invasion of its territory by Western European powers, which had occurred most recently by Nazi Germany in 1941. The invasion launched by Hitler had been exceptionally brutal and the USSR emerged from the Second World War in 1945 with the greatest total casualties of any participant in the war, suffering an estimated 27 million killed along with the destruction of much of the nation's industrial capacity.
In March 1954, the USSR, fearing "the restoration of German Militarism" in West Germany, requested admission to NATO.[10][11][12] By then, laws had already been passed in West Germany ending West German Federal Intelligence Service, was fully operative and employing hundreds of ex-Nazis.[15]
The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Bidault (France).[19] Proposals for the reunification of Germany were nothing new: earlier in 1952, talks about a German reunification ended after the United Kingdom, France, and the United States insisted that a unified Germany should not be neutral and should be free to join the European Defence Community and rearm.
Consequently Molotov, fearing that EDC would be directed in the future against the USSR therefore "seeking to prevent the formation of groups of European States directed against other European States",[20] made a proposal for a General European Treaty on Collective Security in Europe "open to all European States without regard as to their social systems"[20] which would have included the unified Germany (thus making the EDC – perceived by the USSR as a threat – unusable). But again, Eden, Dulles and Bidault opposed the proposal.[21]
One month later, the proposed European Treaty was rejected not only by supporters of the EDC but also by western opponents of the European Defense Community (like French Gaullist leader Palewski) who perceived it as "unacceptable in its present form because it excludes the USA from participation in the collective security system in Europe".[22] The Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the USA, UK and France stating to accept the participation of the USA in the proposed General European Agreement.[22] And considering that another argument deployed against the Soviet proposal was that it was perceived by western powers as "directed against the North Atlantic Pact and its liquidation",[22][23] the Soviets decided to declare their "readiness to examine jointly with other interested parties the question of the participation of the USSR in the North Atlantic bloc", specifying that "the admittance of the USA into the General European Agreement should not be conditional on the three western powers agreeing to the USSR joining the North Atlantic Pact".[22]
Again all proposals, including the request to join NATO, were rejected by UK, US, and French governments shortly after.[12][24] Emblematic was the position of British General Hastings Ismay, supporter of NATO expansion, who said that NATO "must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella."[25] He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954[26] saying that "the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force".[27]
In April 1954 Adenauer made his first visit to the USA meeting Nixon, Eisenhower and Dulles. Ratification of EDC was delaying but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that EDC would have to become a part of NATO.[28]
Memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too.[29] On 30 August 1954 French Parliament rejected the EDC, thus ensuring its failure[30] and blocking a major objective of US policy towards Europe: to associate Germany militarily with the West.[31] The US Department of State started to elaborate alternatives: Germany would be invited to join NATO or, in the case of French obstructionism, strategies to circumvent a French veto would be implemented in order to obtain a German rearmament outside NATO.[32]
On Halvard Lange, Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway at the time.[33]
On 14 May 1955, the USSR and other seven European countries "reaffirming their desire for the establishment of a system of European collective security based on the participation of all European states irrespective of their social and political systems"[34] established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, declaring that: "a remilitarized Western Germany and the integration of the latter in the North-Atlantic bloc [...] increase the danger of another war and constitutes a threat to the national security of the peaceable states; [...] in these circumstances the peaceable European states must take the necessary measures to safeguard their security".[34]
One of the founding members, East Germany was allowed to re-arm by the Soviet Union and the National People's Army was established as the armed forces of the country to counter the rearmament of the West Germany
The eight member countries of the Warsaw Pact pledged the mutual defense of any member who would be attacked. Relations among the treaty signatories were based upon mutual non-intervention in the internal affairs of the member countries, respect for national sovereignty, and political independence. However, almost all governments of those members states were indirectly controlled by the Soviet Union.
The founding signatories to the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance consisted of the following communist governments:
In July 1963 the Mongolian People's Republic asked to join the Warsaw Pact under Article 9 of the treaty. For this purpose a special protocol should have been taken since the text of the treaty applied only to Europe. Due to the emerging Sino-Soviet split, Mongolia remained on observer status. Soviet stationing troops were agreed to stay in Mongolia from 1966.
For 36 years, NATO and the Warsaw Pact never directly waged war against each other in Europe; the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies implemented strategic policies aimed at the containment of each other in Europe, while working and fighting for influence within the wider Cold War on the international stage.
In 1956, following the declaration of the Imre Nagy government of withdrawal of Hungary from the Warsaw Pact, Soviet troops entered the country and removed the government. Soviet forces crushed the nation-wide revolt, leading to the death of an estimated 2,500 Hungarian citizens.
The multi-national Communist armed forces' sole joint action was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. All member countries, with the exception of the Socialist Republic of Romania and the People's Republic of Albania participated in the invasion.
Beginning at the Cold War's conclusion, in late 1989, popular civil and political public discontent forced the Communist governments of the Warsaw Treaty countries from power – independent national politics made feasible with the perestroika- and glasnost-induced institutional collapse of Communist government in the USSR.[35] Eventually, the populaces of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania, East Germany, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria deposed their Communist governments in the period from 1989–91.
On 25 February 1991, the Warsaw Pact was declared disbanded at a meeting of defense and foreign ministers from Pact countries meeting in Hungary.[36] On 1 July 1991, in
Badge Warsaw Pact. Union of peace and socialism
Badge Warsaw Pact. Brothers in arms (1970)
Badge A participant in joint exercises of Warsaw Pact "STIT" (1972)
Badge 25 years Warsaw Pact (1980)
AIR FORCE air forces Warsaw Pact
Badge Warsaw Pact. The participants of the joint exercises in Bulgaria (1982)
Jubilee badge 30 years of the Warsaw Pact (1985)
In November 2005, the Polish government opened its Warsaw Treaty archives to the Institute of National Remembrance, who published some 1,300 declassified documents in January 2006. Yet the Polish government reserved publication of 100 documents, pending their military declassification. Eventually, 30 of the reserved 100 documents were published; 70 remained secret, and unpublished. Among the documents published is the Warsaw Treaty's nuclear war plan, Seven Days to the River Rhine – a short, swift attack capturing Austria, Denmark, Germany and Netherlands east of River Rhine, using nuclear weapons, in self-defense, after a NATO first strike. The plan originated as a 1979 field training exercise war game, and metamorphosed into official Warsaw Treaty battle doctrine, until the late 1980s – which is why the People’s Republic of Poland was a nuclear weapons base, first, to 178, then, to 250 tactical-range rockets. Doctrinally, as a Soviet-style (offensive) battle plan, Seven Days to the River Rhine gave commanders few defensive-war strategies for fighting NATO in Warsaw Treaty territory.
Russia and some other post-USSR states joined in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).
On 12 March 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia joined in March 2004; Albania joined on 1 April 2009.
in Romania that toppled the communist government there. The USSR disestablished itself in December 1991. violent revolution The treaty was de facto disbanded in December 1989 during the [37]
Canada, Warsaw Pact, Iceland, France, United Kingdom