The Warsaw Pact was a Treaty Organization signed in Warsaw in 1955 and was founded as an opposition to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation).
After West Germany joined NATO in 1955, East Germany and some of it’s eastern alliances decided to build a pact against NATO: the Warsaw Pact. In the Cold War, both the U.S. and Russia felt threatened and strengthened their armies and expanded their resources of nuclear weapons. The U.S. was collecting more allies to become stronger than the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union responded. The Warsaw Pact included many countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union (Russian-dominated).
Many ask why these countries joined the Soviet Union in this alliance. East Germany was under the nose of the Soviet Union and lots of it’s decisions were decided by officials of the USSR sitting in Moscow and not by the people or officials of East Germany. East Germany was the opposition of West Germany and needed the help of the Soviet Union. The countries in the Warsaw pact were communist countries, who were against the capitalist western side of the Earth. They feared a possible future through the capitalist regime.
In 1968, Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. This was not seen as particularly significant. However, when East Germany left the Pact in 1990 and Germany was reunified, the Warsaw Pact soon ended. Following this, in 1991, the Soviet Union fell as well.
NATO ( North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was founded in 1949 by Belgium, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Canada, France, the UK and the US. The aim was to keep Germany as a minor military power after the devastations of the world war and to oppose the Soviet Union. These countries formed an alliance, so that if one of them were invaded, they were helped from the allied countries. This made it very difficult to attack any of their countries and win. To this day, NATO’s headquarters sit in Brussels, just like the EU headquarters. NATO has now expanded to 30 states. All countries that were in the Warsaw Pact except for some ex-Soviet states have now joined NATO. This alliance has helped connect these states.
The opposition of the NATO, however, fear that is has become too strong. Over the past twenty years, NATO has been very active in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan along with other countries. Recently, we have seen this threat and tension influencing conflicts like that in Ukraine.
