NATO vs Warsaw Pact

Cold War terms, of course

Let’s start with NATO, NATO was founded in 1949. Many people believe that the only reason was to prevent Soviet expansion, this reason is right, especially in the sense that it was the main reason. But, there were also other 2 major reasons: prevent national militarism to arise in Europe again and also to help re-construct Europe as it was pretty devastated by WW2.

It’s estimated that 36.5 million Europeans died in the conflict, 19 million were civilians. In Hamburg, the German city, 500 thousand people were homeless.

In 1947, the Cold War hit a hot point; with the declaration of the Truman doctrine, that meant: we will do what we can to stop the advance of communism.

But, of course, the main reason was to stop the advance of communist. In February 1948, Czechoslovakia becomes a Marxist-Leninist state, overthrowing the elected government in the country. The Soviets also tried to block West Berlin, but this blockade was unsuccessful due to the Berlin Airlift.

In 1948, there was the creation of the Western Union, later in 1954, Western European Union. This was a brief-lived military alliance between Western Europe countries the main objective was to protect the countries from communism.

In 1948, the Cold War was taking its forms; the US created the Marshall Plan, a plan to help re-construct Europe, due to post-WW2 destruction. The main reason was to recover Europe and to the people inside the capitalist countries, not revolt and the country not fall into communism.

In 1949, the Soviet Union and its satellite states created the COMECON, an answer to the Marshall Plan that was basically the same thing, but with the socialist countries. Unlike the Marshall Plan, this was more into a centralized-state socialist economy.

In 4th April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was sign, initiating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it’s most famous article was the Article 5=If one country gets attacked, all of the countries in the alliance will respond. During the Cold War this article was never invoked, being only invoked in 2001, post-9/11 attacks.

Soon in 1950, we had the Korean War starting. But, NATO had nothing to do with the conflict in the Korean peninsula.

The countries founders of NATO were: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Netherlands, UK and US.

With the Cold War, more countries were added: Turkey (1952) and Greece (1952).

In the post-Cold War period, NATO made a huge expansion, getting from 14 countries to 32.

What about the Warsaw Pact?

The Warsaw Pact was a political alliance formed in 14th May 1955. It was formed by the USSR and its satellite states. The main objective of the USSR with this alliance to counterbalance NATO, as it was formed in the moulds of NATO. It’s original members were: Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and East German.

The members also the agreement of mutual defence, they would defend each other, if one came under attack. Despite that the Soviet Union controlled most of the Warsaw Pact’s decisions.

The USSR did as well, crushed revolts and uprisings in its satellite states:

Hungary, 1956,

Czechoslovakia, 1968,

Poland, 1981,

Etc…

The first country to withdraw from the military alliance was Albania in 1968.

The Warsaw Pact is seen as the first step inside a systematic plan to strengthen the Soviet hold of its satellites. This project was taken by Soviet leadership: Nikita Khrushchev (Head of Party), Nikolay Bulganin (Head of Government) and Kliment Voroshilov (Head of State).

So there was this showdown in Europe, between Western Europe (capitalist) and Eastern Europe (socialist).

This, of course resulted in many crisis. Such as the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was due to the construction of a wall around West Berlin, in August, that prohibited East Berliners to travel to the West. The construction was made in partnership by the Soviet Union and East German.

On 27th October 1961, tanks from the USSR and US faced off in Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie. However, the high-rankings of both countries manage to avoid the war, one step from it.

More than 20 years later, the Able Archer 83 happened: it was a NATO exercise simulating nuclear war, the major movement of military personal made the Warsaw Pact scared and the USSR got ready for the attack. They actually got really close to pulling the trigger. This was in November of 1983, a year that the Cold War was getting hot.

The end:

By the late 1980s, due to a variety of causes, the USSR was collapsing economically. The Soviet economy was a crumbling one and the Soviet-Afghan War, excess of militarization, etc… Helped for the republics to become independent.

With the revolutions of 1989, the Warsaw Pact eventually ceased to exist in 1st July 1991. Eventually so did the USSR on December 1991, which the real date is debatable. Common sense is 26th December 1991.

References

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/marshall-plan

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v03/d55

Historian-Pedro Krauser (Truman Doctrine)

Geographer-Thiago Fragoso (Militarization and Collapse of the USSR)

https://revistaforum.com.br/historia/plano-marshall-e-comecon-entenda-o-que-foram-esses-projetos-economicos-da-guerra-fria/

https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/nato-history/a-short-history-of-nato

https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/introduction-to-nato/collective-defence-and-article-5

https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/organization/nato-member-countries

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/warsaw-treaty

https://www.britannica.com/event/Warsaw-Pact

https://www.army.mil/article/46993/standoff_in_berlin_october_1961

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/02/nato-war-game-nuclear-disaster

https://www.britannica.com/event/the-collapse-of-the-Soviet-Union

https://cotidianul.md/en/22508/34-years-since-the-fall-of-the-USSR-December-26--1991-the-day-that-ended-the-Soviet-era/