What is NATO and the Warsaw Pact?
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an alliance between non-Communist nations that was formed during the Cold War to try to stop the spread of Communism, or prevent the "Domino Effect." Also, it was an agreement that basically said if one member of the organization got attacked by an opposing country, the other members of the alliance would intervene. NATO is also a good example of the Truman Doctrine- containing the spread of Communism. Basically, the NATO has three main functions.
- Keeping Soviet expansion to a minimum.
- Keeping nationalist militarism in Europe from coming back by having a strong North American presence on the continent.
- Encouraging European political integration, which basically means helping Europe to have a stronger political system.
The Warsaw Pact serves basically the same purpose as the NATO, except it caters to Communist countries. It was formed simply as a response to NATO.
Why were they formed?
NATONATO was formed in 1949 as a way to try to slow down the spread of Communism. Another purpose of it was to keep Western Europe out of Soviet control.
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The Warsaw PactThe Warsaw Pact was essentially just a response to the creation of NATO, it would not exist if Western Germany would not have joined the organization. The Soviet Union felt threatened by this, and thus created the Warsaw Pact.
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Members of NATO
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Members of the Warsaw Pact
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Countries bolded are the original 12 founding members that joined in 1949, at the formation.
Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were all former members of the Warsaw Pact.
These 7 countries were former members of the Warsaw Pact; Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were countries that were part of the Soviet Union before it was broken
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Timeline of important dates in NATO
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Timeline of important dates for the Warsaw Pact
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Post Cold-War Events in NATO
- 1995: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization launched the biggest military operation to date
- 2001: NATO invokes Article 5 for the first time, due to 9/11.
Article 5 of NATO provides that if an ally of the organization is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the ally attacked.
- 2004: NATO expands to 26 members when former communist states Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia join, a couple years after the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined.
Where are NATO and the Warsaw Pact today?
NATO is still around,and very active today. The Warsaw Pact, however as said before, was removed in 1991. NATO has actually been a part of events recently, as they were a part of the recent Ukraine crisis.