The Warsaw pact, or the Warsaw Treaty, was a treaty between Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Poland, and Romania that signified the “Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance.” The Warsaw Treaty was signed on May 14th, 1955, and it was signed because of the earlier alliance of Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States, which was called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed on April 4th, 1949, six years before the Warsaw Treaty. The main purpose of constructing the NATO was because of the large Soviet population post World War II. Most of the countries that were in the Warsaw Pact had about fifty percent of their population being Soviet. When the United States noticed the fast spread of Communism throughout Europe, the NATO started to protect the remaining countries of Europe to stay, “Communist-free.” These two alliances that were formed were very close to being the alliances that the countries had before World War II. The Soviets started the Alliance because of either of two reasons: 1) USSR saw that the United States began alliances with countries, so they had to become allies with someone or else they could get attacked at anytime, or 2) USSR formed this Pact so they could be able to spread Communism more effectively since the six countries next to it were “Allies.” The first reason seems more real, because the Cold War was between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was really amazing how these two nations formed these alliances couple years after the war. When World War II ended, pretty much all the countries in the world did not want another World War. They were scared of anything that involved a third World War. It is really surprising that people let the governments form these alliances because they have seen what chain reaction it caused in the years before. The cold war era was very pointless in many reasons. The alliances formed by both the Soviet Union and the United States were really just splitting the world in half. The eastern side was Communist while the western side was Anti-Communist. Before World War II -- and even before World War I -- alliances have been made between countries to jump into a fight when a certain country would get attacked. The axis powers were an alliance, the Triple Entente was an alliance, and many more were at very similar, if not the same, to the NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw pact was also applied to the military. After the pact was formed, one part of it said that the countries would put in an equal amount of soldiers to protect the western part of Poland from Germany and the NATO. The United States put soldiers on the eastern half of Germany to, “keep Germany down, and Russia away.” The way NATO interpreted it was that ALL countries were Russian on the eastern side, which was not true. The United States hated the Russians because they were communist, and that is also why the cold war actually began.
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