Warsaw Pact

Residents of the countries between Germany and the Soviet Union were given little choice in the matter as Moscow—which had assembled most of them into a defensive alliance called the Warsaw Pact—came to dominate their political institutions and make all significant political and security decisions.

The Warsaw Pact was formed in mid-July 1955, primarily to combat the growing threat of NATO, hardly an unreasonable strategy. NATO had been expanding as early as 1952 with the accession of Turkey and Greece. West Germany then joined NATO in early July 1955, just days before the Warsaw Pact's ...

Czech and Slovak officials will be seeing a great deal of each other in what is a year of important anniversaries for both countries – 100 years since the founding of Czechoslovakia, 50 years since the crushing of the Prague Spring reforms and the country's invasion by Warsaw Pact troops and 25 years ...

Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula has not been lost on this former Warsaw Pact nation. In addition to increasing the dividend, Action Alerts PLUS holding Raytheon announced in late March that under the Department of Defense's DARPA program, it was developing technology that could control swarms of both ...

In March 1999, Nato admits three former members of the Soviet-era Warsaw Pact - the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Moscow warns Nato against allowing former Soviet republics to join but in 2004 it welcomes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, along with ex-communist states Bulgaria, Romania, ...

Let's be utterly clear on this point; from the creation of NATO until the 1970s, Western military planners expected the Warsaw Pact to easily win a conventional war in Europe. Conventional warfighting plans by the major NATO powers often amounted, almost literally, to efforts to reach the English Channel ...

The Soviet Union subsequently dropped its demand for German neutrality in East-West relations but argued that it should join both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, NATO's Soviet-led counterpart. Baker and Shevardnadze agreed to postpone that issue until a U.S.-Soviet summit meeting scheduled for May.

... 87 per cent do not know anything about the Goryani rebellion, 64 per cent know nothing about the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and 51 per cent had not heard of Georgi Markov. Meanwhile, in an interview with public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television on April 2, Dossier Commission ...

came as a shock to the U.K. and world, as a former Russian double agent was targeted alongside his daughter with a Russian-made military-grade nerve agent. The story sounds as if it was taken directly from a Cold War thriller or an “Austin Powers” classic; however, it wasn't the first time that Russia has ...

Moscow considers the incorporation of Ukraine into the alliance created to constrain Russia as a security threat, rather as Washington might view Mexico's entry into the Warsaw Pact. While to Americans Moscow is wildly inflating the threat—in truth, the idea of the Europeans attacking Russia sounds like ...

During the period after the Soviet Union, and its communism, and its Warsaw Pact military alliance, all ended in 1991, the historical record of the U.S. and its allies (all now after the Cold War has supposedly been over) has become even worse than it was during the Cold War, and is even more clearly evil, ...

During the 1980s, the Soviet Union steadily lost ground against the United States economically, in large part due to the disparity in military spending. The U.S. spent lavishly to maintain and expand military bases along the border with the Warsaw Pact, forcing the Soviets to try and keep pace. The not-so ...

Ghana has always been touted NON-ALIGNED which therefore puts us on the fence when it comes to the world's two power blocks, namely the Western Democracies and what used to be the Warsaw Pact which represented the interest of then Soviet-led group of Socialist states. Even during the cold war, ...

Do threats produce compliance? Often yes, but it's always a grudging compliance that lasts only as long as resistance seems futile. Lately, women have been impressing that truth on powerful men. Some get it, some don't. My concern here is whether our country will get it as it conducts its foreign relations.

Readiness among NATO forces has suffered. That cannot be tolerated lest the alliance become what it was in the late 1970s—a hollow force with a critical mission. Many leaders, particularly those of former Warsaw Pact nations, are sounding the alarm over Russia's menacing activities, but NATO ignores ...

Ghana has always been touted NON-ALIGNED which therefore puts us on the fence when it comes to the world's two power blocks, namely the Western Democracies and what used to be the Warsaw Pact which represented the interest of then Soviet-led group of Socialist states. Even during the cold war, ...

A reunified Germany became a central player in NATO, which went on a recruitment drive through the '90s, signing up former members of the now-defunct pro-Russian Warsaw Pact — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Albania. It has also ...

Two-thirds of Poland's weaponry dates from the Cold War era when it was in the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov told the state-run Sputnik news website in November that Patriot deployments were part of a U.S. plot to surround Russia with missile defense systems ...

... compatible with standardized Western ammunition and modern accessories. In short, the Beryl is like an AK-47, except that it fires 5.56 x 45-millimeter rounds — the standard NATO cartridge — instead of the 7.62 x 39-millimeter and 5.45 x 39-millimeter rounds which were standard in the Warsaw Pact.

1955 - The Warsaw Pact is organized, creating a military alliance of communist nations in Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania. October 4, 1957 - The Soviet Union launches Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite, which starts the ...

Much of Poland's military equipment currently dates back to the era when communist Poland was in the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact, says the BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw. The first deliveries are expected in 2022. This comes as the US is developing its controversial anti-missile shield in Europe. In 2016 ...

NATO still operates while the Warsaw Pact was disbanded. Current relations need to reflect that changed context, the official explained to TNIE. Instead of an arrangement that will cover all military transfers, India could consider “freezing a standard text” and then making that equipment and country-specific.

(CNN) -- Here's a look at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Facts:The organization's charter states that the signing parties will "seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area," and will "unite their efforts for collective defense and for the ...

Facts: The organization's charter states that the signing parties will "seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area," and will "unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security." April 4, 1949 - Established when 12 nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty in ...

When most of the former Warsaw Pact countries joined the EU, many people assumed it was a kind of End of History moment, of peace and harmony on a united, democratic European continent. Now, leaders in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere are challenging that consensus, the UK has voted to leave the ...

They were masters in the art of diplomacy, dealing expertly with the demise of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, negotiating two strategic arms reduction treaties with Moscow, and engineering the mutual withdrawal of the least safe and secure nuclear weapons from Russian and U.S. deployments.

The NATO alliance insists that the sites are being built to detect and counter Iranian missiles, contain no offensive capabilities, and couldn't stop Russia's massive arsenal of missiles anyway, but Moscow has refused to accept NATO missile sites on former Warsaw Pact territory, calling it a “direct threat.”.

In Document 23, Helmut Kohl spoke to Gorbachev in July 1990 of “establishing cooperation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact,” and Gorbachev noted the importance of “the non-proliferation of NATO's military structures to the territory of the GDR.” I could find nothing in these memcons to support the ...

In 1970, when Communist Poland signed on to the Warsaw Pact, it confirmed that it had no claims against West Germany, either. And when Germany reunited in 1990, Poland failed to bring any claims against the newly reunited country. (In 1992 Germany paid 500 million marks—roughly $320 million at the ...

It was founded as a Cold War defensive alliance to thwart any Western invasion by the Soviet Union, which had positioned some 1.3 million Warsaw Pact troops for such an incursion. NATO was indeed one of the greatest military alliances in world history. With America as its leader, it won the Cold War.

The M-60 “Patton” tank is one of the most iconic tanks of the Cold War. While it did not see use in the Vietnam War, it saw extensive use by Israel and Iran in the various hot wars of the 20th century, and comprised the vast bulk of the U.S. Army's tank fleet facing down the Warsaw Pact throughout the 1970s ...