Dominated by the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and theWestern Bloc.[15][16] There was no direct military confrontation between the two organizations; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and throughproxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs.[16] The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagement was theWarsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, its own member state, in August 1968 (with the participation of all pact nations exceptAlbania andRomania),[15] which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than one month later. The pact began to unravel with the spread of theRevolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with theSolidarity movement in Poland,[17] itselectoral success in June 1989 and thePan-European Picnic in August 1989.[18]
East Germany withdrew from the pact followingGerman reunification in 1990. On 25 February 1991, at a meeting in Hungary, the pact ceased to exist via joint declaration by the defense and foreign ministers of the six remaining member states. The USSR itself wasdissolved in December 1991, although most of the former Soviet republics formed theCollective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. In the following 20 years, the Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO (East Germany through its reunification with West Germany; and theCzech Republic and Slovakia as separate countries), as did theBaltic states.
ThePresidential Palace inWarsaw, Poland, where the Warsaw Pact was established and signed on 14 May 1955.Conference during which the Pact was established and signed.
Before the creation of the Warsaw Pact, the Czechoslovak leadership, fearful of a rearmed Germany, sought to create a security pact with East Germany and Poland.[12] These states protested strongly against the re-militarization ofWest Germany.[19] The Warsaw Pact was put in place as a consequence of therearming of West Germany insideNATO. Soviet leaders, like many European leaders on both sides of theIron Curtain, feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The consequences ofGerman militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets and Eastern Europeans.[9][10][20][21][22] As the Soviet Union already had anarmed presence and political domination all over its easternsatellite states by 1955, the pact has been long considered "superfluous",[23] and because of the rushed way in which it was conceived, NATO officials labeled it a "cardboard castle".[24]
The USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, had suggested in 1954 that it join NATO, but this was rejected by the US.[25][26][27]
The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of theBerlin Conference of January–February 1954. Soviet foreign ministerMolotov made proposals to haveGermany reunified[28] and elections for a pan-German government,[29] under conditions of withdrawal of thefour powers' armies and German neutrality,[30] but all were refused by the other foreign ministers,Dulles (US),Eden (UK), andBidault (France).[31] Proposals for the reunification of Germany were nothing new: earlier on 20 March 1952, talks about a German reunification, initiated by the so-called 'Stalin Note', ended after theUnited Kingdom,France, and the United States insisted that a unified Germany should not be neutral and should be free to join theEuropean Defence Community (EDC) and rearm.James Dunn (US), who met inParis with Eden,Konrad Adenauer (West Germany), andRobert Schuman (France), affirmed that "the object should be to avoid discussion with the Russians and to press on the European Defense Community".[32] According toJohn Gaddis, "there was little inclination in Western capitals to explore this offer" from the USSR,[33] while historianRolf Steininger asserts that Adenauer's conviction that "neutralization meanssovietization", referring to the Soviet Union's policies towards Finland known asfinlandization, was the main factor in the rejection of the Soviet proposals.[34] Adenauer also feared that German unification might have resulted in the end of the CDU's leading political role in the West German Bundestag.[35]
Consequently, Molotov, fearing that the EDC would be directed in the future against the USSR and "seeking to prevent the formation of groups of European States directed against the other European States",[36] made a proposal for a General European Treaty on Collective Security in Europe "open to all European States without regard to their social systems",[36] which would have included the unified Germany (thus rendering the EDC obsolete). But Eden, Dulles, and Bidault opposed the proposal.[37]
One month later, the proposed European Treaty was rejected not only by supporters of the EDC, but also by Western opponents of the European Defence Community (like FrenchGaullist leaderGaston Palewski) who perceived it as "unacceptable in its present form because it excludes the USA from participation in the collective security system in Europe".[38] The Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the US, UK, and France to accept the participation of the US in the proposed General European Agreement.[38] As another argument deployed against the Soviet proposal was that it was perceived by Western powers as "directed against the North Atlantic Pact and its liquidation",[38][39] the Soviets decided to declare their "readiness to examine jointly with other interested parties the question of the participation of the USSR in the North Atlantic bloc", specifying that "the admittance of the USA into the General European Agreement should not be conditional on the three Western powers agreeing to the USSR joining the North Atlantic Pact".[38]Again, all Soviet proposals, including the request to join NATO, were rejected by the UK, US, and French governments shortly after.[27][40] Emblematic was the position of British GeneralHastings Ismay, a fierce supporter ofNATO expansion. He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954[41] saying that "the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force".[42]
In April 1954, Adenauer made his first visit to the United States, meetingNixon,Eisenhower, andDulles. Ratification of the EDC was delayed but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that the EDC would have to become a part of NATO.[43]
Memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too.[10][44] On 30 August 1954, the French Parliament rejected the EDC, thus ensuring its failure[45] and blocking a major objective of US policy towards Europe: to associate West Germany militarily with the West.[46] The US Department of State started to elaborate alternatives: West Germany would be invited to join NATO or, in the case of French obstructionism, strategies to circumvent a French veto would be implemented in order to obtain German rearmament outside NATO.[47]
A typical Soviet military jeepUAZ-469, used by most countries of the Warsaw Pact
On23 October 1954, the admission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the North Atlantic Pact was finally decided. The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on 9 May 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" byHalvard Lange,Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway at the time.[48] In November 1954, the USSR requested a new European Security Treaty,[49] in order to make a final attempt to not have a remilitarized West Germany potentially opposed to the Soviet Union, with no success.
On 14 May 1955, the USSR and seven other Eastern European countries "reaffirming their desire for the establishment of a system of European collective security based on the participation of all European states irrespective of their social and political systems"[50] established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO,[9][11] declaring that: "a remilitarized Western Germany and the integration of the latter in the North-Atlantic bloc [...] increase the danger of another war and constitutes a threat to the national security of the peaceable states; [...] in these circumstances the peaceable European states must take the necessary measures to safeguard their security".[50]
A 1981 "Soviet Big Seven" threats poster, displaying the equipment of the militaries of the Warsaw Pact
One of the founding members,East Germany, was allowed to re-arm by the Soviet Union and theNational People's Army was established as the armed forces of the country to counter the rearmament of West Germany.[51]
The USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and transferring most of Germany's industrial plants, and it exactedwar reparations from East Germany,Hungary,Romania, andBulgaria using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favour the country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes: "The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $15 billion to $20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under theMarshall Plan."[52]
East Germany (German Democratic Republic; officially withdrew on 24 September 1990 in preparation forGerman reunification, with Soviet consent and a "remarkable yet hardly noticed" ceremony, ceasing to exist altogether at midnight on 3 October)[58][59][60][61][62]
Mongolia: In July 1963, theMongolian People's Republic asked to join the Warsaw Pact under Article 9 of the treaty.[63] Due to the emergingSino-Soviet split, Mongolia remained in an observer status.[63] In what was the first instance of a Soviet initiative being blocked by a non-Soviet member of the Warsaw Pact, Romania blocked Mongolia's accession to the Warsaw Pact.[64][65] The Soviet government agreed to station troops in Mongolia in 1966.[66]
For 36 years,NATO and the Warsaw Pact never directly waged war against each other in Europe; the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies implemented strategic policies aimed at the containment of each other in Europe, while working and fighting for influence within the widerCold War on the international stage. These included theKorean War,Vietnam War,Bay of Pigs invasion,Dirty War,Cambodian–Vietnamese War, and others.[70][71]
Protest in Amsterdam against thenuclear arms race between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, 1981
In 1989, popular civil and political public discontenttoppled the Communist governments of the Warsaw Treaty countries. The beginning of the end of the Warsaw Pact, regardless of military power, was thePan-European Picnic in August 1989. The event, which goes back to an idea byOtto von Habsburg, caused the mass exodus of GDR citizens and the media-informed population of Eastern Europe felt the loss of power of their rulers and theIron Curtain broke down completely. Though Poland's new Solidarity government under Lech Wałęsa initially assured the Soviets that it would remain in the Pact,[77] this broke the brackets of Eastern Europe, which could no longer be held together militarily by the Warsaw Pact.[78][79][80] Independentnational politics made feasible with theperestroika and liberalglasnost policies revealed shortcomings and failures (i.e. of thesoviet-type economic planning model) and induced institutional collapse of the Communist government in the USSR in 1991.[81][better source needed] From 1989 to 1991, Communist governments were overthrown inAlbania,Poland,Hungary,Czechoslovakia,East Germany,Romania,Bulgaria,Yugoslavia, and theSoviet Union.
As the last acts of the Cold War were playing out, several Warsaw Pact states (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary) participated in the US-led coalition effort to liberateKuwait in theGulf War.
On 25 February 1991, the Warsaw Pact was declared disbanded at a meeting of defence and foreign ministers from remaining Pact countries meeting in Hungary.[82] On 1 July 1991, inPrague, the Czechoslovak PresidentVáclav Havel[83] formally ended the 1955 Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance and so disestablished the Warsaw Treaty after 36 years of military alliance with the USSR.[83][84] The USSR disestablished itself in December 1991.
The Warsaw Treaty's organization was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters inWarsaw, Poland.
Although an apparently similarcollective security alliance, the Warsaw Pact differed substantially from NATO.De jure, the eight-member countries of the Warsaw Pact pledged the mutual defense of any member who would be attacked; relations among the treaty signatories were based upon mutualnon-intervention in the internal affairs of the member countries, respect fornational sovereignty, and political independence.[85]
Despite the American hegemony (mainly military and economic) over NATO, all decisions of the North Atlantic Alliance required unanimous consensus in theNorth Atlantic Council and the entry of countries into the alliance was not subject to domination but rather a natural democratic process.[86] In the Warsaw Pact, decisions were ultimately taken by the Soviet Union alone; the countries of the Warsaw Pact were not equally able to negotiate their entry in the Pact nor the decisions taken.[86]
Although nominally a "defensive" alliance, the Pact's primary function was to safeguard theSoviet Union's hegemony over itsEastern European satellites, with the Pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away.[88]
The Warsaw Pact before its 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, showing the Soviet Union and its satellites (red) and the two independent non-Soviet members: Romania and Albania (pink)
Romania and (until 1968) Albania were exceptions. Together with Yugoslavia, whichbroke with the Soviet Union before the Warsaw Pact was created, these three countries completely rejected the Soviet doctrine formulated for the Pact. Albania officially left the organization in 1968, in protest of its invasion of Czechoslovakia. Romania had its own reasons for remaining a formal member of the Warsaw Pact, such asNicolae Ceaușescu's interest of preserving the threat of a Pact invasion so he could sell himself as a nationalist, as well as privileged access to NATO counterparts and a seat at various European forums which otherwise he would not have had (for instance, Romania and the Soviet-led remainder of the Warsaw Pact formed two distinct groups in the elaboration of theHelsinki Final Act).[89] WhenAndrei Grechko assumed command of the Warsaw Pact, both Romania and Albania had for all practical purposes defected from the Pact. In the early 1960s, Grechko initiated programs meant to preempt Romanian doctrinal heresies from spreading to other Pact members. Romania's doctrine of territorial defense threatened the Pact's unity and cohesion. No other country succeeded in escaping from the Warsaw Pact like Romania and Albania did. For example, the mainstays of Romania's tank forces were locally developed models. Soviet troops were deployed to Romania for the last time in 1963, as part of a Warsaw Pact exercise. After 1964, the Soviet Army was barred from returning to Romania, as the country refused to take part in joint Pact exercises.[90]
A RomanianTR-85 tank in December 1989 (Romania's TR-85 and TR-580 tanks were the only non-Soviet tanks in the Warsaw Pact on which restrictions were placed under the 1990CFE Treaty[91])
Even before the advent ofNicolae Ceaușescu, Romania was in fact an independent country, as opposed to the rest of the Warsaw Pact. To some extent, it was even more independent thanCuba (a communist Soviet-aligned state that was not a member of the Warsaw Pact).[1] The Romanian regime was largely impervious to Soviet political influence, and Ceaușescu was the only declared opponent ofglasnost andperestroika. On account of the contentious relationship between Bucharest and Moscow, the West did not hold the Soviet Union responsible for the policies pursued by Bucharest. This was not the case for the other countries in the region, such asCzechoslovakia and Poland.[92] At the start of 1990, the Soviet foreign minister,Eduard Shevardnadze, implicitly confirmed the lack of Soviet influence over Ceaușescu's Romania. When asked whether it made sense for him to visit Romania less than two weeks afterits revolution, Shevardnadze insisted that only by going in person to Romania could he figure out how to "restore Soviet influence".[93]
Romania requested and obtained the complete withdrawal of the Soviet Army from its territory in 1958. The Romanian campaign for independence culminated on 22 April 1964 when the Romanian Communist Party issued a declaration proclaiming that: "Every Marxist–Leninist Party has a sovereign right...to elaborate, choose or change the forms and methods of socialist construction." and "There exists no "parent" party and "offspring" party, no "superior" and "subordinated" parties, but only the large family of communist and workers' parties having equal rights." and also "there are not and there can be no unique patterns and recipes". This amounted to a declaration of political and ideological independence from Moscow.[94][95][96][97]
The RomanianIAR-93 Vultur was not the only combat jet designed and built by a non-Soviet member of the Warsaw Pact.[98] See also Czechoslovak jetAero L-39 Albatros.
Following Albania's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, Romania remained the only Pact member with an independent military doctrine which denied the Soviet Union use of its armed forces and avoided absolute dependence on Soviet sources of military equipment.[99] Romania was the only non-Soviet Warsaw Pact member which was not obliged to militarily defend the Soviet Union in case of an armed attack.[100] Bulgaria and Romania were the only Warsaw Pact members that did not have Soviet troops stationed on their soil.[101] In December 1964, Romania became the only Warsaw Pact member (save Albania, which would leave the Pact altogether within 4 years) from which all Soviet advisors were withdrawn, including those in the intelligence and security services.[102] Not only did Romania not participate in joint operations with the KGB, but it also set up "departments specialized in anti-KGB counterespionage".[103]
Romania was neutral in theSino-Soviet split.[104][105][106] Its neutrality in the Sino-Soviet dispute along with being the small Communist country with the most influence in global affairs enabled Romania to be recognized by the world as the "third force" of the Communist world. Romania's independence – achieved in the early 1960s through itsfreeing from its Soviet satellite status – was tolerated by Moscow because Romania was not bordering theIron Curtain – being surrounded by socialist states – and because its ruling party was not going to abandon communism.[2][107][108]
Although certain historians such asRobert R. King[109] andDennis Deletant[110] argue against the usage of the term "independent" to describe Romania's relations with the Soviet Union, favoring "autonomy" instead on account of the country's continued membership within both the Comecon and the Warsaw Pact along with its commitment to socialism, this approach fails to explain why in July 1963 Romania blockedMongolia's accession to the Warsaw Pact, why in November 1963 Romania voted in favor of a UN resolution to establish a nuclear-free zone in Latin America when the other Soviet-aligned countries abstained, or why in 1964 Romania opposed the Soviet-proposed "strong collective riposte" against China (and these are examples solely from the 1963–1964 period).[111]Soviet disinformation tried to convince the West that Ceaușescu's empowerment was a dissimulation in connivance with Moscow.[112] To an extent this worked, as some historians came to see the hand of Moscow behind every Romanian initiative. For instance, when Romania became the only Eastern European country to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, some historians have speculated that this was at Moscow's whim. However, this theory fails upon closer inspection.[113] Even during the Cold War, some thought that Romanian actions were done at the behest of the Soviets, but Soviet anger at said actions was "persuasively genuine". In truth, the Soviets were not beyond publicly aligning themselves with the West against the Romanians at times.[114]
The strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of theSoviet Union to preventCentral andEastern Europe being used as a base for its enemies. Its policy was also driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism and act as the leader of the global socialist movement. A corollary to this was the necessity of military intervention if a country appeared to be "violating" core socialist ideas, i.e. breaking away from theSoviet sphere of influence, explicitly stated in theBrezhnev Doctrine.[115]
Expansion ofNATO before and after the collapse of communism throughout Central and Eastern Europe
On 12 March 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joinedNATO; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia joined in March 2004; Croatia and Albania joined on 1 April 2009.[119][120]
In November 2005, the Polish government opened its Warsaw Treaty archives to theInstitute of National Remembrance, which published some 1,300 declassified documents in January 2006, yet the Polish government reserved publication of 100 documents, pending their military declassification. Eventually, 30 of the reserved 100 documents were published; 70 remained secret and unpublished. Among the documents published was the Warsaw Treaty's nuclear war plan,Seven Days to the River Rhine – a short, swift invasion and capture of Austria, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands east of the Rhine, usingnuclear weapons after a supposed NATO first strike.[122][123]
^Russian:Договор о дружбе, сотрудничестве и взаимной помощи,romanized: Dogovor o druzhbe, sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoy pomoshchi,Armenian:Վարշավայի պայմանագրի կազմակերպություն, Բարեկամության, համագործակցության և փոխադարձ օգնության պայմանագիր,romanized: Varšavayi paymanagri kazmakerpowt’yown, barekamowt’yan, hamagorcakc’owt’yan ew p’oxadarj ògnowt’yan paymanagir,Belarusian:Дагавор аб дружбе, супрацоўніцтве і ўзаемнай дапамозе,romanized: Dahavor ab druzhbye, supratsownitstvye i wzayemnay dapamozye,Bulgarian:Договор за приятелство, съдействие и взаимопомощ,romanized: Dogovor za priyatelstvo, sadeystvie i vzaimopomosht,Czech:Smlouva o Přátelství, Spolupráci a Vzájemné Pomoci,German:Vertrag über Freundschaft, Zusammenarbeit und gegenseitige Unterstützung,Georgian:მეგობრობის, თანამშრომლობისა და ურთიერთდახმარების ხელშეკრულება,romanized:megobrobis, tanamshromlobisa da urtiertdakhmarebis khelshek'ruleba,Latvian:Līguma par Draudzību, Sadarbību un Savstarpējo Palīdzību,Polish:Układ o Przyjaźni, Współpracy i Pomocy Wzajemnej,Romanian:Tratatul de Prietenie, Cooperare și Asistență Mutuală,Slovak:Zmluva o Priateľstve, Spolupráci a Vzájomnej Pomoci,Ukrainian:Договір про дружбу, співробітництво і взаємну допомогу,romanized: Dohovir pro druzhbu. spitrobititnitstvo i vzaiemnu,Uzbek:До'стлик, ҳамкорлик ва о'заро ёрдам шартномаси,romanized: Do'stlik, hamkorlik va o'zaro yordam shartnomasi
^Russian:Организация Варшавского договора (ОВД),Azerbaijani:Varşava Müqaviləsi Təşkilatı (VMT),Belarusian:Арганізацыя Варшаўскага Дагавора (АВД),Bulgarian:Организация на Варшавския договор (ОВД),Czech:Organizace Varšavské Smlouvy (OVS),German:Organisation des Warschauer Vertrags (OWV),Estonian:Varssavi Lepingu Organisatsioon (VLO),Kazakh:Варшава келісімі ұйымы,romanized: Varşava kelisimi uýımı (ВКҰ,VKU),Latvian:Varšavas Līguma Organizācija (VLO),Lithuanian:Varšuvos Sutarties Organizacija (VSO),Kyrgyz:Варшавa келишими уюму (ВКУ),Polish:Organizacja Układu Warszawskiego (OUW),Slovak:Organizácia Varšavskej Zmluvy (OVZ),Ukrainian:Організації варшавського договору (ОВД),Uzbek:Варшава шартномаси ташкилоти,romanized: Varshava shartnomasi tashkiloti (ВШТ,VShT)
^ab"In reaction to West Germany's NATO accession, the Soviet Union and its Eastern European client states formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955." Citation from:NATO website."A short history of NATO".nato.int.Archived from the original on 26 March 2017. Retrieved24 December 2015.
^abLaurien Crump (2015).The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered: International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955–1969. Routledge, pp. 21–22.
^Roser, Thomas (16 August 2018). "DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln" [Mass Exodus of the GDR: A Picnic Clears the World].Die Presse (in German).
^Czubiński, Antoni (1998).Europa dwudziestego wieku: zarys historii politycznej [Outline of the Political History of Twentieth-Century Europe] (in Polish). Wydawnictwo Poznańskie. p. 298.ISBN9788386138708.
^Russett, Bruce; Starr, Harvey; Kinsella, David (2009).World Politics: The Menu for Choice.Cengage Learning. p. 87.ISBN9780495410683.The Warsaw Pact was established in 1955 as a response to West Germany's entry into NATO; German militarism was still a recent memory among the Soviets and East Europeans.
^"1954: Soviet Union suggests it should join NATO to preserve peace in Europe.U.S. andU.K. reject this". See chronology in:"Fast facts about NATO".CBC News. 6 April 2009.Archived from the original on 4 May 2012. Retrieved16 July 2011.
^"1968 – The Prague Spring".Austria 1989 – Year of Miracles.Archived from the original on 8 July 2019. Retrieved8 July 2019.In the morning hours of August 21, 1968, Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks roll in the streets of Prague; to distinguish them from Czechoslovak tanks, they are marked with white crosses.
^Miklós Németh in Interview with Peter Bognar, Grenzöffnung 1989: „Es gab keinen Protest aus Moskau“ (German – Border opening in 1989: There was no protest from Moscow), in: Die Presse 18 August 2014.
^„Der 19. August 1989 war ein Test für Gorbatschows“ (German – 19 August 1989 was a test for Gorbachev), in: FAZ 19 August 2009.
^Michael Frank: Paneuropäisches Picknick – Mit dem Picknickkorb in die Freiheit (German: Pan-European picnic – With the picnic basket to freedom), in: Süddeutsche Zeitung 17 May 2010.
^The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, third edition, 1999, pp. 637–38
^Fes'kov, V. I.; Kalashnikov, K. A.; Golikov, V. I. (2004).Sovetskai͡a Armii͡a v gody "kholodnoĭ voĭny," 1945–1991 [The Soviet Army in the Cold War Years (1945–1991)] (in Russian). Tomsk:Tomsk University Publisher. p. 6.ISBN5-7511-1819-7.
Kramer, Mark N. (Winter 1984–85). "Civil-military relations in the Warsaw Pact: The East European component".International Affairs.61 (1).JSTOR2619779..
Lewis, William Julian (1982).The Warsaw Pact: Arms, Doctrine, and Strategy. Cambridge, Mass.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.ISBN978-0-07-031746-8. This book presents an overview of all the Warsaw Pact armed forces as well as a section on Soviet strategy, a model land campaign which the Soviet Union could have conducted againstNATO.. and a full-color section on the uniforms, nations, badges and rank-insignia of the Warsaw Pact. (Later CWIHP, Heuser, and CIA FOIA documents present a much better picture of Soviet plans.)
Umbach, Frank [de].Das rote Bündnis: Entwicklung und Zerfall des Warschauer Paktes 1955 bis 1991 [The Red Alliance: Development and Collapse of the Warsaw Pact: 1955 to 1991] (in German). Berlin:Ch. Links Verlag [de]. 2005.ISBN978-3-86153-362-7.
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