NATO and the Warsaw Pact linked countries' defence to opposing groups. They reinforced a division that political and economic disputes had already created.
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed in 1949 by the USA, Canada and Western European countries. Its principle was collective defence: an attack on a member would be treated as an attack on all, and the others would assist. The treaty allowed each member to decide what action was necessary; it did not prescribe an identical military response. Western European governments wanted a continuing American commitment so they would not face a threat alone. The USSR saw this commitment as a hostile grouping near its borders.
West Germany joined NATO in 1955, bringing a former enemy into the Western military alliance. The USSR and its allies then formed the Warsaw Pact. These alliances made an existing division more lasting: governments were now tied to promises of mutual support. Deterrence means discouraging an attack by making its expected cost too high. An alliance could deter an opponent, yet also make that opponent feel surrounded and build up its own forces. Defensive intentions did not guarantee that tension would fall.
Worked example: Why an alliance could reassure one side and alarm the other
Explain two possible effects of a promise of mutual defence.
- A member hopes the promise will discourage an attack because the attacker may have to face several countries, including a superpower.
- The rival sees those combined forces as a possible threat and has another reason to strengthen its own alliance.
- Each group can feel safer among its allies while relations between the groups become more tense. Judge the actions and effects as well as the claim of defence.
Watch out for this
The Warsaw Pact began Europe's division into opposing sides in 1955.
Opposing governments, aid programmes and the Berlin crisis had already divided Europe. The Warsaw Pact formalised military cooperation after West Germany joined NATO; it did not start the earlier rivalry.
Check your understanding
What did the formation of rival military alliances change?
- It added lasting defence commitments to political and economic divisions that already existed.
- It changed an undivided Europe into rival groups for the first time in 1955.
- It made the groups less threatening to one another because both described their aims as defensive.