Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, more commonly known as The Warsaw Pact or Treaty, was a mutual defense treaty between eight communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, namely Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1991. The Warsaw Pact, in place during the Cold War period, can be seen as a reaction to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which was the capitalist West’s counterpart established in 1949. During the duration of the Cold War, NATO and the Warsaw Pact never directly conducted war against each other; both the Capitalist and Communist Blocs implemented strategic policies aimed at containment in Europe while fighting the Cold War on the international stage.