Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Pact (formally, the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance, sometimes, informally WarPac, akin in format to NATO) was a collective defense treaty among eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War, led by the USSR. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was in part a Soviet military reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 CE per the Paris Pacts of 1954 CE, but was primarily motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe; in turn (according to the Warsaw Pact's preamble) meant to maintain peace in Europe, guided by the objective points and principles of the Charter of the United Nations (1945 CE).

The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagements were aimed against its own members—in 1956 CE against Hungary and in 1968 CE against Czechoslovakia. However, the Pact failed to function in December 1989 CE, when a revolution in Romania brought down the communist government there and ended Romania's Pact membership, and in October 1990 CE East Germany also left the Pact, as a result of German reunification.

On 25 February 1991 CE, the Pact was declared at an end at a meeting of defense and foreign ministers from the remaining member states meeting in Hungary. On 1 July 1991 CE, the Czechoslovak President Václav Havel formally declared an end to the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance which had been established in 1955 CE. The USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991 CE.

