NATO and The Warsaw Pact

NATO stands for National Atlantic Treaty Organization, and includes countries in Europe and North America. NATO was an organization of defense alliance, that if any problems, NATO would come to their aid.

Western leaders felt offended by the USSR and their installation of a Communist government in Eastern Europe and their increasing demands. In 1979, NATO made new programs. These new programs helped build up defense, and also helped stop the USSR from building up their nuclear and atomic weapons. The signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Treaty in 1987 began the Warsaw Pact.

The Warsaw Pact was a pact that consisted of mostly the USSR and other Eastern countries. The Warsaw Pact was like NATO, a defense alliance but the USSR dominated it and kept weapontry in other countries.

In 1985, they tried to renew the alliances for an additional 20 years, but by 1991 everyone in the pact dissolved out. It is said that the building of nuclear weapons is what stopped the war from actually happening between the USSR and the US.