NATO and the Warsaw pact

There are always at least two sides in any conflict. In World War I it was the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. In World War II it was the Axis and Allied powers. In World War III it would have been the nations of NATO and the nations of the Warsaw pact. Luckily, the later never developed; there was no World War III. However, this was not due to lack of trying as throughout the later part of the 20th century the two factions previously mentioned, characterised by the Warsaw pact and the acronym NATO respectively, were at each others throats in a tense, bloodless struggle that came to be known as the Cold War; a war during which no shots were fired, but was a thousandfold more dangerous than any other conflict. This potentially catastrophic struggle for world domination was caused by diverse international factors, however, one of the largest of said factors was the division of the world into two camps; the NATO countries and the Warsaw pact nations, or, as George bush said it, "the Cold War began with the division of Europe" (1), which was what these two factions accomplished.

What, then. were the circumstances that surrounded the creation of these two entities and how exactly did they contribute to the tensions during the Cold War? These are the very questions that shall be examined in this essay, beginning with a brief explanation of the creation of the organizations referred to as NATO and the Warsaw Pact and the circumstances surrounding their creations.

After World War II, the state of international diplomacy seemed bright: the major powers were allied together, Japan and Germany had been defeated, and all the soldiers could return home. With the USSR and the US as allies, it seemed that war...