The Warsaw Pact Organization, which went down in history under the abbreviation ATS, was created in opposition to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, today known as NATO.
The Warsaw Pact was the result of negotiations between countries concerned about the creation of the North Atlantic Alliance, which is today known as NATO. As a result, on May 14, 1955, in Warsaw, they signed the Treaty, which assumed the existence of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance between its participants. In honor of the city where the document was signed, the newly created association was named the Warsaw Pact Organization, which was often shortened to the abbreviation ATS.
Establishment and operation of ATS
Immediately at the time of the creation of the organization, on May 14, 1955, eight countries signed the Warsaw Pact - Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Poland, Romania, the USSR and Czechoslovakia. A few days later, on June 5 of the same year, the agreement entered into force.
The agreement between the parties stipulated that in carrying out activities in the framework of international relations, each of the participating countries undertook to strive to avoid the use of violence or the threat of its use. However, in the event that such a threat or violence itself would have been applied to the country that signed the Warsaw Pact itself, the other participants had to provide assistance to the affected country by all means available to them. At the same time, in such a situation, the use of military force was not ruled out.
The activities of the Internal Affairs Directorate consisted mainly in conducting joint military exercises: large maneuvers were carried out in 1963, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1981 and 1982. In addition, in 1979, a joint global electronic intelligence system, using the tools that were at the disposal of the countries that signed the ATS, as well as Vietnam, Mongolia and Cuba.
Since the contract was originally signed as a document with a specific period of validity, then after 30 years, that is, in 1985, its validity period expired. Therefore, on April 26, 1985, the countries that signed the original version of the treaty entered into an agreement that the provisions spelled out in it would be considered valid for another 20 years.
The disintegration of the ATS
However, the Warsaw Pact Organization ceased to exist even before the expiration of this agreement. In 1968, Albania officially seceded from it. The military units of the Internal Affairs Directorate were liquidated almost 20 years later, in 1990, and on July 1, 1991, a protocol was signed, attesting to the complete termination of the provisions of the Warsaw Pact.
