Calling the Warsaw arrangement a “treaty” does violence to the English language. The definition of “treaty” is: “A formal agreement or compact, duly concluded and ratified, between two or more states.” The Warsaw arrangement was an agreement only between Russia and itself. One party was Russia pretending to be a federation of co-equal fraternal republics. But it was simply Russia, which had bludgeoned its nearest neighbours into its imperial control through force and terror, called it the Soviet Union, and projected a pretence of a federation which fooled no one in practical fact. Everyone who lived there experienced the reality that they were living under power, ambition, chauvinism and dictatorship of Russia. One could not even build a public toilet in a park in Vilnius, Lithuania, without first getting approval from Moscow. Literally. The other party to the Warsaw arrangement were not “seven European socialist states” as RT grandly describes them, but simply Russia again, this time in the role of having imposed its imperial control over the next wider circle of neighbours, and now using them as a puppet through which to project its own voice back to itself, and to the world. Those seven had at least a pretence of nationhood, unlike Russia’s “fraternal Soviet republics”, but a pretence is all it was. If an East Germany, a Hungary, a Czechoslovakia or a Poland ever was foolish enough to try to run its own policies, Russian power came down on it like a ton of bricks. Calling the whole arrangement the “Warsaw” Pact was another grand lie. It was, from beginning to end, a Moscow arrangement, designed from Moscow, decreed from Moscow, enforced from Moscow and serving the interests of absolutely no one else at all other than Moscow. The only function which Warsaw had was in the realm of theatrics. Russia’s on-going failure to divest itself of its pretences of the past continues to undermine its ability to live in the realities of the present.

Quote, "These military blocs are useless now", unquote. Clearly NATO is still very, very useful to the USA. Amongst other benefits, the organisation allows the US to station millitary assets around the globe, 'occupy' land / countries of strategic importance, and take part in excercises that may otherwise be viewed as suspicious. Also, what better way is there to keep a close eye on those Europeans who have had such a long history of fighting amongst themselves, not to mention starting two world wars? NATO will exist as long as the US remains the main military and economic power (the two go hand in hand) in the world. The blunt cold war tool has evolved into a very sharp empire builders tool.

Its not the perestroika and not the glasnost, Rather, the emotional conception of Mr. Gorbachev, about the life of NATO. The fall of USSR was induced externally and executed internally. But, in the case of NATO, its not going to die automatically in near future, until a solid decisive full scale war or small scale long term dispersed wars. its mere an illusion, that NATO is going to follow the same fate as of Warsaw Pact. A long term forceful solution is now out of question. It needs a superb hit, to dismantle itself and guarantee the World Peace. The Iraq war, The Afghan war, wars in Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Armenia,Baltic countries, Caucasus disturbances, IndoPak war refueling, western European unrest, and many more which are potentially about to surface, as well as the hidden wars : All are credited to the NATO. The future is dark, until the full disintegration of this irrelevant nexus. The delay in its destruction, will definitely invite a proportionately massive losses. Not everything can be said as business, and not everything can be allowed to do under the name of business...

@Marzipan6 Yes that is the officially nice propaganda version of history but in reality. a) Britain and France engineered Nazi and Japanese push for war against the USSR. b) Towards the end of the British and US military intelligence were recruiting SS affiliated units in Eastern Europe as stay behind units to launch attacks against the USSR. “Even before the end of World War II, the British secret services recruited agents among the Nazi war criminals (specially members of the Arajs Kommando) to fight Communism and infiltrated them in Sweden with the help of the SMT, the local secret service. Thus, an SS unit was formed by 1,500 men under the command of Colonel Osis, aiming at launching an attack against the Soviets. However, this idea was abandoned after the Nuremberg Trial labeled the Waffen SS and all its sections as «criminal organizations». In 1949, these agents were transferred to Hamburg (to the German zone occupied by the British) where they would be trained by the MI6 - British Secret Intelligence Service - («Jungle Operation»). The «best» elements received an additional training in Great Britain. They soon became part of what would become NATO’s «stay-behind» network, jointly directed by Great Britain and the United States [2]. Several parachuting and infiltration operations in espionage and sabotage missions took place but they all failed, causing a cruel repression by the Soviets. Eventually, this method was abandoned in 1952 when it was replaced by psychological operations” c) Communist international groups/cells were active a long time before the coup in Russia in 1917 which they used as a base to bring about the overthrow of the Tsar and thousands of terrorist attacks against Tsarist Russia which were aligned with the USSR during WW2 including the Baltic countries.

d) It was western powers that started the Cold War and the East and West divide with the Marshal plan. e) Most of what we know about Stalin era and aftermath of WW2 is total BS propaganda as Soviet archive material throughout Stalin’s reign Executed: – 642,980 persons, Imprisoned: – 2,369,220 persons, Exiled: – 765,180 persons and this Soviet myth Cold War propaganda of millions being killed and sent to GULAGS not based on any facts is being used to drive for war and hostility against Russia today just how they demonized the Serbs with utterly fake atrocity stories as they was fighting international Al Qaeda backed Islamic militants.

NATO is in essence, America's military insurance company. Just look at Afghanistan, half the coalition troops are from other NATO member states. If Iran or North Korea ever need to be dealt with, NATO will be there to insure the US with fresh troops. But even the British, with Argentina hinting at another shot at the Falklands might need the NATO insurance. In 1982 they won by themselves, but this time, they would have to fight Venezuela too. Hugo Chavez has already verbally committed to this and Venezuela, as we all know, just recieved an 8 billion dollar line of credit for arms purchases last year from...guess who...RUSSIA. Funny how the world works. We very well could see another era of proxy wars except instead of the Warsaw Pact funding NATO's enemies, it will just be Russia by itself. Just something to think about...

To Johnx: There is no accepted historical evidence that I know of, and none that you presented, that Britain and France allegedly “engineered Nazi and Japanese push for war against the USSR.” The Nazis and Japanese had ample reasons of their own for hostility towards the USSR, were hardly on good terms with the West and not at all amenable to following Western suggestions in any case. After the War, when Moscow clearly failed to live up to agreements it had made to allow genuine democratic elections in countries under its control and instead established itself an oppressor of those countries and as an enemy of the West, Britain and the US indeed recruited some nationals of countries under Soviet occupation as agents. This was not the cause of Russian hostility to the West, but a consequence of it. Stalin’s already flowering paranoia against the West was so incredible that many units of Red Army soldiers, immediately upon returning from the conquest of Germany, were marched straight into the GULAG, a reality that was not recounted in the extravaganza in Moscow the other week. So much for thanks to heroes. These men had seen a battered, broken, ruined Germany, and had even been the agents of its destruction. But no matter: they had seen the West, and Kremlin paranoia couldn’t tolerate that.

sandeep.pratap.singh, well said: "The fall of USSR was induced externally and executed internally." I feel it the same way... With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Treaty became a history as well, because it was created and maintained around a superpower -- the USSR. The same thing is with NATO. It is similar violation of English language, which Marzipan6 mentioned about. There is no any treaty there. This military block was created and maintained around another superpower - the USA -- to control Europe. When the status of superpower will be completely evaporated from the United States (which will happen sooner or later, because it is already on the way there), the NATO will become history the same way as it happened with the Warsaw Treaty...

The evidence that the Warsaw pact was not a treaty but an alliance imposed by Moscow is its dissolution after the collapse of USSR. If WP was truly an agreement between partners it would still exist and Russian neighbours would not have left Russia alone to oppose NATO. USSR as oppressive regime imposed to its neighbours the alliance. No use to spend other words on this topic. It is questionable thought if current NATO is something positive for Europe and the whole world. The USA in two decades managed to totally turn down the driving values of the alliance. By now the country belongs to financial fraudsters who have pushed them toward imperialistic policies put in place also using NATO. The alliance exists only because there is no alternative to it. By now the Russia of last decade is surely more compliance to the international law that NATO members. The good became the bad and vice versa. That's the real turn of the world of last ten years. Former eastern block countries can have a kind of acrimony against Russia coming from the latter past, but Im sure year by year that stance will fade away. The process could be accelerated if Russia aknowledged her past misbehaviours toward her former allies, but Russians cannot do that as it's too early now, too many nostalgic people still live in the country. It will be done gradually and very slowly.

Bogdanov, unfortunately you write a complete untruth when you suggest that NATO is a unilaterally imposed stricture like the Warsaw arrangement. I am keenly aware of the Baltics’ strong and spontaneous desire to be part of NATO. It was this spontaneous desire, not American pressure, that motivated them to apply for membership. I am aware of the years of effort, cost and sacrifice with Baltic countries chose to make between the time of their applications for membership and the time their applications were finally accepted. None of that was an instance of America forcing anything on them, but rather, of the Baltics themselves willingly sacrificing so as to achieve membership. Furthermore, I am aware that today Estonians’ approval of their country’s membership in NATO continues at somewhere in the mid 60s percentile. Again, this does not speak of external pressure. NATO and the Warsaw arrangement are/were both associated with a superpower, but that is where the similarity ends. NATO is a free association of sovereign nations that exists for the mutual benefit of all its members; the Warsaw arrangement was a Russian imposition upon captive nations which had no say in the matter one way or the other, and that existed purely in the interests of Moscow’s imperialism, not in the interests of its constituent countries. The Warsaw arrangement’s power was used only to oppress its own members and keep them in line when dangerous notions of freedom occurred to various ones of them over the years.