The Future of European Alliance Systems: NATO and the Warsaw Pact by Arlene Idol Broadhurst

Author:Arlene Idol Broadhurst [Broadhurst, Arlene Idol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781000301649
Google: 9gWiDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 49786294
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

The Warsaw Pact: Systemic Peculiarities

Excellent studies in the past have dealt with various aspects of the Warsaw Pact as a military alliance; both classified and unclassified studies in the United States and in the countries of the region admirably describe the physical dimensions of this impressive alliance system.16 Based on these studies, intelligent observers certainly can delineate the physical size, organization and even performance of the Pact. Suffice it to say, here, that the Warsaw Pact is primarily composed of armies of Communist states whose physical locus is Eastern Europe, whose deployment as a force in action has only taken place in intra-systemic conflict, and whose development and deployment has been generally in accordance with the desires of the major actor of the alliance, the U.S.S.R.

And herein lies the first, major conceptual problem in the discussion of the alliance system, namely, the problem whether one can regard this system as a “genuine” alliance, or one that is “imposed upon” by the participating states. On the one hand, it should be noted that the very size of the U.S.S.R. makes its weight in the system so great as to raise serious questions about the importance of such tiny allies as Bulgaria, Hungary, or Albania. On the other hand, the dominance of the U.S.S.R. and the distribution of military global tasks among the various armies of the Pact—for example, the assignation of global political police training tasks to the East German army and UB—raises the point that it is a specific type of an alliance system with variegated missions.

History, of course, is a limited source to provide predictive values. It is contradictory at best; descriptive analyses of past events are useful only as visits of condolence. For history often demonstrates that the size of a preponderant ally renders its miniscule partners’ role so subordinate that the true nature of an alliance becomes obsolete.17 Although it assures us that such aberration as the tail wagging the dog is possible, compatible size remains one of the operational concepts for genuine alliance systems. And yet the history of this alliance system shows remarkable divergences of opinion on various issues, regardless of actual size. Witness the vehement demand of Germany and Czechoslovakia, in advance of Soviet policy shifts, for a speedy occupation of Hungary in 1956 on the one hand, versus the divergent attitudes of the variously-sized allies in 1968.

The genuineness of the alliance system has also been questioned because it has been imposed upon the member states. Certainly there is a great deal of proof that the Soviet forces, even after 35 years of presence in the region, are viewed as occupiers; 1956 and 1968 are outstanding examples to prove this point, although in the case of Czechoslovakia the true animosity toward the U.S.S.R. only occurred after August 21, 1968. Some elements of support for the alliance—aside from that of sheer imposition—however, have come from within the native military establishments and from the officer corps that has lived a continuous existence for more than a quarter of a century.

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