Chapter 10: The Establishment of NATO and the Confrontation with Communism, 1949 (Part II)

The Warsaw Pact was a political and military alliance of communist states established to counter the power of the Western capitalist bloc’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Although the Warsaw Pact did not gain the support of all socialist countries, all Eastern European socialist states (with the exception of Yugoslavia) joined it. The establishment of the Warsaw Pact reflected Stalin’s totalitarian domination and coercive control over Eastern European countries, provoking protests from both the peoples and governments of the signatory states and generating constant turmoil. In 1956, during the Hungarian Uprising, the population carried out large-scale demonstrations against Stalinism. The Warsaw Pact immediately dispatched troops, and Soviet forces used tanks to suppress the movement. In 1968, Czechoslovakia’s “Prague Spring” reform movement allowed freedom of the press, thought, and religion, and permitted the limited existence of private economic activity. On August 20, Warsaw Pact forces entered Czechoslovakia on a large scale and violently crushed the Prague Spring reforms. Led by the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact effectively became a “neo-colonialist” suzerain power. Stalinist totalitarianism was ultimately unable to withstand the peoples of the Warsaw Pact countries’ yearning for and pursuit of freedom.

Corresponding to NATO was the communist bloc’s Warsaw Pact Organization. The stated purpose of the Warsaw Pact was to respond to armed threats from the Western world, but its primary function in practice was to intervene in the internal affairs of its member states. Although the treaty stipulated that member states should “respect national sovereignty,” “not interfere in internal affairs,” and “not threaten or use force,” in reality it became an international organization dedicated to interference in domestic politics. The Czechoslovak crisis and the Soviet Union’s forceful suppression fully exposed the true nature of the Warsaw Pact, and demonstrated the fear that totalitarian states led by the Soviet Union held toward democracy, human rights, and freedom. Soviet soldiers occupied the Czechoslovak radio building for eight days and nights, yet the “free and lawful Czechoslovak radio” continued to broadcast voices of resistance on different frequencies, one after another, because “bullets cannot shoot down our voices.”

On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall collapsed. The wave of upheavals in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, marking the countdown to the end of communism, began with the first domino falling in East Germany. On October 3, 1990, Germany was reunified. Shortly thereafter, East Germany announced its withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. On July 1, 1991, Eastern European bloc countries met in Prague, where Czechoslovak President Václav Havel declared, “From today, the Warsaw Pact no longer exists.” The Warsaw Pact Organization was subsequently dissolved.

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Cold War came to an end. Although Western doubts and concerns about Moscow did not disappear and NATO still needed to exist, NATO’s original function clearly began to fade. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, NATO for the first time moved beyond Europe, taking command of a United Nations–mandated multinational force in Afghanistan. The rise of a red empire in Asia has placed upon the United States the responsibility of eliminating communism in human history—a task that remains unfinished. The United States needs to extend its protection of allies to Asia, and in particular requires an international alliance similar to NATO to restrain the expansion of communism.

Michael Mandelbaum’s The Rise and Fall of Peace traces this historical trajectory: from the Cold War between American democracy and Soviet communism (1945–1989), to a particularly peaceful quarter-century without major power conflict, supported by the spread of democracy and global economic interdependence (1989–2015), and then to the more dangerous era we face today—one in which China, Iran, and Russia all seek to deflect democratic pressures and the need for sustained economic growth by offering their populations radical forms of extreme nationalism.

The Chinese Communist Party’s growing economic and military power has become the leading force undermining the United States’ unipolar global dominance. Beijing’s increasingly aggressive behavior has prompted cooperation among the United States, Australia, Japan, and India. Whether in the Taiwan Strait, the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, the continually tense Sino-Indian border, or Hong Kong’s gradual loss of autonomy, the assertive posture displayed by Beijing has caused growing unease among many countries. It is under these circumstances that an “Asian Mini-NATO” has begun to take shape. The term refers to a “small-scale, NATO-like organization in Asia.” In practice, it denotes bilateral or multilateral, U.S.-led military alliances between the United States and Asian countries such as Japan, Australia, South Korea, and India. Although no such formal organization yet exists, its outline has already emerged.

As U.S.–China relations continue to deteriorate, Washington has accelerated the deployment of its Indo-Pacific strategy. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue associated with the “Asian Mini-NATO” has become the latest diplomatic strategy to contain China. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was a key proponent of this idea. He stated, “Only in this way can countries protect themselves and their partners from exploitation, corruption, and intimidation by the Chinese Communist Party.” On October 6, 2020, the foreign ministers of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia held a “Quad” meeting in Japan. Although the establishment of an Asian NATO remains distant, the four countries have at least begun to consider joint responses to China. They are working to create mechanisms and a security framework to jointly address challenges posed by China, and, when the time is ripe, to allow other countries to join this community.

On April 28, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden sent a strong signal to China in his first address to Congress. Biden pledged to maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific region, “just as we have done for NATO in Europe—not to start conflict, but to prevent conflict.” A “new NATO” for Pacific countries and regions is thus beginning to take shape.

Zhong Wen concludes: Confronting communist totalitarianism is a common mission for all humanity and cannot be accomplished by any single country alone. This is the lesson NATO’s establishment teaches us. The primary role of NATO alliance forces is to preserve peace and to guarantee the territorial integrity, political independence, and security of member states. Alliance forces must be capable of effective deterrence and defense. The main activities of NATO members include close consultation and coordination of positions on major international political issues through ministerial councils and defense planning committees; the study and formulation of unified strategies and operational plans in the military sphere; and the conduct of various military exercises each year. Viewed today, in the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s rising military threats to neighboring countries—especially those in the South China Sea—these measures are highly necessary. In the future, as China exerts military pressure in the East China Sea against Taiwan and engages in land reclamation in the South China Sea while threatening countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, the United States will need to establish a Pacific treaty organization similar to NATO, using Article 5–style collective defense to “huddle together for warmth” and jointly resist military provocations from the red empire.