People seem to forget the original purpose of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere.
The Warsaw Pact was put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO. Soviet leaders, like many European leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain, feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat.
It was an agreement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that the next war would be fought in Europe.
NATO involved the participation of the countries of Eastern Europe, while the Warsaw Pact involved Western Europe. The Warsaw Pact was primarily a military agreement, while NATO was primarily an economic agreement.
The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 and represented a Soviet counterweight to NATO, composed of the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe.
NATO’s creation was part of a broader effort to serve three purposes: deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration.