ABSTRACT
After World War II, the task of reconstruction was so immense and European resources so exhausted that the fate of Europe effectively lay in the hands of the two nations that had emerged as world superpowers: the United States (US) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Cold War was a genuine conflict because leaders on both sides were convinced that their opponents had aggressive intentions centering on the control of Europe through the control of Germany. The French, now greatly concerned by the immediate Communist threat as well as the more distant possibility of a resurgent Germany, pressed for tangible indications of continuing US concern for European security. The Warsaw Pact of May 1955—signed by Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the USSR—was widely heralded as a reply to the NATO alliance and Germany's entrance into it.
