Warsaw Pact
549
MENTIONS
167
EPISODES
111
PODCASTS
Search complete. 549 mentions across 167 episodes found for "Warsaw Pact".
Sep 17, 2026
Bob PackwoodSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
He says, and to the others who weren't here that day, The morning in October of 1962, when President Kennedy called Foreign Minister Gromyko into his office and asked if the Soviets had any missiles in Cuba, no.
Bob PackwoodSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Had any Warsaw Pact country missiles been transported on Soviet ships to Cuba? No.
Bob PackwoodSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Were there any Soviet soldiers on the ground in Cuba assembling missiles from any place? No.
Bob PackwoodSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
And then Scoop gestures like this.
Juan RosHOST
Okay.
Stacy Macris RosHOST
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 symbolized what major geopolitical shift? Was it the victory of the Warsaw Pact over NATO? Was it the collapse of communist control in Eastern Europe? Was it the start of a major global nuclear war? Was it the division of Germany into four new nations? The second
Juan RosHOST
one.
Stacy Macris RosHOST
The collapse of communist control in Eastern
Sam MithaHOST
I don't know if I want to go into the history of why, you know, NATO, basically NATO expanding, telling Russia they're not going to expand, telling Russia they're not going to recruit more states into NATO because there's no purpose.
Sam MithaHOST
USSR, Warsaw Pact with Poland, they created an allied power to go against NATO.
Sam MithaHOST
USSR fell.
Sam MithaHOST
Now you have the Russian Federation.
LummyPANELIST
Who writes the rules for war crimes?
Bubba the Love Sponge ClemHOST
Um, NATO and the Warsaw Pact and the, just the Geneva Convention.
LummyPANELIST
Well, let's just pull war on them.
Bubba the Love Sponge ClemHOST
Well, y- y- y- G- Lummy, is there anyth- Can you help me out with him-
Emma AshfordGUEST
Um, it is entirely true, I think, that Russia probably would have had more influence on the foreign policy and even domestic politics of some of its closer neighbors.
Emma AshfordGUEST
So again, it's states like Ukraine that are the closest to Russia that were part of the Soviet Union rather than part of the Warsaw Pact.
Emma AshfordGUEST
I do think we would've seen continued Russian meddling in those cases.
Emma AshfordGUEST
But again, the argument that I would make is that for NATO as an organization, admitting some of these states did not necessarily improve the security of existing members, and for Europe as a whole, you know, you have to ask yourself, again, this is a counterfactual, would we have rather had a Europe with a major land war in Ukraine with all this, you know, these weapons being spent, these lives being spent in the biggest land war that we've had in Europe basically since World War II, or would we rather have had more of, let's say, a gray zone between Russia and the West, where some of these states perhaps did not have the full freedoms that they might have if they were members of, of NATO, but where, you know, perhaps it would not have been as prone to conflict? And I think, again, it's a, it's an unpleasant counterfactual, but it's one worth making.
Thomas777GUEST
They were literally at war with Israel, okay, as was the USSR.
Thomas777GUEST
But the DDR, not only was there a spear point, kind of like a schwerpunkt of Warsaw Pact power, you know, by proxy, especially in the Third World, but there was, in fact, like an East German foreign policy into itself.
Thomas777GUEST
And they despised Israel.
Thomas777GUEST
And they viewed them not only as a bastion of imperialism in the Leninist sense, they viewed them as an obstacle to the proletarian revolution in the Near East, which was key, owing to geostrategic factors and other things.
Thomas777GUEST
You can tell me that it wasn't, but I don't accept that.
Thomas777GUEST
The Communist Party line anyway, like what the Soviets would say, particularly when they were under pressure in the 1980s, supposedly for know anti-semitic legislation like they said that you know it's not like jews like they're like why would we why would we emphasize jewish suffering in world war ii we lost 25 million people you know like we we we vanquished the third reich like why we're not gonna we're not gonna count how to some reactionary jewish identity they just like refuse to acknowledge it you know so again you know i refer people to paul gottfried especially people who weren't alive during the Cold War.
Thomas777GUEST
Like, the left won the Cold War, but the Warsaw Pact left lost.
Thomas777GUEST
Okay, like, we're not talking about wokeism.
ThomasGUEST
They were literally at war with Israel, okay, as was the USSR.
ThomasGUEST
But the DDR, not only were they a spearpoint, kind of like a schwerpunkt, of, um, of Warsaw Pact power, you know, by proxy, especially in the third world.
ThomasGUEST
But there, there wasn't, there wasn't, there wasn't in fact like an East German, like foreign policy into itself.
ThomasGUEST
And, um, they despised Israel and, um, they, they viewed them not only as a passion of, you know, imperialism in the Leninist sense.
ThomasGUEST
You know.
ThomasGUEST
So, again, you know, I refer people to Paul Gottfried, especially people who weren't alive during the Cold War.
ThomasGUEST
Like, the left won the Cold War, but the Warsaw Pact left lost.
ThomasGUEST
Okay, like, we're not We're not talking about wokeism.
Thomas777GUEST
People didn't flippantly make these decisions.
Thomas777GUEST
And in the case of Grenada, the only way it can be understood is within the same kind of paradigm of escalation that had already been underway since detente ended and um America had taken a series of military losses I mean that's just America the entire Western alliance you know the United States NATO and allied States they can't be denied I make the point to people again and again that America was losing the Cold War in military terms when Reagan took the oath of office that that wasn't neoconish team B propaganda that wasn't just silly uh John Bircher type stuff I mean that was inarguable and it was an odd period of transition conceptually as regards how military matters were contemplated this is when the Revolution in military Affairs was underway like literally like the kind of the the the kind of discursive process and the kind of you know the the um the research that led to the technology that ultimately facilitated it and resolved some of these uncertainties was literally then underway but it wasn't yet clear you know what kind of the new force structure should be to combat warsaw pact You know, this was 1983 was exactly a decade after the draft had been abolished.
Thomas777GUEST
The military was still adjusting to that.
Thomas777GUEST
There was a fascinating paradigm underway by which strategic nuclear parity had been accomplished by the late 70s.
Thomas777GUEST
You know, that was the first time it could truly be said that there was like genuine parity between NATO and Warsaw Pact in terms of strategic nuclear forces in being.
Thomas777GUEST
Now, that had the effect of suddenly making conventional forces a lot more relevant.
Thomas777GUEST
OK, I mean, in the opinion of somebody like me, they'd always been relevant.
Thomas777GUEST
In 1971, the USSR had strongly backed India and the Indo-Pakistan War as a hedge against the People's Republic of China.
Morgan WrightGUEST
The second offset w- was called Look Deep, Shoot Deep.
Morgan WrightGUEST
It's how we kept the Warsaw Pact at bay.
Morgan WrightGUEST
But we are now into the third offset of war, and you are absolutely right.
Morgan WrightGUEST
This is one we have to win because the winner gets to define the rules.
ThomasGUEST
The research that led to the technology that ultimately facilitated it and resolved some of these uncertainties was literally then underway.
ThomasGUEST
But it wasn't yet clear what kind of the new force structure should be to combat Warsaw Pact.
ThomasGUEST
1983 was exactly a decade after the draft had been abolished.
ThomasGUEST
The military was still adjusting to that.
ThomasGUEST
There was a fascinating paradigm underway by which strategic nuclear parity had been accomplished by the late 70s.
ThomasGUEST
That was the first time it could truly be said that there was genuine parity between NATO and Warsaw Pact in terms of strategic nuclear forces in being.
ThomasGUEST
Now, that had the effect of suddenly making conventional forces a lot more relevant.
ThomasGUEST
OK, I mean, in the opinion of somebody like me, they'd always been relevant.
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