Editing Warsaw Pact (section)

===End of the Cold War===
[[File:00 Páneurópai Piknik emlékhely.jpg|thumb|150px|The [[Pan-European Picnic]] took place on the Hungarian-Austrian border in 1989.]]
In 1989, popular civil and political public discontent [[Revolutions of 1989|toppled the Communist governments]] of the Warsaw Treaty countries. The beginning of the end of the Warsaw Pact, regardless of military power, was the [[Pan-European Picnic]] in August 1989. The event, which goes back to an idea by [[Otto von Habsburg]], caused the mass exodus of GDR citizens and the media-informed population of Eastern Europe felt the loss of power of their rulers and the [[Iron Curtain]] broke down completely. Though Poland's new Solidarity government under [[Lech Wałęsa]] initially assured the Soviets that it would remain in the Pact,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/22/world/polish-army-enigma-in-the-soviet-alliance.html|title=Polish Army: Enigma in the Soviet Alliance|newspaper=The New York Times|date=22 August 1989|access-date=29 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171220112328/http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/22/world/polish-army-enigma-in-the-soviet-alliance.html|archive-date=20 December 2017|url-status=live|last1=Trainor|first1=Bernard E. |author1-link=Bernard E. Trainor}}</ref> this broke the brackets of Eastern Europe, which could no longer be held together militarily by the Warsaw Pact.<ref>Miklós Németh in Interview with Peter Bognar, Grenzöffnung 1989: „Es gab keinen Protest aus Moskau“ (German – Border opening in 1989: There was no protest from Moscow), in: Die Presse 18 August 2014.</ref><ref>„Der 19. August 1989 war ein Test für Gorbatschows“ (German – 19 August 1989 was a test for Gorbachev), in: FAZ 19 August 2009.</ref><ref>Michael Frank: Paneuropäisches Picknick – Mit dem Picknickkorb in die Freiheit (German: Pan-European picnic – With the picnic basket to freedom), in: Süddeutsche Zeitung 17 May 2010.</ref> Independent [[nationalism|national]] politics made feasible with the ''[[perestroika]]'' and liberal ''[[glasnost]]'' policies revealed shortcomings and failures (i.e. of the [[soviet-type economic planning]] model) and induced institutional collapse of the Communist government in the USSR in 1991.<ref name="dictionary" />{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=May 2022}} From 1989 to 1991, Communist governments were overthrown in [[Fall of communism in Poland|Poland]], [[Fall of communism in Hungary|Hungary]], [[Velvet Revolution|Czechoslovakia]], [[Peaceful Revolution|East Germany]], [[Romanian Revolution|Romania]], [[Fall of communism in Bulgaria|Bulgaria]], and the [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union#1989|Soviet Union]].

As the last acts of the Cold War were playing out, several Warsaw Pact states (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary) participated in the US-led coalition effort to liberate [[Kuwait]] in the [[Gulf War]].

On 25 February 1991, the Warsaw Pact was declared disbanded at a meeting of defence and foreign ministers from remaining Pact countries meeting in Hungary.<ref name="csmonitor" /> On 1 July 1991, in [[Prague]], the Czechoslovak President [[Václav Havel]]<ref name="auto2" /> formally ended the 1955 Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance and so disestablished the Warsaw Treaty after 36 years of military alliance with the USSR.<ref name="auto2" /><ref name="Havel" /> The USSR disestablished itself in December 1991.