Changes

By the 1980s, the Warsaw Treaty Organization was beset by problems related to the economic slowdown in all Eastern European countries. By the late 1980s , political changes in most of the member states made the Pact virtually ineffectual. In September 1990, East Germany left the Pact in preparation for reunification with West Germany. By October, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland had withdrawn from all Warsaw Pact military exercises. The Warsaw Pact officially disbanded in March and July of 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.