Has any treaty actually prevented war rather than merely delaying it?
Short answerNATO and the Warsaw Pact helped prevent a major European war by stabilizing alliance command, but their rivalry displaced conflict into proxy wars elsewhere.
NotesNATO provides a qualified example of a treaty that helped prevent war. NATO and the Warsaw Pact stabilized command relationships and required governments and bureaucracies to coordinate before acting. That structure made unilateral escalation inside Europe less likely even when the Soviet-led alliance could be coercive. The result was not peace everywhere, because much of the competition was displaced into proxy wars outside Europe.