Next Step : Taking Stock of Eastern Europe’s Military Alliance : The Warsaw Pact is debating its future as its credibility as an armed threat is crumbling. Here’s a look at the might its members still possess.

Though the disintegrating, seven-nation Warsaw Pact has one foot in the grave, some members are desperately trying to keep a tombstone from being placed over the remains.

The prognosis looks bleak, and there are widespread predictions of the demise of the organization, which was formed here in 1955 as a Communist counter to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“We will have to live with this collective dinosaur for a while, but nobody takes the Warsaw Pact seriously any longer,” commented a diplomatic observer here. “The only issue is how to get rid of it gracefully,” he added.

“The pact is defunct as far as mounting an offensive against the West,” added a military specialist in the Polish capital.

But Moscow and a few of its allies hope to breathe life back into the pact by emphasizing a new political role for the organization--long considered the most dangerous military threat to Western Europe.

The Soviet military, which has run the Warsaw Treaty Organization as an extension of the Red Army, insists that the alliance should hang together as long as there is a military threat from NATO. And even some Western specialists believe that a liberalized Warsaw Pact could serve a useful purpose.

As a NATO planner in Brussels put it: “I would not like to write it off entirely. For instance, in the conventional arms negotiations at Vienna, it is easier to deal with the pact members as a group than as seven separate countries.”

Further, NATO has proposed the signing of a non-aggression treaty with members of the Warsaw Pact, and such an act might pump life back into the moribund organization.

Of the members--the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania--Poland has appeared among the most eager to retain whatever protective power the organization provides. This is mainly because of the Poles’ fear of a united Germany--a nation of 80 million people who, some here still fear, might try to recover former German lands ceded to Poland after World War II.

“There are two sources for our worries,” Bronislaw Maria Komorowski, an assistant defense minister of Poland, told a visitor. “I inherited my name from my uncle, who was executed by the Germans in the war. He inherited his name from an uncle who was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1920. The Warsaw Pact may offer us protection in both directions. But if we keep it, it must fully respect the principle of partnership.”

Similarly, Bulgaria, which also has historic rivals on its borders, is less eager than some of its allies, such as Hungary, to disband the Warsaw Pact.

Kalin Mitrev, a Moscow-educated diplomat and a ranking member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, said in an interview in Sofia: “There is a half-million-strong Turkish army directed against Bulgaria. We have to think about that. Until we have fully achieved a level of integration with Europe, in order to prevent a Cyprus situation developing here, we need strong support from everyone, especially from our historic allies.”

Moscow wants to restructure the pact into a predominantly political organization “of sovereign states with equal rights, based on democratic principles” even as it falters as a credible military alliance.

For Moscow is embarrassed by the fact that its troops are left in countries where they are no longer welcome.

Here is a rundown on the military status of the Soviet Union’s six sometime-allies in East Europe:

* East Germany--Long considered the most formidable military power among the Soviet satellites. The East German armed forces, which only a year ago had 170,000 well-disciplined men, are now in a state of near-collapse.

Most importantly, unification of Germany, expected this year, means the eastern sector will no longer be a member of the Warsaw Pact, but affiliated with NATO.

Still, the greater part of the Soviet forces the Kremlin has deployed beyond its national borders are stationed in East Germany--an elite army of 380,000 men in at least 17 combat divisions.

That’s why it was such a breakthrough last week when Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl agreed on the withdrawal of Red army forces in three or four years after unification.

* Poland--Strong armed forces of about 400,000 men, including the so-called Internal Defense troops. Heavy divisions are concentrated along the western border with East Germany.

Military attaches say the Polish army, made up largely of conscripts, is professional, well-trained and well-disciplined. “They would fight to the last man if Poland were attacked,” one military specialist said, “but the Soviets could not count on the Poles to fight anyone else.”

Komorowski, the assistant defense minister, said, “We will act only in a defensive way and only on Polish territory against any threat.”

The Soviet army maintains two army divisions in Poland, about 40,000 men and 300 aircraft, but this force seems to serve mainly as a communications and logistics chain between the Soviet forces in East Germany and the Soviet Union. And the logic of maintaining this force will disappear as those Soviet troops in Germany are brought home.

* Czechoslovakia--A well-equipped armed force of about 200,000 men. Defense Minister Miroslav Vacek said he is seeking ways to reduce the force level by 25%. He would abolish conscription in favor of a volunteer force.

“Right now, I think the Czechs would find that too expensive,” a Western military attache said.

The Czechoslovak army, which did not fight when Germany seized the Sudetenland in 1938 and did not oppose the 1968 invasion by Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces, does not have a high reputation at home.

“You don’t find the same respect for the army here that you have in East Germany and Poland,” an analyst in Prague said.

Until a year ago, the Soviets kept five Red Army combat divisions in Czechoslovakia, but significant numbers of troops and equipment have already been pulled out, and the rest are to be gone within a year.

* Hungary--About 90,000 men in uniform. The loudest call for breaking up the military marriage in East Europe has come from Budapest, where politicians have declared the 35-year-old military bloc a useless relic. Col. Gyorgy Keleti, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, described the pact by quoting an old saying: “When a woman is dead, you don’t have to divorce her.”

About 50,000 Soviet troops in the country began going home last March under an agreement between Moscow and Budapest. The withdrawal is to be completed by next July 1. More recently, the Hungarian government said it would remove its armed forces from Warsaw Pact control in anticipation of official withdrawal from the alliance by the end of next year.

“Hungary did not choose to join the Warsaw Pact of its own free will,” Foreign Minister Geza Jeszenszky said, “and it’s doubtful whether the pact had any positive function or role to play at any time. But at the same time, it is a valid treaty based on international law, and a unilateral break cannot be made.”

After new East-West arms arrangements are worked out in Vienna, Hungarian diplomats say, the country will establish a small army that would be part of a new pan-European security accord.

* Bulgaria--About 117,000 men in uniform. There are no Soviet troops on Bulgarian soil and, according to military observers, Bulgaria has never posed much of a threat to NATO, particularly since strong NATO members Greece and Turkey lie on Bulgaria’s southern flank.

Bulgarian officials tend to regard the Warsaw alliance as worth preserving, at least for the short term, mainly because of Bulgaria’s fear of the massive Turkish armed forces.

Soviet troops did not occupy Bulgaria after World War II because local leaders readily accepted the Communist ideology, which had to be imposed on other East European countries. This absence of a Soviet occupation force has spared Bulgarians much of the resentment felt by other Warsaw Pact nations.

* Romania--About 171,000 men under arms before the revolution of last December. Like Bulgaria, Romania has not had to put up with Soviet occupation troops, and it too plans to reduce its armed forces.

For years, Romania was the least enthusiastic member of the Warsaw Pact, barring Soviet troops and joint maneuvers from its territory. It refused to take part in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, yet despite last December’s violent revolution, it continues to be one of the more loyal members of the Warsaw Pact.

“We are for the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact,” Gen. Vasile Ionel, chief of the Romanian general staff, said recently, “but simultaneous with the dissolution of NATO. As long as the Warsaw Pact exists, we will fulfill the obligations we assumed.”

Ionel described the efforts of countries like Hungary to break away from the Warsaw Treaty Organization as “destabilizing.”

So Moscow’s next steps to keep the Warsaw Pact from being disbanded remain uncertain: It will never be a heavyweight again, although it may continue as a hollow shell.

“The Warsaw Pact doesn’t have an address, a building to sit in or a secretary general,” commented a senior NATO official. “We have invited them to speak to us here as individual nations. If some of the members can convert it into a genuine political partnership, it may have some limited future, otherwise the pact is on its way out.”

Times staff writers Carol J. Williams, based in Budapest, and John-Thor Dahlburg, in Moscow, contributed to this article.

Players in the Warsaw Pact

EAST GERMANY: Its army in a state of collapse, it remains the place where Soviets have most troops on foreign soil--380,000.

POLAND: With about 400,000 under arms, its military is considered a strong weapon--but only if Poland is attacked.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Army is well-equipped but not highly regarded at home. Officials are seeking ways to reduce its size.

HUNGARY: Loudest of East Europe nations in demanding breakup of Warsaw Pact, it plans to withdraw its military from pact control.

BULGARIA: Seen as little threat to NATO, Bulgaria would generally favor retaining Warsaw Pact because of its fear of Turkey.

ROMANIA: Like Bulgaria, it has no Soviet troops on its soil. Romania favors dissolving Warsaw Pact only if NATO meets the same fate.