This article examines the political and economic processes taking place in or related to the Middle East from the mid-30s to 1955. At the work, the author systematizes the prerequisites and reasons for the formation of CENTO, deduced on the basis of the facts set out in the work and the identified cause-and-effect relationships. The following methods were used in the work: abstraction in historical knowledge, cause-and-effect analysis of connections between historical events, historical-system analysis.