On November 18, representatives of the 30 states that are party to the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty will meet at the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) summit in Istanbul to decide the future of the most ambitious conventional arms control accord in history. Originally intended to reduce tensions between the two Cold War superpower blocs by establishing a secure balance of armed forces in Europe and eliminating each side's ability to launch a surprise attack, the treaty proved its usefulness in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet collapse and continues to prove its utility in the rapidly shifting European security landscape. It is essential that this opportunity to formally "adapt" the CFE Treaty to current political-military conditions not be missed.
When the 22 members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact first signed the CFE Treaty in Paris on November 19, 1990, none of them could have predicted that in slightly more than a year not only the Warsaw Pact but also the Soviet Union would dissolve. When that did happen, many observers assumed that the agreement would be tossed aside, relegated to a footnote of Cold War history. Fortunately, despite this skepticism, leaders in both the East and the West quickly realized that the treaty offered a means to enhance European security during this period of transition and beyond in a manner consistent with its original goals.
Implementation of the treaty was completed in late 1995, and discussions about "adapting" its structure to the new security environment began shortly thereafter at the first treaty review conference, held in May 1996. The potential signing of the adapted treaty at the upcoming OCSE summit represents the culmination of nearly three years of negotiations.
With the rising threat of nuclear proliferation and the focus of Western military analysts having largely shifted to Asia, the fate of conventional weapons in Europe is no longer as pressing to many as it once was. But while the threat of a large-scale Soviet invasion through Germany may be a thing of the past, an adapted CFE treaty will be able to further improve Europe's security in two crucial ways. First, a successful conclusion of the CFE adaptation negotiations could help dispel some of Moscow's security concerns that have resulted from NATO enlargement and the subsequent intervention in Kosovo. Second, the strain that Russia's internal political and economic discord has placed on its military is leading to a greater reliance on nuclear weapons because of conventional inferiority. An adapted CFE treaty could help counter that dangerous trend.
Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton underscored the importance of the CFE at their September 1998 summit in Moscow and established a goal of completing adaptation by the OSCE summit in November of this year. While world leaders establish objectives of this type fairly frequently (and with only modest success), this is a critical juncture for these negotiations. The domestic political situations in both Russia and the United States and the rising difficulty in concluding arms control agreements suggest that gathering support for the CFE will become increasingly difficult in the near future. The OSCE summit may very well represent the best—and perhaps last—opportunity for this treaty.
The CFE Treaty, as it was originally written, requires alliance or "group" limitations on tanks, artillery, armored combat vehicles (ACVs), combat aircraft and attack helicopters—known collectively as treaty-limited equipment (TLE)—in an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains. Each bloc was allowed 20,000 tanks; 20,000 artillery pieces; 30,000 ACVs; 2,000 attack helicopters; and 6,800 combat aircraft.
Bloc limitations for NATO and the former Warsaw Pact were further circumscribed by a series of five geographic nested zones for land-based TLE. Limitations on helicopters and attack aircraft only applied to the entire area due to their ability to reposition rapidly. This zonal approach was a logical derivative of the mandate's intent to reduce the possibility of surprise attack by precluding excessive force concentrations near the heart of Europe. National limits for each treaty signatory were subsequently determined in negotiations among the members of the two organizations before the demise of the Warsaw Pact. When the U.S.S.R. disintegrated, the Soviet successor states (within the area of application) met at Tashkent in May 1992 and determined their respective limits from the total allocated to the Soviet Union.
Though the treaty was signed in November 1990, implementation was delayed by the end of the Warsaw Pact, the demise of the Soviet Union and problems associated with Soviet TLE. Implementation actually commenced in November 1992 when the final two states—Belarus and Kazakhstan—deposited their instruments of ratification. By the end of the implementation period in November 1995, over 58,000 pieces of TLE had been destroyed and approximately 2,700 inspections had been conducted to insure compliance.<1> The Russian Federation had the greatest burden for destruction—roughly 20 percent of this total.
Full and final compliance with the CFE Treaty was, however, endangered in late 1995 due to Russian insistence that it could not comply with limits on its forces in the so-called "flank zone"—an area that for Russia includes both the Leningrad Military District in the north and North Caucasus Military District in the south. As the November 17 deadline for full implementation approached, it became clear that Russia would comply with its overall national limit, but not the flank requirement. In the waning moments the 30 parties agreed to a framework document to resolve this problem quickly based on specific agreed principles, thereby avoiding the diplomatically embarrassing possibility of having to declare the Russian Federation in "non-compliance."
A compromise was finally achieved at the treaty's first review conference, held in Vienna in May 1996, that permitted Russia higher force levels in the flank zone, established a May 1999 deadline for Moscow to meet these adjusted levels and in effect reduced the overall size of the flank zone.<2> (This compromise was subsequently ratified by the U.S. Senate in May 1997.)
During that same review conference, Russia first presented its ideas for modifying the treaty to reflect post-Cold War realities, and the West responded that it was willing to consider further adjustments to the treaty. A formal decision to commence adaptation discussions in the Vienna-based Joint Consultative Group (the treaty's implementing body) was adopted at the Lisbon summit of the OSCE in December 1996, and the states-parties agreed to a document covering the scope and parameters of the negotiations.
Actual discussions began in the first months of 1997 as both NATO and Russia presented formal proposals for adapting the treaty, and on July 23 the 30 states involved in the discussions announced an agreement on certain "basic elements" required for successful adaptation of the treaty.<3> Most significantly, all states-parties agreed that the original bloc-to-bloc and zonal structure of the agreement was outmoded and should be replaced by national and territorial limits for all categories of treaty-limited equipment. They further concluded:
• national ceilings for each country should not exceed their existing allocations;
• rules governing equipment in storage must be changed;
• stabilizing measures to preclude force concentrations were required;
• each state should adopt a territorial ceiling that equaled the total of national and stationed forces;
• rules governing "temporary deployments" must be clarified; and
• an accession clause should be added to the treaty.
Most NATO countries also indicated their willingness to take at least a 5 percent reduction in their current entitlements.
There can be no doubt that this was a significant development. Still it was clearly "a lowest common denominator" agreement based on each side's initial proposal and was timed to coincide with the Madrid summit announcing the new NATO members in order to demonstrate that the Alliance acknowledged Russian security concerns. The so-called "Basic Elements Document" still left many important issues unresolved—and suggested that a final adjusted treaty would require difficult negotiations.
The next major development in the adaptation talks came on March 30, 1999, when the 30 CFE states agreed to a political document that set the stage for a final revised treaty.<4> The agreement was particularly noteworthy because at the time Moscow had severed or suspended its other political ties with NATO (such as the NATO-Russia Council) over the alliance's air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).
The agreement confirmed a new structure based on the system of national and territorial ceilings. Under the original CFE Treaty, each country was allocated TLE entitlements based on the limits of the bloc to which it belonged. The March 30 agreement dictated that each country's TLE would be limited according to its own national ceiling. Furthermore, each country would have a territorial ceiling that limited the number of ground TLE (both national and foreign-stationed) that could be deployed within its borders.
NATO's original limits on the five categories of TLE totaled 89,026 pieces. In the March 30 agreement the 19 members of NATO—the original 16 plus Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic—proposed lowering their aggregate national limits to roughly 80,000. Thus, even the enlarged NATO accepted sizable reductions in its TLE entitlements. However, because actual holdings are still below authorized limits by a significant margin, these reductions will not necessitate the destruction of any military hardware. (See Table 1.) For its part, the United States accepted a reduction of over 45 percent in the amount of ground TLE it was authorized to have in the Atlantic-to-the-Urals area at any given time. (See Table 2.)
NATO stated early in the enlargement process (and formally affirmed in the NATO-Russian Founding Act) that it saw no need to station significant forces permanently on the territory of its new members. While this was both a clear recognition of the security situation and an attempt to further ease Russian concerns, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland remained concerned. They worried that should they be threatened in the future, the alliance would not be able to come to their aid without violating the treaty. Consequently, as part of the March 30 decision, NATO negotiated certain operational flexibilities, such as the right to deploy equipment temporarily on the territory of an ally during a crisis.
According to the March 30 agreement, each state can exceed its respective territorial limit for UN- or OSCE-mandated peace support operations, exercises or temporary deployments. All states may host a "Basic Temporary Deployment" (to a maximum of 153 tanks, 241 ACVs and 140 artillery pieces) above its respective territorial ceiling. Those states outside the so-called flank region (the flank includes Iceland, Norway, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and portions of the Russian Federation as well as Ukraine) may host a larger "Exceptional Temporary Deployment" to a maximum of 459 tanks, 723 ACVs and 420 artillery pieces.
The accord also made changes to the flank regime in order to reconcile this portion of the original treaty to a revised structure. It noted that the flank regime remained legally binding on all parties and allowed Russia modest increases in the number of ACVs allowed in the Leningrad and North Caucasus Military Districts. This portion of the understanding also included Moscow's acceptance of bilateral discussions on the reduction of its forces from Georgia and complete withdrawal from Moldova consistent with both the principle of host-nation consent and the decision reached at the 1998 Oslo ministerial discussions.
The March 30 decision also concluded key verification enhancements. Each state accepted a moderate increase in its annual inspection requirements, but the accord also noted the need for additional information/verification provisions consistent with the system of national and territorial ceilings as well as temporary deployments. Finally, all states appended significant national statements to the decision that were political in nature and committed them to pursuing continued reductions in national force levels in the area of application. As part of its political statement, Russia pledged restraint on its forces in the northwestern portion of the country adjacent to the Baltic Republics and Poland.
With the rapid dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and then of the Soviet Union itself, the CFE Treaty was given little time to prove its value in the circumstances for which it had been intended, but its stabilizing influence was nonetheless clear during the tumultuous events of the early 1990s. Though the purpose of the agreement was to reduce the possibility of short-warning conventional attacks and large-scale offensives through force reductions, CFE inspections may actually have contributed more to easing tensions during this period than reductions did. The treaty proved particularly valuable in assuaging concerns about German reunification and providing transparency on the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Eastern Europe. Furthermore, under the terms of the agreement, short-notice inspections were conducted of U.S. forces in Germany as they were preparing for deployment to the former Yugoslavia in 1995.
Thus, the CFE Treaty has already proven its importance outside the scope of activity for which it was originally intended, and in the coming years, it can undoubtedly further enhance European security, particularly by smoothing U.S.-Russian relations and easing Russian concerns about NATO's role in Europe. There can be little doubt that Russia's relations with the West have suffered in recent months because of NATO enlargement, continued disagreements over Iraq and the conflict in Kosovo. A successful conclusion of the CFE adaptation negotiations could assist in dispelling many of Moscow's security concerns without compromising NATO security and could foster a climate of increased cooperation between Russia and NATO.
During the enlargement process, the United States and its NATO partners clearly showed that so-called "Russia-handling" was critical, and various efforts were made to assuage Moscow's concerns. Western policymakers attempted to describe enlargement as non-threatening, but there was no doubt that most (if not all) Russian leaders still disagreed up to the last minute, when the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland officially entered the alliance March 12, 1999.<5> Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladmir Rakhmanin noted on the eve of enlargement that Moscow had accepted an expanded NATO as "part of current European reality" despite Moscow's opposition. He added that in this situation the CFE Treaty remained the "foundation of European security" and that preserving and strengthening the agreement was central to meeting Russian fears.<6> From the Russian perspective, an adjusted CFE Treaty provides legal assurances about the size and deployment of NATO forces—particularly in the new member countries—that continue to be critical to Moscow's assessment of regional security. Consequently, while modifications to the treaty are warranted based on the dramatic changes that have occurred in Europe since its signing, the enlargement process gave this effort an additional resonance.
The treaty also played a role during NATO's intervention in Kosovo when Russia requested "challenge inspections" of NATO airbases in Italy and Hungary consistent with the CFE's provisions. This included the NATO base at Aviano, Italy, which was one of the primary facilities in mounting the air campaign against Belgrade. While this was certainly difficult given the circumstances of an ongoing air offensive, NATO accepted these requests as consistent with the legal obligations of the treaty, and military officials complied appropriately. The transparency provided about the NATO operations in particular from the inspections in Aviano, Italy, and Tazar, Hungary, underscored the value of the CFE Treaty in particular as a means to reassure neighboring states during a crisis and reduce tensions.
In Kosovo, the CFE Treaty also demonstrated its importance to the Russians through its contrast to another conventional arms control accord that has not been as successful. As a legal document, the CFE guarantees transparency in a way that political documents have failed to do. In 1994 the 54 states that comprise the OSCE agreed to a series of "confidence- and security-building measures." These are politically binding requirements to report force totals after they have reached certain prescribed levels, accept observations of military exercises and activities, respond to the inquiries of participating states concerning ongoing military movements and so forth. These agreements are compiled as part of the "Vienna Document."
In early May, Russia formally requested to send observers to Macedonia and subsequently Albania to view the activities of NATO forces in those two countries in accordance with Chapter 8 of the Vienna Document.<7> But in the Macedonian case, NATO (largely at the insistence of the United States and SACEUR) declared that any location within 70 kilometers of the FRY border could not be examined due to excessive risk. Russia formally demarched the NATO countries for this in the OSCE Forum for Security Cooperation as a violation of these agreements and argued that access had been limited to the extent that observations had not even occurred. These problems may make the conclusion of an adapted CFE Treaty more difficult—but also more important—as Moscow believes that it must extract more legal guarantees under the CFE since the political requirements provided by the Vienna Document were unsatisfactory.
Perhaps even more importantly, an adapted CFE Treaty could help stabilize Russia's strategic posture. Russia is suffering from internal discord brought about by enormous economic and political problems, and Russian policymakers now face a series of key decisions on the level of conventional forces that is appropriate and affordable. The Russian Federation has officially 1.2 million soldiers in its armed forces. Many experts believe that only 900,000 are even nominally available at any moment. Although the Duma voted to increase the defense budget to 3.1 percent of GDP, there is no certainty that the money will be available due in large measure to Russia's uncertain economic situation. In 1998 only 75 percent of the promised budget was actually supplied. Some senior Duma members believe that the armed forces will have to be reduced by a further 400,000 by the year 2000 to come within the available budget and that a total reduction to 600,000 will be necessary by early in the next decade.
As a result, Russian leaders have openly begun to argue that their conventional inferiority requires an increased reliance on nuclear weapons and the development of additional low-yield tactical nuclear systems.<8> Adaptation may offer a way to dampen these fears and forestall this potentially dangerous and destabilizing shift in strategy.
It is ironic that one of NATO's clear objectives in the negotiations in 1989 and 1990 was to reduce the massive level of Soviet conventional forces from Central Europe—a superiority that forced the alliance for many years to rely on nuclear weapons. Now, after so many years in which the West worried about Soviet military strength, the roles have been reversed, and it is clear that a weakened Russia still equipped with a massive strategic nuclear arsenal is perhaps of even greater concern.
Russia's concerns about U.S. strategic intentions have only been worsened by the U.S. attempts to renegotiate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Senate's recent rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The ability of a revised CFE treaty to provide Russia reassurance that the required reductions in its conventional forces can occur without endangering its security could reduce this shift toward greater reliance on nuclear weapons and encourage progress in other areas, such as START II and III.
Unfortunately, despite the substantial benefits that would come from an adapted CFE, the domestic political dynamics in the United States and Russia suggest that the upcoming OSCE summit is a window of opportunity that may be only temporary. Failure to achieve an adapted agreement by the summit's November 19 close may well mean that the process begins to resemble the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks, which languished in Vienna for nearly 16 years with no success. Duma elections in December followed by both Russian and American presidential elections next year will shift the focus away from this effort and make it increasingly difficult for Clinton or Yeltsin to galvanize the support required in their respective governments and conclude an agreement.
The problem in Russia is particularly acute. The continuing economic crisis, the weakened state of President Yeltsin both physically and politically, and the departure of two prime ministers since the beginning of the year all suggest that the power of the current regime is rapidly waning. This continuing turmoil could make the opportunity ripe for those seeking power to blame Russia's ills on external forces. It remains to be seen whether nationalist leaders in the Russian Federation will continue to trumpet these views as a means to foment support during the impending Duma and presidential elections, but if handled properly, an adjusted agreement could certainly dampen those forces and offer greater security not only for Russia but for all signatories.
A Western arms control expert once remarked that he felt like he was watching 300 years of European hostilities unfold during the course of CFE negotiations. Critics of this process are frequently captivated by the technical details of definitions, counting rules, stabilizing measures, inspection regimes and so forth and often overlook the connection between these points and larger security issues. Still, while the devil may lie in the details, this accord is rooted in the collective attempt of 30 sovereign states to improve their security. Consequently, all of the historical antagonisms have an impact, including centuries-old concerns about the state of German armed forces, Greek-Turkish antagonism, Polish worries about Russia, Moscow's continued fear of instability in the North Caucasus region and many others. Resolving these anxieties contributes to the enduring value of the agreement as Europe attempts to create a new architecture based on a concept of cooperative security, but they are also the greatest obstacle to success. The negotiations are now a truly multilateral effort involving 30 sovereign states as opposed to the bloc-to-bloc Cold War process begun in 1989.
Obviously, NATO enlargement and the conflict in Kosovo have both complicated the adaptation negotiations while making its success more important. Fortunately, the adaptation talks were not a victim of the Kosovo conflict despite the clear tensions it engendered in NATO-Russian relations. The fact that the Russian Federation did not suspend its participation in these talks (as it did several other forums) is extremely important. This is particularly true if one considers that the negotiations focused on the conventional force balance in Central Europe during the first actual conflict involving all NATO members and the largest air campaign in Europe since World War II. Unfortunately, while this underscores (to some degree at least) the value that Moscow ascribes to this process, it does not preordain the negotiations' successful conclusion at the OSCE summit. Kosovo may not have completely derailed these negotiations, but it certainly complicated the process, and little of substance occurred between the March 30 decision and the summer recess in mid-July.
The Russian delegation indicated its clear desire to complete the negotiations by the Istanbul summit upon its return to Vienna in August. They did, however, suggest that they wanted additional concessions prior to signing the final treaty.<9> Moscow demanded greater transparency over the deployment of NATO combat aircraft. This clearly reflects Russian concerns following the Kosovo conflict, but it may be very difficult for the alliance to accept. NATO military leaders are extremely sensitive to issues of operational security following the Kosovo conflict, and they are also concerned that this proposal might broaden constraints on land-based systems associated with temporary deployments that include aircraft.
The negotiations could become further complicated by the fact that Russia failed to meet the revised flank totals agreed to at the 1996 review conference by the May 31, 1999 deadline.<10> While Moscow has remained within its overall national limits for all categories of TLE, it exceeds the allocation for ACVs in the North Caucasus area by over 1,000 units. NATO members took note of this in early June, and it was verified by subsequent data exchanges. The alliance members chose not to make a major issue of Russian "non-compliance" while pointing out that the existing flank limits remain legally binding until such time as an adapted treaty is signed and ratified.
The issue of Russian force levels in the flank has risen again during the ongoing hostilities in Chechnya. A Russian foreign ministry spokesman announced on October 12 that Moscow had deployed forces in the region in excess of its flank limits to meet the emerging crisis.<11> While this is worrisome, Moscow's prompt announcement of these deployments demonstrates its commitment to the agreement. Furthermore, Russian spokesmen have underscored the importance of the treaty and the belief that these deployments should not adversely affect the ongoing adaptation process and expectation of a completed agreement by the OSCE summit.
Still this problem could have a direct bearing on whether or not several North Caucasus states believe an adapted treaty is beneficial to their security and, therefore, receives their support. Russian troop deployments in Georgia and Moldova contributes to the excessive flank TLE holdings. They are also counter to Moscow's acknowledgment in the March 30 decision to reduce its forces in Georgia and remove its troops completely from Moldova. In addition, Azerbaijan has frequently accused the Russian Federation of increasing tension in the region by providing arms to Armenia.<12> Baku also has charged that Moscow has contributed to the problem of unaccounted-for treaty-limited equipment present in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azeris have repeatedly insisted that progress on these issues must occur before they sign an adapted treaty. These states may believe that an adapted treaty will provide them legal guarantees on Russian withdrawals from the region as well as increased transparency over future force deployments.
The CFE Treaty clearly demonstrated its value as a policy instrument during the turbulent period at the end of the Cold War. The levels of force reductions and the system of transparency that accompanied them are nothing short of historic. In fact the greatest value of the agreement may be that the entire CFE system encourages confidence through transparency and provides a forum for the major European states to debate, agree on and maintain a set of rules about conventional military power on the continent.<13>
The effort to adapt the treaty will not create a panacea, but will rather refine this tool in a fashion that makes it more effective for the next century. This process is not based on any sense of Western altruism, since NATO will remain in a position of overwhelming strength from a military perspective. The conflict in Kosovo clearly demonstrated this fact. Rather, adaptation is based on the view that the foundations of European security have been inextricably altered.
Arms control negotiations are an effort to find a set of rules about the size and operations of military forces that all parties find acceptable and contribute to greater security. They are bound by a "harmony of interest" that insures compliance as well as the verification requirements that are part of any agreement. Compromise is an essential element that all parties must make to find a final settlement. Clearly this process has reached its end game, and an agreement is possible if all participants can find concessions, particularly in the remaining areas that deal with the balance between transparency and operational security.
The effort to craft an adapted CFE treaty has entered a critical juncture. Negotiators have worked out the majority of disagreements and avoided a possible catastrophe during the Kosovo conflict. But these conditions will not endure indefinitely. The upcoming OSCE summit may be the last opportunity to finalize an adapted treaty that not only reflects the new European security environment but also contributes to it. It remains the best chance for the West to give meaning to President Clinton's statement following the March 30 agreement: "Together, we are building a Europe in which armies prepare to stand beside their neighbors, not against them, and security depends on cooperation, not competition."
1. "Final Document of the First Conference to Review Operations of the CFE Treaty and the Concluding Act of the Negotiations on Personnel Strength," Vienna, Austria, May 15-31, 1996, p. 2.
2. Dr. Lynn Davis, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Policy, Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on European Affairs, April 29, 1997.
3. Arshad Mohammed, "Breakthrough Reached on New CFE Treaty," Reuters, July 24, 1997.
4. U.S. Department of State Fact Sheet, "Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) and the Decision of the Joint Consultative Group on Treaty Adaptation," Washington, D.C., April 6, 1999. See also Wade Boese, "CFE Parties Outline Adapted Treaty; Limits to Allow NATO Growth," Arms Control Today, March 1999, p. 28.
5. Michael Mandelbaum, The Dawn of Peace in Europe, (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1996), pp. 61-63. See also Frederick Hammersen, "The Disquieting Voice of Russian Resentment," Parameters, Vol. XXVIII, No. 2, Summer 1998, pp. 39-55.
6. Peter Graff, "Russia Reports Progress on Europe Forces Treaty," Reuters, March 10, 1999.
7. Ambassador Lynn M. Hansen, "Conventional Arms Control–Has It a Future?" Paper delivered at DTRA Eighth Annual International Conference on Controlling Arms, Norfolk, Virginia, June 2, 1999.
8. Dr. Alexander A. Pikayev, "After Yugoslavia: Shifting Russian Priorities on Arms Control and Non-Proliferation," presentation at the Atlantic Council, June 8, 1999.
9. Hajo Schmidt, "Status der KSD Anpassungsverhandlungen," Hessiche Stiftung fur Auswartige Politik, September 10, 1999, p. 1.
10. Wade Boese, "Russian Compliance with CFE 'Flank' Limit in Doubt," Arms Control Today, July/August 1999, p. 46.
11. Bill Gertz, "Russia Tells U.S. It Will Violate Arms Pact," Washington Times, October 7, 1999, p. A1.
12. "Azerbaijan: Moscow Sent Warplanes to Armenia," New York Times, December 18, 1998, p. A26.
13. Sherman Garnett, "The CFE Flank Agreement," Washington: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1997, p. 1.
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