CFE: will it remain a "cornerstone of European security?".

• Author: Andres, Janet
• Position: Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe

Editor's Note:

On July 14, President Putin announced his decision to suspend Russian participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). Concluded in the waning days of the Cold War, CFE has been both surprisingly successful in the tumultuous post-Cold War era and highly contentious in its implementation. The motives for Putin's move are unclear and the consequences uncertain, especially in the context of his other recent moves toward a more assertive Russian foreign policy. This essay, by a participant in the Treaty's negotiation (see her article on "The Prince" in the Foreign Service Life section), clarifies its complexities, analyzes its evolution as European geo-politics have changed, and assesses its continued relevance for today.--Ed.

Minutes before the initialing of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), our satisfaction and relief at completing the arduous negotiations and meeting the seemingly impossible deadline set by our political leaders were replaced by a gnawing sense of unease. In a spare, high-ceilinged room of Vienna's Hofburg winter palace, just off the more grandiose hall where CFE plenary sessions were held, the 22 members of NATO and the disintegrating Warsaw Pact were in the midst of their initial information exchange, providing detailed data on their tanks, artillery, armored combat vehicles, combat aircraft, and attack helicopters--CFE's treaty-limited equipment (TLE). We were baffled by the brevity of the Soviet list. We wanted to believe they had mistakenly provided us with one data book too few, but Soviet delegates smugly assured us their data was complete. According to our rough calculations, they were tens of thousands of weapons short.

We and our NATO allies quickly caucused to puzzle over the unanticipated figures but decided to go ahead with the initialing; no one was willing to derail the long-planned signing by heads of state and government in Paris the next day, November 19, 1990

We were shortly to learn that the abbreviated data report, in part, was the result of a determined effort, over months, to move some 57,000 TLE out of the treaty zone to sites east of the Ural Mountains. We had been aware of some movement, but not of that magnitude. The Soviets had also sought to reduce the amount of equipment within the zone subject to treaty limits by "reassigning" TLE to naval and coastal defense units whose equipment was not, per se, covered by CFE.

It was an unsettling end to the negotiation on which the 23 delegations (the German Democratic Republic had disappeared with German unification six weeks earlier, leaving 22 to conclude the treaty) had worked so hard and so hopefully. It was also an ominous beginning for what was being touted as a new era of stability and cooperation in a Europe that had never known lasting peace.

Well, CFE overcame the challenge of the Soviet "data discrepancy" and not only survived, it thrived--so far, for 17 years. Over those years, some 70,000 weapon systems have been eliminated; tens of thousands of notifications of military activities have been made; and more than 5,000 intrusive on-site inspections have taken place. For an agreement forged in the waning days of the Cold War, CFE proved itself remarkably nimble in the era that followed, adapting to the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union and accommodating the markedly different security agendas of the states that emerged in their wake. It was a key factor in creating a sturdy security architecture in Europe and eventually a new security culture based on transparency, predictability, and successful cooperation.

Today, there are 30 CFE states, and all the territory originally covered still is, except for the former Baltic republics. Czechoslovakia has split into two and in the place of the USSR are eight CFE successor states. The iron curtain disappeared long ago, as did the tense East-West military standoff CFE was designed to defuse. There is still a dividing line, albeit a less tangible one, and it has shifted to the east, where new, assertive NATO states and wannabees press up against a Russia that is feeling surrounded and cheated.

-Efforts have been made to ease Russian concerns by adjusting CFE to the radically altered European landscape, and a major treaty adaptation instigated by Russia was signed in 1999. Its ratification, however, has been stalled by NATO-Russian differences; and on July 14, 2007, after months of threats, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would suspend its participation in CFE. NATO called for an extraordinary conference, but Russia rejected that and raised the ante, demanding that the adapted treaty be "modernized" further.

It remains to be seen if CFE will survive this latest assault and what the implications for European security will be if it does not. In accordance with treaty provisions for withdrawal, Putin's move provided 150 days notice--until December 12, 2007--before Russia would cease complying with its CFE obligations.

In the Beginning.... Before CFE, there were the talks on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR). They engaged representatives of NATO and the Warsaw Pact for 16 years, keeping conventional arms control on the East-West agenda but achieving little else. The pronounced suspicion and rivalry in the high-stakes military sphere made meaningful cooperation impossible.

CFE was the forum for a new, more hopeful time, benefiting from two decades of step-by-step East-West detente in political, economic and humanitarian arenas and a growing interest on both sides in reducing military tension along with the expense of maintaining huge conventional arsenals. The latter, in particular, motivated new Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s. Set on reforming the moribund Soviet economy, he undertook a range of policy initiatives vis-a-vis the West, including new conventional arms control talks.

-The CFE mandate was drawn up in 1987-89 and the negotiation was launched in March, 1989. It was concluded just 20 months later, in November, 1990--an amazing accomplishment given its 23 participants and tens of thousands of covered weapons. It had been fast, but not easy, requiring repeated interventions by political leaders to break through logjams. Then, even before the ink was dry on the completed accord and negotiators turned to the task of ratification, the Soviet "data discrepancy" threatened to derail the entire effort. NATO suspended treaty ratification pending its resolution.

Months later we found out that a pitched power struggle had taken place within the Soviet Union, with CFE a major point of contention. The transports out of the CFE zone and the "reassignments" of equipment--opposed by the Foreign Ministry--had been last-ditch attempts by defense and military officials to soften the impact of the treaty they considered so disadvantageous.

It took lengthy negotiations, but on June 14, 1991, a U.S.-Soviet agreement was reached whereby the Soviets agreed to destroy at least 14,500 TLE moved east of the Urals, to freeze levels of "reassigned" TLE, and to reduce their overall entitlements by an equivalent amount.

The first post-signing CFE crisis had been resolved.

On July 1, the Warsaw Pact officially disbanded, and on July 9, President George H.W. Bush submitted the CFE Treaty to the Senate for its approval. We settled down in Washington to focus on ratification--scheduling briefings and hearings, responding to questions. Nine months to the day after treaty signing, though, news came of an attempted coup in the Soviet Union.

Led by KGB chief Kryuchkov, Defense Minister Yazov, and Prime Minister Pavlov, the coup attempt was prompted by concerns that Gorbachev's reforms had gone too far, particularly his new union treaty that would give Soviet republics greater autonomy. The coup was thwarted and Gorbachev restored to power, but the Soviet Union would never recover.

Inevitably, questions were raised in the Senate about ratifying and implementing a treaty that regulated the armed forces of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, when the latter no longer existed and the Soviet Union was in disarray. After all, the West's primary objective in pursuing conventional arms control had been to contain the Soviet Union. We argued that not only did the treaty provide for the establishment of individual national ceilings and commitments, but that in a time of profound European instability and uncertainty, the weapons reductions and above all, the predictability and the structure that CFE could afford were needed more than ever.

The Senate approved CFE on November 25. On December 25, The Soviet Union dissolved into 15 independent states, 8 of which were located within the CFE area of application. (The Baltic states did not participate, not wishing to be linked to the eastern group of CFE states nor to assume Soviet CFE obligations. Moreover, they feared that being part of the CFE regime could delay Russian force withdrawals). U.S. ratification came on December 26, 1991.

A Solid Record of Achievement Those of us working so hard to convince Senators and their staffers that CFE was more valuable than ever also had our doubts about its longevity. In looking back now, over the 17 years since treaty signing, I can say we and all the other skeptics were dead wrong. In fact, CFE is probably the most successful arms control agreement in history, even living up to its much-cited rubric, "cornerstone of European security."

-Its mandate--to strengthen stability and security in Europe by achieving a stable balance of forces at lower levels and by eliminating the capability for surprise attack and large-scale offensive action--has been fulfilled. Treaty-limited holdings across Europe have shrunk from more than 200,000 to less than 109,000--well below permitted levels. Unprecedented transparency and predictability have been achieved by regular data exchanges, notifications...