Eurasia Daily Monitor
June 13, 2007 — Volume 4, Issue 115
RUSSIA DEMANDS A TOTALLY CHANGED TREATY ON CONVENTIONAL FORCES IN
EUROPE
by Vladimir Socor
The `Extraordinary Conference of States Parties to the Treaty on
Conventional Forces in Europe’ (CFE), under way in Vienna since June 11 at
Russia’s initiative, is developing in a wholly different way than had been
expected. Russia is proposing what amounts to an almost total rewrite of the
1999-adapted CFE Treaty, which has not been ratified and brought into force
since then. The version currently in force is the original 1990 CFE Treaty.
Only Russia and three other CIS member countries have ratified the
1999-adapted Treaty. The other signatory countries condition their
ratification on the withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia and Moldova
(the 1999 Istanbul Commitments). Apparently, Russia deemed the treaty at
least acceptable to itself as recently as 2004 when it initiated that
ratification (hoping to generate pressure on the Baltic states to join a
ratified treaty). Now, however, the Kremlin seeks in fact to scuttle this
same treaty, the ratification of which it was urging upon the West until
mere months and even weeks ago. Moscow’s move is central to a comprehensive
challenge to the post-Soviet status quo on security in Europe.
Euphemistically dubbed `modernization’ of the 1999 treaty, Russia’s
goal is a complete re-negotiation of that treaty package. However, Russia
still wants the 1999 CFE treaty to be brought into force — largely in order
to restrict defense options in the Baltic states — and only then proceed to
re-negotiate the treaty with regard to other areas, in quest of Russian
unilateral advantages.
The Russian delegation’s chief, Anatoly Antonov, listed Russia’s
grievances and demands in his June 12 official introductory speech. The
salient points include:
1) The 1999-adapted CFE Treaty to be ratified and brought into force
quickly, or at least to be declared `temporarily valid’ by July 1, 2008.
2) Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to sign the ratified or at least
temporarily validated treaty, so as to fall under its restrictions.
Curiously, Moscow claims that the three Baltic states should `return to the
CFE Treaty which they quit in 1991,’ implying that the three states somehow
inherited the 1990 treaty as parts of the Soviet Union, which was still
occupying them at that point;
3) New `group’ limits to be negotiated on NATO armaments and military
hardware, so as to `compensate’ [Russia] for the accession of new member
countries to NATO and the U.S. military installations in Romania and
Bulgaria. Arms deployments and/or numerical ceilings to be lowered in most
of those countries.
4) A political decision to remove the `flank’ limits on Russian force
deployments in the North Caucasus and a part of Russia’s northwest. Russia
`cannot and will not fulfill the provisions of the obsolete treaty to the
detriment of its security’ regarding flank limits. This seems to allude
mainly to the northwestern flank, since Russia has for years exceeded the
CFE treaty limits on the North Caucasus flank, using a treaty escape clause
with full Western understanding.
If no agreement is reached on these and apparently also some other
Russian demands, Russia reserves the right unilaterally to `suspend the
validity’ of the treaty or even abandon it altogether, Antonov warned the
conference in his presentation. Suspension, he explained, would mean in
practice that Russia would exempt itself from the treaty’s quantitative
force ceilings and would quit the treaty’s system of mutual inspections and
information exchanges on forces and movements.
Russia takes the position that `suspending the validity is a means for
revitalizing the treaty.’ It expects other signatory countries to refrain
from `actions that would hamper the treaty’s revitalization’ during the
period of Russia’s unilateral suspension, should it come to that. Such
`hampering’ actions could lead Russia to abandon the CFE treaty, Antonov
warned. He called for dialogue on the basis of these conditions.
This argument seems legally nihilistic on at least three counts: a)
the treaty does not envisage any unilateral moratorium on obligations or
suspension of terms; b) Moscow wants the treaty to be ratified quickly — or
even `temporarily validated’ — in order to achieve its specific goal
regarding the Baltic states, but wants the same treaty to be `temporarily
suspended’ if Russia does not achieve its other goals; c) Moscow apparently
presumes to define itself what would constitute `hampering actions.’
Antonov, who is Russia’s top arms control official (chief of the
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Security and Disarmament Department)
presented Moscow’s position to the closed-door conference, as reported by
Russia’s official media (Itar-Tass, RIA-Novosti, June 12). The delegation’s
deputy chief, Mikhail Ulyanov, elaborated on some of those points for
Western media (AP, Reuters, International Herald Tribune, June 12, 13).
Moscow’s agenda at this conference goes vastly beyond what the Western
allies and their partners had expected only days earlier. Generally they had
expected a relatively simple, largely familiar scenario: Russia would demand
ratification of the 1999 treaty, despite having only in part fulfilled its
1999 Istanbul Commitments; the Western allies would seek to square this
circle in a creative way, particularly regarding Russian troops in Moldova;
the door might then open for the Russia-desired accession of the Baltic
states to the adapted CFE Treaty. However, Russia’s strategic ambitions in
Europe seem to be outpacing even the pessimistic Western prognostications
(see EDM, May 25, June 8, 11).
–Vladimir Socor