The CFE Flank Dispute: Waiting in the Wings

Waiting in the Wings ~ ~ tL1arms control crisis lies on the horizon for Western policymakers. For two years Russia and Ukraine have called for a major change in the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE):waiver of the treaty’s special limits on military forces in the “flank zone,” which covers most of northern and southern Europe. The waiver sought by Russia would allow it to increase its military forces in and near Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova-four weak, newly independent states that Moscow has sought to dominate since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Because the CFE Treaty is one of the few legal instruments giving the international community a role in regulating Russia’s relations with its neighbors, some observers have come to regard Russian compliance with the flank ceilings as a test of Moscow’s respect for the sovereignty of the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),a body which is already more an instrument of Russian influence than a genuine international organization.’ Furthermore, Russia’s proposed change in the CFE Treaty would allow it to maintain higher force levels near Turkey, the NATO state with the strongest perception of a direct Russian military threat.2 There is a very real risk that Russia and Ukraine will violate the flank ceilings when they become binding in November 1995.3This could trigger the first major arms control Richard A. Falkenrath is a post-doctoral researchfellow at the Center for SC~PMCK and International Affairs (CSIA),Huniard University. He i s the author of Shaping Europe’s Military Order: The Origins and Consequences of the CFE Treaty, CSIA Studies in 1;rte~iationa~ Security Nd. 6 (Cambridge, Mass.: The MlT Press, 1995). The author thanks Jim Doyle and Jeffrey McCausland for their comments on this article. 1. By 1994, all of the former Soviet republics except the three Baltic states had joined the CIS, though Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova entered under heavy Russian pressure. 2. On Turkish perceptions of a Russian threat see, respectively, Stephen J. Blank, Stephen C. Pelletiere, and William T. Johnson, Turkey’s Strategic Positiojf at the Crossroads of World Affairs (Carlisle, Penn.: US.Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, December 3, 1993),pp. 71-78. 3. My emphasis throughout this article is on Russia’s complaint, not Ukraine’s. From the Western point of view, the threat of a Ukrainian violation of the CFE Treaty is less worrying except insofar as it could be used as a pretext for another state’s withdrawal. Ukraine also has far less incentive to withdraw from CFE than Russia because it is one of the greatest beneficiaries of the treaty, having received a disproportionately large share of the total Soviet entitlement to military equipment . International Seciirity, Vol. 19, No 4 (Spring 1995), pp. 118-144 01995by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 128 The CFE Flank Dispute 1 119 crisis of the post-Cold War era, seriously complicating the West’s already troubled relations with R u ~ s i a . ~ This article begins with a brief discussion of the importance of the CFE Treaty in European security; I specify the interests at stake for the main Western states in the flank dispute, and assess the threat to those interests arising from the Russian demand.5In the second section, I describe the CFE rules applying to the flank zone and, in the third, the Russian case for a revision of the treaty. Next, I assess specific policies that the West could pursue to resolve this issue. I conclude with a recommendation for a suspension of the flank limits in exchange for a Russian commitment on its future flank deployments, and I propose a strategy for achieving this outcome. This approach is not without risks and drawbacks, but I argue that it is the best available option for minimizing the damage to political relations with Russia while preserving the essential elements of the CFE Treaty, What is at Stake? Conceived in 1986-87 and negotiated between March 1989and November 1990 by the members of NATO and the then-members of the Warsaw Pact, the CFE Treaty is the...