“Lessons” of the CFE Treaty: In Search of the Security Equation

The ideas of modern control over conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE) were born in the USSR in the wake of perestroika, when the world was under the illusion of an imminent and radical strengthening of universal security, the possible elimination of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and a significant reduction in the stockpile of conventional weapons. The meeting of the leaders of the USSR and the United States in Reykjavík in 1986 created favorable conditions for a new stage of arms control, one of the directions of which was the process of reduction and elimination of conventional weapons, which later formed several treaties on conventional armed forces in Europe. The specificity of the historical period that began in the mid-80s in this area was that Moscow was the initiator and active protagonist of the arms control process CFE process. In the field of conventional weapons, two successive cycles of negotiations were initiated and completed, the results of which were, among other things, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces (CFE) of 1990 and its “continuation” - the Agreement on Adaptation of the CFE Treaty (Adapted CFE) of 1999. Both documents were developed in radically changing geopolitical conditions, when the very nature of Moscow’s relations with the outside world underwent fundamental changes. The USSR collapsed, which affected the principles laid down in the structure of the agreements, which, subsequently, became victims of both the changed geopolitical conditions and the escalation of international tensions. The aggravation of relations between Russia and the West has led to the erosion of ideas about the urgent need for the arms control to ensure international security, which is disputed in this article. The author argues that without the arms control, no country will be able to feel safe, and the principles and approaches laid down in the past decades, even after the destruction of the agreements themselves, can become the basis for new agreements, including in the field of limiting conventional armed forces in Europe.

Conventional Forces Control (CFC), CFE Treaty, Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (Adapted CFE Treaty), security, NATO