WILL NATO AND RUSSIA ONCE AGAIN COUNT TANKS AND AIRCRAFT IN EUROPE?
RIA Novosti
13:14|30/ 04/ 2007
MOSCOW. (Alexander Khramchikhin for RIA Novosti) – The 1990 Treaty on
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) established equal quotas for
NATO and the Warsaw Pact in the number of tanks, artillery (weapons
with a caliber over 100 mm), armored combat vehicles, aircraft and
attack helicopters.
Now almost all Warsaw Pact countries, and some republics of the
former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia (which was never part
of the Warsaw Pact) have joined NATO, thereby invalidating the treaty
geopolitically.
A modified version of the CFE treaty established national quotas
instead of bloc limits. It was signed in 1999 but has not been ratified
by a single NATO country – ostensibly because of Russia’s failure to
withdraw its troops from Georgia and Transdnestr, a breakaway region
of Moldova. The treaty has flank limitations, but they mainly affect
Russia. In fact, Russia finds them very inconvenient, especially in
the country’s south (mainly, the Caucasus).
Some NATO members – Slovenia and the three Baltic nations – are not
parties to the CFE treaty. This means that in theory they can have
armed forces of any strength, and let NATO deploy as many troops as
it wants on their territory.
Russia is not worried about Slovenia in this context, but it is very
concerned about Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
But all the inconveniences of the CFE exist only in theory. In
practice, not a single one of its 30 signatories has as many of
the five types of weapons covered by the treaty as its quota allows
(four countries – Iceland, Kazakhstan, Canada and Luxembourg – have
no such weapons at all). South Caucasian countries have run into
some problems because of unrecognized states on their territories –
Nagorny Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia – with strong armies
that are completely beyond the control of the recognized governments.
Moreover, it is not clear how such forces should be counted – formally,
the Karabakh army must be included in Azerbaijan’s quota, whereas in
reality it belongs to Armenia. But South Caucasian problems do not
concern anyone outside the region.
Russia’s displeasure with CFE limitations is surprising because
like most countries, it has fewer weapons than the quota allows. It
is not clear, either, why Russia is worried about NATO’s eastward
expansion because it has been accompanied by rapid arms reductions
both by its old and new members. Today, NATO’s 26 members have 33%
fewer weapons of all classes than its 16 participants had in 1991,
and these reductions are continuing.
The four NATO countries that are outside the CFE treaty have purely
symbolic armed forces, especially the Baltic republics. All three
of them combined have only three hopelessly obsolete tanks (Latvian
T-55s) and four aircraft (Lithuanian L-39s) that can be classified
as military, and even then with reservations. The only foreign force
on their territory is a group of four fighters (rotated every six
months, representing all NATO countries with air forces) deployed at
the Zokniai base in Lithuania at the request of the Baltic nations.
There are no NATO bases at all in eastern Europe. To be more precise,
the term "NATO base" can be applied to some facilities in Afghanistan,
but that is all. All other military installations are national. There
are no foreign military facilities in new NATO members except for
Zokniai.
American forces in Europe are also being rapidly decreased. In the late
1980s, there were four divisions (plus one brigade in West Berlin)
and nine tactical wings of the U.S. Air Force. Now there are two
divisions, one brigade and three wings; moreover, both divisions are
actually not even in Germany but in Iraq. The United States has signed
agreements on leasing some facilities in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland,
where it will deploy only small numbers of technical and auxiliary
personnel. It is possible to deploy rather large contingents at local
facilities, but this would take time, so any surprise attack is out
of the question. But the main point is that today the United States
does not have the potential for conducting operations outside Iraq
and Afghanistan. Moreover, the Iraqi syndrome has taken away American
society’s appetite for armed conflicts, thus depriving the U.S. of
the ability to conduct any more or less serious wars for a long time
to come.
European pacifism presents an even bigger problem for NATO. If neither
the people, nor governments, nor armies are ready to go to war, it
does not matter how many weapons a particular army has, and of what
quality. The operation in Afghanistan is a case in point. Continental
European countries are sending only symbolic contingents there,
and even these units adamantly refuse to fight despite Washington’s
growing insistence.
All this is readily apparent. The seizure of 15 British sailors is also
telling. There is no need to comment on their conduct in captivity.
For these reasons, NATO does not pose any threat to Russia. This does
not mean that the CFE treaty should be buried. Unilateral withdrawal
from it would not be in Russia’s interests because it would help
Washington achieve what it wants the most: to unite NATO in the face
of a "new threat from the East."
It would be much more sensible for Russia to offer two possibilities
for the treaty to be overhauled.
The first option: instead of being measured against the Warsaw Pact,
NATO forces should equal those of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO).
Members of the latter who are also signatories of the CFE treaty
include Russia, Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan. All flank limits
should be canceled.
Instead, the sides should agree that a change in the membership of
an alliance should not alter the total ceiling of armaments that it
is allowed to have.
Admission of a new country to an alliance or withdrawal from it should
be offset by the redistribution of limits between its members, while
the total ceiling should remain the same. The existing limits may be
preserved for countries that are not members of any bloc (Ukraine,
Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan). Naturally enough, the treaty should
include Slovenia and the Baltic countries as well as Croatia, Albania
and Macedonia if they join NATO.
The second option is that NATO could be regarded as equivalent to
Russia, or since this is not very realistic, the sides could establish
a ratio for all types of armaments, for instance 1.5-to-one. They
should also accept a ceiling for NATO’s weapons, regardless of its
expansion.
Since the existing quotas are too high anyway, Russia should propose
much lower ones, for itself as well. Such cuts would not run counter
to anyone’s interests – the sides would simply get rid of obsolete
weapons if they had any.
But the signing of a new treaty would substantially build trust and
reduce tensions.
Alexander Khramchikhin heads the analytical department at the Institute
of Political and Military Analysis.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.