Eurasia Daily Monitor
October 22, 2008 — Volume 5, Issue 202
CFE TREATY DEAD AND BURIED IN GEORGIA
by Vladimir Socor
Since December 2007, Russia has officially "suspended its compliance"
with the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE, signed in 1990 and
adapted in 1999). The "suspension" has dealt the coup de grace to a treaty
that Russia was already breaching on multiple counts for many years.
Emboldened by Western complacency toward those violations, Moscow
hopes that the suspension would pressure NATO and the alliance’s partners in
Europe’s East to: ratify the 1999-adapted treaty; accept Russia’s ongoing
breaches of it, removing those issues from the agenda; and start
negotiations to constrain possible future deployments of NATO countries’
forces on the territories of the three Baltic states (which were not
signatories to the original CFE treaty). Apart from ratification (with its
built-in political mechanism to trigger negotiations on the Baltic states),
Moscow seeks to rewrite the treaty’s core by eliminating limitations on
Russian force deployments on the northern and southern flanks of the treaty’
s area of application.
If Russia’s suspension (capping the long-time violations) practically
killed the CFE treaty, Russia’s invasion of Georgia and occupation of its
territories buried this treaty. Any future renegotiation may conceivably
lead over time to some new regime of conventional arms control in Europe.
But the existing treaty has been destroyed and a large part of its wreckage
is on view in Georgia. The invading Russian forces had been based near the
border for years, massively breaching the CFE treaty ceilings, with
international tolerance and even informal acquiescence.
The Treaty’s unraveling process is about as old as the 1999-adapted
treaty itself. During the Chechen conflict in the 1990s, Russia was granted
a temporary exemption from CFE treaty restrictions in the North Caucasus.
The Russians concentrated massive conventional forces there, ostensibly to
fight against "international terrorism." That rationale (if it ever had any
merit) became unsustainable after a few years; but the overwhelming force
remained, particularly in the form of the 58th Army stationed in North
Ossetia. That became the strike force of the August invasion in Georgia and
current occupation of that country’s territories.
Periodic CFE treaty review conferences in the framework of the OSCE
ignored the accumulation of Russia’s offensive potential in the North
Caucasus and the resulting threats to the South Caucasus. NATO and the
United States shied away from this problem. Ultimately, international
failure to implement the CFE treaty made the invasion of Georgia a
practicable option for Russia.
Russian forces are now settling in for permanent basing in South
Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Russian government no longer bothers to seek
justification for these new breaches of the CFE treaty. From the president
on down, Russian officials argue that these new forward deployments are a
bilateral matter for Russia with South Ossetia and with Abkhazia, following
Russia’s "recognition" of these "independent states." According to Minister
of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, Russia is preparing mutual assistance
treaties and basing agreements to be signed with the Sukhumi and Tskhinvali
authorities (Interfax, October 10, 20).
Russia’s General Staff is currently determining the level of heavy
armaments to be stationed at these bases. Some 3,700 troops are earmarked to
be stationed in South Ossetia and another 3,700 in Abkhazia. The bases are
slated to become fully operational in 2009, according to the Russian General
Staff’s Chief, General Nikolai Makarov (Interfax, October 21).
Abkhaz "foreign minister" Sergei Shamba has confirmed the assumption
that Russia will use the Gudauta base as its main base in Abkhazia. In
addition, the Russians will use the ex-Soviet naval base at Ochamchire. The
Russians will upgrade both bases (Itar-Tass, October 17; Interfax, October
21). Beyond their local value, Russia will use these bases as strategic
assets: Ochamchire for its deep-water naval port inside a protected bay and
Gudauta for its prized airfield, capable of handling strategic aircraft.
Russian officials make no reference to the CFE treaty, flank restrictions on
troops, or ceilings on the heavy weaponry in their comments.
The issue of Gudauta seems especially poignant in this regard. Within
the 1999 CFE treaty package, Russia was obligated to quit that base by July
2001. But Russia continued to garrison Gudauta, albeit with a small unit
(falsely claiming to have closed the base), blocked CFE treaty-mandated
inspections at Gudauta, and attempted to use it for Russian "peacekeepers"
in Abkhazia. Some West European diplomats, with Germans in the lead, tried
for years to arrange a face-saving solution whereby Russia would keep
Gudauta without being declared in breach of the CFE treaty. This would have
removed an obstacle to ratification of the treaty, which Moscow was actively
seeking; and it would have doubly pleased Germany’s Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, which valued Russia’s "peacekeeping" presence in Georgia and
Moldova and encouraged its continuation in both places during OSCE
conferences in recent years.
Beyond Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the CFE treaty had long become
inoperable in Transnistria and, particularly, in the Armenian-controlled
territories of Azerbaijan. In all these places, the occupying forces
concentrated large arsenals of heavy weaponry, breaching the treaty’s
ceilings and the treaty-mandated verification procedures, and sharing those
arsenals with the local secessionist forces. The four territories have all
along remained inaccessible to international inspection in that regard. The
OSCE (custodian of the CFE treaty) and a growing number of West European
governments within NATO soon reconciled themselves to this situation. They
designated those arsenals as "unaccounted-for treaty-limited equipment"
(UTLE) and practically removed this issue from discussions with Russia about
ratification of the treaty.
Russia may well seek to resume discussions about ratification or
renegotiation of the CFE treaty, and conditions for this process, at the
OSCE’s year-end ministerial conference. Such ideas would not find many
takers in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Georgia, an event
made possible in part by Western failure to implement the CFE treaty during
the past ten years. Western diplomacy tolerated Russia’s violations, in
Georgia and elsewhere, hoping incongruously to "save the arms control
regime." That attitude, however, ultimately allowed Russia to tear up the
Treaty altogether.
-Vladimir Socor