NATO's VCC

During CFE Treaty negotiations, the NATO alliance had been deeply involved in every aspect of developing the treaty's text, protocols, and annexes. Yet in the final document neither NATO nor the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) were identified as alliances in the formal treaty provisions. Instead, the treaty dealt with two "groups of states," and each state was responsible for properly implementing the treaty. However, NATO constituted an experienced, bureaucratic organization for its group of states to develop group objectives and negotiating positions, and to coordinate treaty planning efforts. During treaty negotiations, NATO's High Level Task Force (HLTF) at Brussels had served as an important coordinating body for screening and approving proposals for discussion in the formal sessions in Vienna.³⁷ Collectively, the NATO nations would be reducing more than 12,900 TLE items under the CFE Treaty, and they would have a total of 2,447 OOVs subject to inspection throughout the alliance. Clearly, after treaty signature, NATO as an organization would continue its strong commitment to the CFE Treaty throughout implementation.

This VCC is a joint political-military coordinating organization with two representatives from each of the 16 NATO nations. It meets at HQ NATO, usually in monthly sessions. A small professional staff, the Verification and Implementation Coordination Section (VICS) facilitates the work of the larger committee. For most meetings, the head of the professional staff chairs the VCC sessions. All actions are taken by consensus.

New Leadership

In 1990, before the CFE Treaty was signed, General Lajoie, OSIA's Director, selected two senior colonels to lead the OSIA European Operations Command's rapidly expanding effort. Air Force Colonel Frederick E. Grosick became Commander and Marine Corps Colonel Lawrence G. Kelley was the new Chief of Operations. Since the INF Treaty was still extremely active, with missile elimination, site closeout, and short-notice and continuous portal monitoring inspections, OSIA's European Operations Command retained all of its "gateway" responsibilities. At Rhein-Main, it was responsible for supporting all INF Treaty inspection teams transiting Europe to inspect missile sites in the western Soviet Union. It also supported Threshold Test Ban Treaty inspectors and equipment specialists, as well as U.S. and USSR START Treaty inspection teams traveling through the gateway to conduct exhibition inspections. But its principal activity, beginning in late summer 1990, was to organize, prepare, train, and be ready to conduct inspections and escorts under the CFE Treaty.

The two officers brought different strengths and personalities to the operation. At Rhein-Main Air Base, Colonel Grosick used his Air Force experience to address issues of personnel, transportation, office space, communications, housing, and facilities. The command would expand sixfold in less than two years; that growth required attention to all manner of personnel and organizational details. At the same time, Colonel Kelley focused on defining the CFE Treaty's operational mission. He drew upon his experience as an INF Treaty inspection team chief, his knowledge of NATO and the U.S. Military Liaison Mission, and his extensive study of Soviet military forces. The personalities of these two colonels were quite different. Grosick was a tall, robust, gregarious aviator experienced in handling the details of an active operational field command. Kelley was a lean, ascetic, ramrod Marine who had an exceptionally clear concept of the CFE Treaty, the NATO alliance, and the Soviet Union. In the early months, planning dominated. At Rhein-Main, there was more work than time, people, or resources; the division of leadership responsibilities worked well.

Colonel Fredrick E. Grosick, Commander, OSIA European Operations Command.

"Yes. I planned to replicate what we did in the INF Treaty. I planned to use integral teams, as we had during the baseline period for INF. The numbers changed somewhat, but I thought that the composition of the team would be similar. Over the first several months after I arrived at Frankfurt, the manning document was the center of our attention.

"For the team chiefs, I looked for the kind of personnel that we had at the beginning of the INF period and which we had and routinely looked for in U.S. Military Liaison Mission (USMLM).

"The team chiefs would be, to use an analogy, the independent patrol leaders, with whom you'd have precious little contact once they deployed, and on whom you had to rely implicitly. You had to train them up as far as you could, give them adequate guidance, fill them full of treaty specifics, provide them with the kind of surrogate wisdom that they might not otherwise have at the outset, give them 'what if' situations to death, force them to do all of the homework that this required, and them count on them to apply the tools of their trade to get the job done."

How did the command deal with the shifting planning assumptions?

"The primary reason why the treaty data changed was not because of German unification, but [because of ] internal decisions made within the Soviet Union. Initially, as a round figure, the Soviets had said that their data would contain 1,500 objects of verification. That had been the estimate of U.S. authorities, and it was confirmed as a working figure by the Soviets during treaty negotiations. However, when the data were actually submitted, on 17 November 1990, there were only about 900 Soviet objects of verification.

What was your concept for inspector and team training?

"I expected them to learn the treaty as part of a treaty course, initially. But then would come a great deal of self-study and study in groups, such as with the team or in the Inspectors and Escorts branch.

"I made a conscious decision very early on to foster the team as the unit with which I wanted the inspectors to identify. Prior to their identification within the branch or even the unit as a whole, I wanted them to think of themselves first and foremost as a member of Team One, or Two, or Six, or Team Jones, or Team Kelley, or whatever it would be. That is where I wanted the allegiance to be initially. That is where I wanted the identification. That is where I wanted the standards to be set. That's where I anticipated that the key to training and success ultimately would come, as a matter of cohesiveness. Because of their internal training, because of knowing each other, backing each other up, bonding, and so forth, they would develop into a cohesive unit: a team. I think that was a very important operational concept that we started within the INF Treaty, and were successful in continuing throughout the INF Baseline Period, although OSIA later abandoned it for reasons of convenience.

"I have always been a very firm believer in unit cohesiveness. So I consciously set the teams up that way, and insisted that they work as units, think as units, act as units."