"Over my dead body!"
Ambassador R. James Woolsey,
U.S. CFE Treaty Negotiator

   Despite these discrepancies, the treaty was signed on November 19, 1990. Nonetheless, four states--the United States, Germany, Canada, and Great Britain--raised specific questions about the Soviet data. The forum they used was the newly established CFE Treaty Joint Consultative Group (JCG).13 One of this group's responsibilities was to seek resolutions of ambiguities in data or differences of interpretation resulting from treaty implementation. Clearly, the dispute with the Soviet Union, a major signatory party, over its initial data submission fell within the scope of the JCG. Article V of the treaty, and a separate protocol, authorized and set forth the responsibilities and procedural rules governing this important joint treaty group. Consisting of representatives from every signatory state, the JCG was to meet in Vienna twice a year, with each session lasting four weeks. In fact, the initial issues were so contentious that the JCG met in nearly continuous monthly sessions beginning in late November 1990.

The state parties had 90 days--until February 15, 1991--to correct any discrepancies in their initial data and to respond to ambiguities. The United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Canada urged the Soviet Union to reconsider its initial submission. During this 90-day period, diplomats from the United States and several other NATO nations sought to use bilateral diplomacy to resolve the issue. Early in December, Ambassador R. James Woolsey, U.S. CFE Treaty Negotiator, Brigadier General Daniel W. Christman, USA, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) representative, and a small team flew to Moscow to meet with Defense Minister Marshal Dmitriy Yazov, General Moiseyev, and other members of the Soviet Supreme High Command.14 Foreign Minister Shevardnadze was not present. Defense Minister Yazov refused categorically to consider any changes to the Soviet position on the former TLE equipment assigned to naval and civil defense units. That equipment, he asserted, might become part of a possible future treaty on conventional naval forces, but the Soviet military did not have to count it with the Soviet Union's TLE for the CFE Treaty. Ambassador Woolsey rejected Yazov's assertion out of hand. He regarded the Soviet defense minister's position as directly contravening the negotiated and signed treaty. An angry confrontation ensued. Woolsey told Yazov that the United States would accept the Soviet position "over my dead body!"15

This exchange hardened the impasse. At subsequent U.S.-USSR diplomatic meetings in Houston, Texas, and Brussels, Belgium, in December 1990 and January 1991, Soviet military leaders remained obdurate. Then, on February 14, 1991, the Soviet Union presented its updated treaty data to the JCG in Vienna. It retained every essential element under dispute--the exempted TLE reassigned to the coastal defense forces, naval infantry forces, Strategic Rocket Forces, and civil defense units. Given this fact, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker declared on the same day that President Bush would not submit the CFE Treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification.16

 

It is interesting that in the midst of this frosty atmosphere, the diplomats resolved one issue: the 20,000-40,000 discrepancy in the Soviets' data. Analysis of two key documents supported the Soviet position. First, Soviet Minister Shevardnadze's letter to Secretary of State Baker, dated October 13, 1990, had contained specific figures on the Soviet forces and equipment in the treaty's zones as well as details on the TLE transfers from 1988 to 1990. Excerpted, the data revealed the following information:    

Table 3-2. Soviet Union's ATTU* Holdings and Transfers, 1988-1990

  1 Jul 88 1 Aug 90 18 Nov 90 Transferred Percent
Tanks 41,580 24,898 20,694 20,886 50%
Artillery 42,400 18,300 13,828 28,572 67%
ACVs 57,800 32,320 29,348 27,452 47%
Totals 141,780 78,518 63,870 76,910 54%

* Atlantic to the Urals.
Source: Jane M.O. Sharp, " Conventional Arms Control in Europe," SIPRI Yearbook 1991, p. 430.

Secretary Baker and General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had received these Soviet figures in late October. Then, three weeks later, the Soviets had presented these same figures in Vienna at the initial data exchange. Consequently, continued U.S. objections in the winter of 1990-91 stood on thin ice. The ice got even thinner in January 1991 when U.S. intelligence estimates confirmed that the Soviet Union's data discrepancy was not in the 20,000-40,000 range, but probably entailed 2,000-3,000 items.17 With this new estimate, the issue melted away, losing its power to influence treaty ratification.

What did not disappear, however, was the Soviet High Command's insistence on the legitimacy of resubordinating the three motorized rifle divisions to the naval infantry and the coastal defense forces. This position alone meant that on February 14, 1991, the date when the Soviet Union submitted its updated data, the CFE Treaty was at an impasse. Some believed that the Soviet High Command wanted to stop the CFE Treaty ratification process cold and substitute for the treaty a "status-quo" military relationship of the Soviet Union with Central and Western European nations.18 If this were true, the Soviet military's vision proved to be shortsighted in view of subsequent events.

    

 

Soviet Defense Minister Marshal Dmitriy Yazov meets with Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.

   In the spring and summer months of 1991, the Soviet Union's internal and external policies were subject to larger and more powerful events. In late February, a United Nations coalition, led by the United States, won a decisive victory in the Gulf War over Iraq, a former Soviet ally. Simultaneously, in late January and February, the people of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania rebelled against Soviet imperialism.19 Following a brief, violent confrontation, they won recognition of their sovereignty from Moscow. Then, throughout April, May, and June, President Gorbachev and the Communist central government gradually lost power to Boris Yeltsin, Russian reformers, and nationalistic leaders in the republics. The Soviet High Command's desire to establish a Soviet-dominated imperial security system based on the military status quo became untenable as the Soviet Union unraveled both as an empire and a nation.

While the old system was untenable, it would take many months for the new reality to emerge. The Soviet Union remained a great military power and a major CFE Treaty state party. Following the Gulf War, President Bush began a series of arms control initiatives.20 He directed Secretary of State Baker to initiate diplomatic discussions with Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh. Baker focused on resolving both the CFE Treaty impasse and the outstanding issues of the still-unsigned Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). In the White House, President Bush set up a small, high-level experts group on arms control to draft presidential letters and new treaty positions and to formulate immediate responses. Led by Arnold Kanter of the National Security Council, this four-person group worked closely with Secretary Baker, Ambassador Woolsey, CFE Treaty Negotiator Hansen, and the START Treaty negotiators. Initially there was little change. In March, Soviet Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh met with Secretary Baker in Moscow. He asked Baker to reconsider the United States' opposition to the Soviet High Command's resubordination of CFE TLE to naval and coastal defense units. Baker replied: "I don't know what there is to talk about. Twenty-two countries have signed this treaty, and only one has changed the rules."21

 

Next, President Bush wrote directly to President Gorbachev asking him to resolve the dispute on the reassignment of the military equipment. Secretary Baker made a direct appeal to Bessmertnykh in Russia in late April. Neither Bush's letter nor Baker's personal diplomacy had much effect. Then in late May a breakthrough occurred. President Gorbachev sent General Moiseyev to Washington for a two-day meeting with the president, senior military leaders, and treaty negotiators.22 He brought with him new proposals. General Moiseyev stated the Soviet Union's final position: all equipment in the Soviet naval infantry and coastal defense forces would remain in their units, but they would be counted against the USSR's overall CFE Treaty ceilings. The number of armored personnel vehicles assigned to the Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF) would be limited to 1,701, but they would not be counted against the Soviet Union's aggregate number of treaty ACVs. The naval forces would not be counted as OOVs, limiting the number of inspections the Soviets would be liable for, but these units would still be vulnerable to inspection under the challenge inspection provisions. More important, the naval forces equipment would be counted in Soviet TLE totals. The issue of armored personnel vehicles in the SRF was countered somewhat by the U.S. concern for the security of Soviet nuclear materials if the Soviet Union became less stable. After consideration, U.S. experts accepted the Soviet position. The next day General Moiseyev met with President Bush in the White House. According to a recent account, President Bush was insistent and very firm on the United States' commitment to the treaty and the consequences of any nation trying to back out at this late stage.23 General Moiseyev agreed, stating his support for President Gorbachev, perestroika, and arms control.  

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.






The Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- gained sovereignty from the Soviet Union in January and February 1991.

 





President George Bush.

   The CFE Treaty was multilateral, with 22 signatory nations; no one could deny, however, that bilateral negotiations had resolved this treaty impasse. The United States and the Soviet Union acted decisively, but bilaterally, in reaching these settlements. At times allies were informed; other times they were not. Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany complained that the United States and the USSR were settling multilateral treaty issues among themselves.24 Yet during months of turmoil and real uncertainty, U.S. and Soviet political leaders focused again and again on the CFE Treaty; their persistence produced results.

It was only a matter of weeks from the time of General Moiseyev's Washington visit in May 1991 to the USSR's formal declaration to all other treaty states in Vienna. In early June, Secretary Baker and Ambassador Woolsey flew to Moscow and met with Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh and Soviet CFE Treaty Negotiator Grinevsky. The result was a complex, three-part solution.25 First, France, as a CFE Treaty signatory state, would request that the Netherlands convene an extraordinary conference of state parties to the treaty at The Hague. Next, the Soviet Union, at that conference, would issue a legally binding statement explaining the obligations it would undertake "outside of the framework of the treaty" to account for its TLE holdings within the treaty's area of application. The Soviet Union would declare its willingness to limit the equipment in its naval infantry forces, coastal defense forces, and Strategic Rocket Forces to the exact number previously announced in Vienna. Then, they would declare that 40 months after entry into force, the USSR's maximum TLE holdings would include the total TLE assigned to the naval infantry forces, coastal defense forces, and Strategic Rocket Forces. This meant that the Soviet Union would reduce an equivalent number of TLE elsewhere to meet its maximum holdings. Specifically, the Soviets pledged to destroy or convert 933 tanks, 1,725 ACVs, and 1,080 artillery pieces. They would reduce one-half of the 933 tanks and 1,080 artillery pieces from forces within the ATTU and the other half from forces east of the Urals. The Soviets also stated that they would modify 753 of the 1,725 ACVs to become MTLB-AT types. These were "look-alikes" and thus, not limited by the treaty.26

 

The Soviets were adamant in their position that the coastal defense forces and naval infantry units were not OOVs and therefore not subject to declared site inspections. They agreed, however, that this equipment would be subject to challenge inspections. They also declared that they would limit the number of armored combat vehicles of the SRF, but that these limits would not count against the total number of ACVs allocated under the CFE Treaty to the Soviet Union. In response to the Soviet Union's statement, each of the other 21 states at the extraordinary conference would issue a statement accepting the Soviet Union's declaration as legally binding and the basis for proceeding toward ratification and implementation. When the extraordinary conference convened at The Hague on June 18, 1991, the respective ambassadors read their carefully crafted, legally binding statements into the record and, with no objections, the chairman accepted them as official treaty documents.27

On the issue of the Soviet military equipment positioned east of the Ural Mountains, the Soviet government presented a politically binding statement to the state delegates attending the CFE's Joint Consultative Group in Vienna. The Soviet Union pledged to destroy or convert to civilian use no fewer than 6,000 tanks, 1,500 ACVs, and 7,000 artillery pieces located beyond the Ural Mountains. They would reduce these items by November 1995 in such a way as to provide "sufficient visible evidence" of their destruction or their having been rendered militarily unsuitable. Essentially, the pledge meant that the Soviet Union would display this equipment so that treaty states could use satellite reconnaissance to monitor and confirm its reduction.28

Once these Soviet legal and political statements had been accepted as official treaty documents, most of the CFE Treaty signatory states turned to ratification. President Bush submitted the CFE Treaty to the U.S. Senate on July 9, 1991, stating, "The CFE Treaty is the most ambitious arms control agreement ever concluded."29 He declared that the treaty was in the "best interests of the United States" and that it was an important step in "defining the new security regime in Europe." Other states went through the ratification process as well. Czechoslovakia was the first nation to ratify the treaty and deposit the instruments of ratification in the treaty depository at The Hague. Other nations followed and by the end of 1991, 14 nations, including Hungary, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, and the United States, had ratified the treaty. Before all the original 22 treaty signatories could complete the ratification process, however, three new developments influenced the treaty.

  

East of the Urals:
Soviets would destroy or convert at least

  • 6,000 tanks
  • 1,500 ACVs
  • 7,000 artillery pieces

 

Previous Section | Table of Contents | Next Section