Chapter 3 -- Ratification Delayed

Soviet forces in Moscow during failed coup attempt in August 1991.

THE SECOND CRISIS: THE BALTIC STATES

This issue dealt with the legal status of the Soviet Union's TLE in the three Baltic nations--Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia.³⁰ Resolution came expeditiously. None of the Baltic states wanted to become parties to the CFE Treaty. None wanted the Soviet military forces, which they considered to be armies of occupation, to be stationed permanently on their national territory. They were concerned that any treaty participation by a Baltic state would lend legitimacy to a Soviet presence in the Baltics. All desired, however, that the Soviet Union's conventional military equipment and units subject to the treaty still count against the Soviet Union's TLE ceilings and, if possible, be reduced in accordance with the protocols of the treaty.

Recognizing the Baltic nations' demands, and sensing that the Soviet Foreign Ministry was willing to discuss a diplomatic solution, U.S. diplomats in Moscow informally raised the possibility of another "agreed statement" regarding the Soviet Union's CFE Treaty obligations. As a direct consequence of this bilateral diplomacy, the CFE Treaty's Joint Consultative Group convened another extraordinary meeting in Vienna on October 18, 1991.³¹The chairman read statements from the Soviet Union and other state parties that stipulated that the three Baltic nations were not parties to the CFE Treaty and that all Soviet TLE on the territory of those states would count against the USSR's treaty ceilings. Read aloud to the assembled state delegates, the statements were accepted without comment. Following procedure, the statements were sent to the treaty depository at The Hague for deposit with the official treaty.³²

By this time the Soviet Union as a nation was in a tenuous state. Its government had barely survived a failed coup d'état in mid-August, its ruling Communist party had been outlawed, and its national leadership appeared incapable of stemming the twin forces of a collapsing empire and rising nationalism. By December 1991, the creation of an independent Ukraine and Belarus, and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States, sealed the fate of the USSR. On December 25, 1991, the USSR formally dissolved as a nation and was replaced by 15 newly independent states.³³ Eight of these new states--Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakstan, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine--had former Soviet military forces and units stationed on their territory that were subject to the CFE Treaty. What would be their fate? Would these new nations simply nationalize the military forces stationed on their territory? Or would they seek to join the all-European CFE Treaty and commit themselves to destroying conventional military equipment that could be used by their new armies and air forces? And under what aegis would they discuss joining the CFE Treaty states? They were not members of any international forum such as the CSCE, Warsaw Pact, or NATO.³⁴

THE THIRD CRISIS: NEW STATE PARTIES

On December 8, 1991, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus gathered in Minsk, Belarus, to place their signatures on the document creating the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Within a week, the leaders of five other republics--Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--had met in Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan, and pledged to join the new commonwealth. All the military forces of the collapsing Soviet Union would be placed under the control of this commonwealth. These events signaled not only the end of the Soviet Union as a nation but also its end as a state party to the CFE Treaty. In Vienna, the CFE state delegates sought some mechanism to bring the new republics into the CFE Treaty orbit.³⁵

In the late fall of 1991, a new pan-European organization, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) was set up with U.S. and German leadership. By December, its membership consisted of the 16 NATO nations, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and the 15 newly independent states from the former Soviet Union. Shortly after the creation of the CIS in December, the new North Atlantic Cooperation Council invited all member states to meet in Brussels at NATO headquarters on January 10, 1992. The objective was to convene a high level working group to discuss the future of the CFE Treaty. Every state accepted and attended, with the exception of Kazakstan. This was the first time the new CIS nations, represented by their foreign and defense ministers, had been at NATO headquarters. At this historic meeting, they participated as sovereign independent nations, sitting beside the leaders of the former Warsaw Pact nations and, of course, the foreign and defense ministers of the NATO nations.³⁶

First Meeting of North Atlantic Cooperation Council defense ministers at NATO Headquarters, April 1, 1992.

In their opening statements, the foreign ministers of the newly independent states declared that the CFE Treaty was "the cornerstone of European security." In his statement, Vladimir Petrovskiy, the Russian representative, asserted that only Russia needed to ratify the CFE Treaty.³⁷ He said that Russia would subsequently negotiate the "necessary adjustments" with the other republics. All other NACC states rejected this Russian interpretation. Instead, they proposed that each of the newly independent states be considered a successor state. Furthermore, following signature and ratification, each would become an original state party to the treaty. This concept carried the day, and after lengthy discussion, the delegates agreed on the following points:³⁸

The CFE Treaty should enter into force without renegotiation and should be fully implemented as soon as possible.
Treaty obligations of the former USSR should be wholly accounted for by all the newly independent states and apportioned among them in a manner acceptable to all parties to the treaty.
All newly independent states in the area of application of the CFE Treaty should ratify the treaty.
Some updating of the treaty would be necessary, but it would be done after its entry into force.
The deadline for entry into force should be as soon as possible, preferably by the time of the Helsinki Review Conference (March-July 1992).
Further work by the high level working group was warranted.

The NACC high level working group met again in February, March, April, and May of 1992. These were extraordinary months for the newly independent states. First, as new nations, they had to define their relationships with the nations of Central and Western Europe. The CFE Treaty lay at the center of the military dimension of this relationship. Second, they had to define their relationship with Russia, the largest and most powerful of the former Soviet republics. Here the CFE Treaty was also a focal point, since it mandated reductions in the former Soviet Union's vast arsenal of conventional weapons. The question of how the USSR's arsenal would be partitioned among the sucessor states, and then how these national portions would be subject to the treaty, had to be decided. The two issues were related, and the working group resolved them in the first six months of 1992.

On January 16, 1992, Russia proposed at a CIS meeting in Minsk that it should receive two-thirds of the ground weapons of the former Soviet Union. At that meeting, Valery Shustov, Russia's CFE Treaty Negotiator, declared that Russia would coordinate the inspection, escort, and reduction activities of all the CIS states implementing the CFE Treaty.³⁹ The other CIS states, especially Ukraine, rejected this assertion. Two weeks later, on January 30, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) admitted 10 CIS states as members. The new states signed letters pledging to "move forward promptly with the ratification of the CFE Treaty and to assume ... all CFE obligations of the former Soviet Union."⁴⁰ With this important international diplomatic and political act completed, the CIS nations turned to the tough negotiations on partitioning the former Soviet Union's conventional armed forces. They set up a group of experts, largely consisting of senior military officers, who examined force structure, treaty ceilings, and treaty reduction requirements. Throughout February, March, and April of 1992, this group labored to devise a distribution formula acceptable to all states.

Severing of a turret in Belarus.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister (later President) Leonid Kravchuk.

It was not easy. At one point, Leonid Kravchuk, then Ukrainian foreign minister, complained about the CIS nations' failure to resolve the CFE Treaty TLE problem: "Not one major military question has been resolved ... within the framework of the Commonwealth."⁴¹ Then, in early April, the Russian Parliament voted not to ratify the CFE Treaty, even though the USSR Supreme Soviet had ratified it in 1991. At that point, President Yeltsin intervened, stating that Russia would accept all treaty obligations of the former Soviet Union.⁴² In separate actions, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan complained that they should be allocated more tanks than proposed by the group of experts. These two nations were locked in an intense ethnic war over separatist Nagorno-Karabakh; consequently, they sought more conventional armaments.

Amidst these internal CIS negotiations, the monthly NACC meetings of the foreign ministers at NATO headquarters continued. These meetings put pressure on Russia and the other successor states to divide the Soviet Union's entitlements and obligations in an equitable manner. In April 1992, Ambassador Lynn M. Hansen, the U.S. CFE Treaty Negotiator who had replaced Ambassador R. James Woolsey in June 1991, led a small delegation to Minsk, Kiev, Chisinau, and Moscow to discuss treaty ratification and implementation.⁴³ On this same trip, Ambassador Hansen's delegation met in Moscow with representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakstan. Over the course of 10 days, Hansen learned that all the newly independent states had the political will to achieve an agreement on the CFE Treaty TLE. He also discovered that the smaller states distrusted Russia's tactics and attitudes. Characteristically, Hansen went directly to see the Russian first deputy foreign minister; they discussed ratification of the treaty. Hansen told him "an agreement was there for the taking, if they would just modify the way they negotiated."⁴⁴ The Russian minister listened, but action would not come until mid-May.

Finally, following further CIS negotiating sessions in Moscow, Minsk, Kiev, and other capitals, the leaders of the successor states met in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on May 15, 1992. There they signed an agreement on the division of the former Soviet Union's CFE Treaty obligations and entitlements.⁴⁵ The Russian military was instrumental in devising this agreement; without their detailed work it would not have happened. The division at Tashkent is detailed in table 3-3.

		Tanks			ACVs			Artillery		A/C	Helos
	Total	Active	Stored	Total	Active	Stored	Total	Active	Stored	Total	Total
Russia	6,400	4,975	1,425	11,480	10,525	955	6,415	5,105	1,310	3,450	890
Ukraine	4,080	3,130	950	5,050	4,350	700	4,040	3,240	800	1,090	330
Belarus	1,800	1,525	275	2,600	2,175	425	1,615	1,375	240	260	80
Armenia	220	220	0	220	220	0	285	285	0	100	50
Azerbaijan	220	220	0	220	220	0	285	285	0	100	50
Georgia	220	220	0	220	220	0	285	285	0	100	50
Moldova	210	210	0	210	210	0	250	250	0	50	50
Kazakstan	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	13,150	10,500	2,650	20,000	17,920	2,080	13,175	10,825	2,350	5,150	1,500

With the Tashkent accords signed on May 15, 1992, attention turned to Vienna where the CFE Treaty's Joint Consultative Group was meeting in preparation for a third Extraordinary Conference. In Vienna, the state delegates drafted a document, to be signed on June 5, 1992, at an Extraordinary Conference in Oslo. This document made legal both the entry of the new state parties and their acceptance of all the obligations and entitlements of the former USSR. In short order, the JCG delegates and technical specialists drafted new treaty annexes containing treaty understandings, notifications, confirmations, and commitments. They incorporated the new annexes into the "Final Document," which changed the wording in the treaty to reflect the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the inclusion of eight new state parties. The Final Document set a deadline of July 1, 1992, for each signatory state to provide to all other states information concerning inspections and verification. In addition, it stated that the TLE reduction liabilities of the new state parties collectively would be no different from those of the former Soviet Union. It also reaffirmed the two previous JCG statements: the Soviet Union's June 15, 1991, statement regarding the TLE reassigned to the naval infantry and coastal defense forces, and the October 18, 1991, Soviet statement on the status of TLE stationed on the territory of the three Baltic nations. Finally, it addressed the problem of stationing armored infantry fighting vehicles (AIFVs) on the flanks; but it left resolution to the JCG forum following entry into force.

Tashkent Agreement--
May 15, 1992