Chapter 6 -- CFE Treaty Baseline

DECLARED SITE ACCESS

During baseline, declared site access became the most contentious issue that U.S. inspectors faced during inspections of Eastern states. As baseline began, the U.S. understanding of access on a declared site had not changed since American Ambassador Lynn Hansen and the Soviet verification negotiator, Gennadiy Yeftaviyev, ironed out an agreement in November 1990. During a declared site inspection, a team could select and inspect only one OOV on a declared site--the OOV was the subject of the inspection. The team, however, could inspect the entire declared site, to its outermost natural or manmade borders, to include areas common to all OOVs located on the site. Inspectors were prohibited only from any area on the declared site that supported another OOV exclusively.

The first indication of a different understanding of inspector access during a declared site inspection arose during the U.S./Russian mock inspection at Pushkin, Russia, on February 12, 1992. During the Russian preinspection briefing at Pushkin, escorts presented a site diagram that depicted only the two OOVs at Pushkin and a limited portion of the common areas. Lt. Colonel Edward Gallagher, the U.S. team chief, pointed out that U.S. satellite reconnaissance indicated that there were other inspectable areas within the outermost boundary of the garrison. The Russian escorts responded that the Pushkin site diagram was correct. This problem was noted in the mock inspection report; the Russians countered that U.S. inspectors had been given access to the entire declared site associated with the OOV.²⁰

When the treaty entered into force, it became obvious that some states were not using the declared site definition that had been negotiated. On August 5, 1992, during an early baseline inspection of the 228th High Power Artillery Brigade at Shuya, Russia, Lt. Colonel White received a site diagram that illustrated the OOV but not all of the common areas on the site. Escort officials subsequently denied the team access to the common areas not included on the diagram. Nine days later, when all states again exchanged treaty data, it became apparent that Lt. Colonel White's experience would not be an isolated one. The original Soviet site diagrams had displayed multiple OOVs and common areas on a single site. The new August 14th diagrams indicated one OOV on one declared site that was defined by the boundaries of that OOV.²¹ The sites were no different physically--the common areas remained--but some states had changed their concept of a declared site.

Lt. Colonel Edward G. Gallagher, II (right), leading an inspection at Ovruch, Ukraine.

Inspect...to its outermost natural or manmade borders...

Lt. Colonel Joseph J. Drach, Jr., atop a tank while leading a declared site inspection.

On August 29, 1992, U.S. inspectors had their first opportunity to confirm, on-site, that the new diagrams reflected changes in the concept of a declared site. In addition, inspectors would determine how these changes affected inspector access during an inspection. Colonel Joseph J. Drach, Jr., USA, led an inspection of the 336th Rocket Artillery Brigade in Osipovichi, Belarus. Drach received a site diagram from the Belarussian escorts that did not include all common areas within the manmade boundaries of the site. More important, the escort team denied the inspectors access to common areas that were on the installation but excluded from the site diagram. While Drach documented this fact as an ambiguity in his inspection report, another U.S. team was preparing to deploy to Russia.²²

Four days later, on September 4, 1992, Lt. Colonel Jan S. Karcz, USA, led his team to the 752nd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment at Novyy, Russia, to test the Russian definition of a declared site. His mission was to draw a "line in the sand" on the issue of the definition of a declared site and inspector access. In preparing his team to confront those issues, Karcz worked closely with Colonel Schuyler (Sky) Foerster, USAF, who had participated in the negotiation process in Vienna and was knowledgeable of the negotiators' intentions on the issue of declared sites and access. Karcz and Foerster worked with team linguist Sergeant Danny K. Boyd, USAF, and Alan J. French, Russian language professional, to prepare treaty-based responses to questions that might arise during the inspection. When the team deployed to Moscow, Russia's only POE, they brought along five to six pages of Russian text to convey the U.S. position on declared sites and access in language that would be unambiguous to an escort team chief.

On arrival at Novyy, Lt. Colonel Karcz received a site diagram of the OOV that was limited specifically to the area taken up by the OOV. It did not include common areas outside the OOV on the installation. The Russians defined the site's boundary using roads that were well within the fenced area that was military property at Novyy. At that point Lt. Colonel Karcz cited Article XV of the treaty that allowed the use of NTM and produced a map developed from overhead photography. Karcz pointed out to Colonel V. Pavlenko, the Russian escort team chief, what the U.S. considered the outermost boundary of the site. After two to three hours of discussion, Colonel Pavlenko left the briefing area to notify Moscow of the U.S. position. He soon returned and would not stray from the Russian definition of a declared site. He reiterated that the Russian site diagram was accurate as drawn and that the U.S. team would have access only to the area depicted on the diagram. At this point Lt. Colonel Karcz recognized that Colonel Pavlenko was at his final position and would not budge. Karcz commenced the inspection.

As the inspection proceeded, Pavlenko adhered to the Russian definition of the declared site and did not allow the Americans access to all areas that the U.S. team considered common areas. This prompted Karcz to declare an ambiguity. Pavlenko protested that an ambiguity was not appropriate in this situation because the issue did not address TLE nor was it based on objective facts. Karcz countered that the declared site definition and access issues were indeed based on objective facts: the negotiating history provided a very specific definition of a declared site and the access to be granted to an inspection team at a declared site. The current Russian approach did not follow that specific definition and did not satisfy CFE Treaty requirements, thus the ambiguity. Karcz reminded Pavlenko that, ultimately, inspectors write the reports. The inspecting team chief had the right to determine if an ambiguity was to be written, just as the escort team chief determined what response, if any, would be made on the report.²³

Lt. Colonel Jan S. Karcz signing an inspection report in Ukraine.

This new interpretation of a declared site spawned several other problems that surfaced repeatedly during baseline inspections. The first problem inspectors faced on-site was the site diagram. The new diagrams illustrated that the declared site was defined solely by the OOV--each OOV was a declared site. In addition, states depicted OOVs bounded by internal roads, buildings, and fences specific to the OOV, not by the outermost boundaries of an installation. These site diagrams omitted common areas located within an installation that were outside the narrowly defined OOV. Escort teams, armed with these site diagrams, allowed teams to inspect only the OOV, which had become synonymous with the declared site, thus limiting access to all common areas. The new declared site interpretation also affected the requirement under CFE 1A to report organizations and personnel figures for activities subject to inspection at the inspection site. Escorts did not provide figures for units located in what had previously been common areas. Another difficulty arose at the POE, before the start of the inspection. Inspection teams were, de facto, required to announce the OOV to be inspected while at the POE, because OOVs were now located on their own individual declared sites. By declaring the site for inspection, inspectors were also revealing the OOV for inspection. This fact increased preparation time from one hour when inspectors selected the OOV at the site to more than six to nine hours when inspectors were forced to select the OOV at the point of entry.

The declared site issue arose repeatedly during baseline, causing U.S. inspectors to declare eight ambiguities. These ambiguities occurred when escorts denied inspectors access to all common areas. There were also occasions when states produced site diagrams that omitted all common areas, but escorts nonetheless allowed access to all common areas.²⁴ The repeated efforts of U.S. and allied inspection teams led to discussions at the Joint Consultative Group (JCG) in Vienna to resolve the situation.

U.S. Ambassador Lynn M. Hansen addressed the declared site issue at the opening meeting of the JCG on September 23, 1992. He discussed the site definition and access problems that Team Karcz had encountered at Novyy and that other American and NATO inspectors had encountered elsewhere. Citing the August 14, 1992, exchange of information, Ambassador Hansen stated that the Russian definition of a declared site was now radically different than that negotiated in New York in late October 1990. The new Russian data indicated that all multiple OOV sites had been converted to multiple declared sites within a single installation. He highlighted one example in which the left side of a dormitory was within the declared site of one OOV while the right side was in a different declared site. Hansen expressed concern as to how this Russian approach might affect verification of treaty compliance.

Ambassador Hansen further pointed out that the new Russian approach in effect forced a CFE inspection team to declare the specific OOV at the POE. This gave the inspected party an opportunity to move equipment across a road and hide it in a different OOV during the inspection team's nine-hour transit from the POE. At a declared site with a single OOV there was nowhere to hide the equipment because all areas were subject to inspection. At the multiple OOV/declared site installations the inspection process could become a pea in the shell game. This Russian change, Hansen charged, directly threatened the openness that was a key component in the treaty. Inspection teams could no longer visit a site and be confident that they had seen all of the equipment there. Further negotiations in Vienna led the Russians to agree with the U.S. position and to provide assurances that they would change their site diagrams.²⁵ After receiving assurances of change, NATO allies tested the Russians again.

On October 3, 1992, 10 days after Ambassador Hansen's speech and on the heels of a German inspection team, Team Gessert deployed to the Russian 423rd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment at Naro-Fominsk. During that inspection, the issues of site diagrams and multiple declared sites on an installation surfaced again because the changes had not penetrated through from the diplomatic to the operational level of the Russian army. Although he received the personal assurances of General-Major Sergey Fedorovich Tsygankov that future access would be provided, Lt. Colonel Gessert declared an ambiguity. While the two officers were discussing the issue, a French team that included Lt. Colonel Karcz announced from the POE that it would inspect one of the declared sites/OOVs at Naro-Fominsk. General Tsygankov initially wanted to refuse the French permission to inspect Naro-Fominsk because Team Gessert was already in place, and the treaty prohibited more than one team on a site. He soon realized however, that Naro-Fominsk was a multiple OOV and a multiple declared site, and that the French were not requesting the same OOV that Gessert was inspecting. He acknowledged the French team's right to conduct its inspection. They did so. These multinational inspections brought new discussions at the JCG in Vienna. They produced new assurances from the Russian representatives that the site diagrams and multiple OOV problems would be corrected. Three days after Team Gessert departed Naro-Fominsk, another U.S. team returned.²⁶

^{American
team chief Lt. Colonel David P. Gessert discussing site
diagrams and access issues with Russian escorts at
Naro-Fominsk.}

Lt. Colonel Thomas C. Fiser (left) leading an inspection in Belarus.

On October 9th, Colonel Kelley led a team augmented by two foreign members-Lieutenant Ole T. Pedersen from Denmark, and Georges M. Vitse from France. Their destination was the 12th Guards Tank Regiment at Naro-Fominsk. Again, a major goal of the mission was to test the assurances given by Russian delegates in Vienna that site diagrams would be changed and inspection teams granted full access to an installation. The presence of the two augmentees signaled to Russia that a community of nations, not only the United States, considered the issue of site diagrams and multiple OOVs to be very serious. Team Kelley arrived at Naro-Fominsk and, like previous teams, received a restrictive site diagram that did not include the entire installation. The Russians still depicted multiple OOVs as individual declared sites; the Russians claimed that the change would come with the next treaty data exchange. Colonel Kelley declared an ambiguity. After completing this inspection, the team conducted a sequential declared site inspection of the 589th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment at Totskoye. Again site diagrams were an issue, and again Colonel Kelley declared an ambiguity.²⁷

These inspections revealed that the Russians had not yet changed their position on OOVs and declared sites, or that directives to implement change had not yet filtered down to operational levels of the Russian army. In Vienna, JCG discussions continued, and Russian delegates stated that Russia would soon revise the declared sites and site diagrams at issue to reflect multiple OOVs colocated on single declared sites. The Russians indicated that they would develop new site diagrams that would restrict access only to those areas specific to another OOV on the same declared site. Russian representatives assured JCG delegates that these changes would appear in the annual exchange of data on December 15, 1992. An encouraging sign that Russia was making headway in its changes came on November 8, 1992. During an inspection mission of Russian forces in Azerbaijan, the Russian site representatives presented Lt. Colonel Thomas C. Fiser, USA, site diagrams that indicated multiple OOVs located on a single declared site. He conducted two inspections on that mission and had no difficulties in either location with site diagrams or inspector access.

On January 14, 1993, after an evaluation of Russia's December 15, 1992, exchange of treaty information, President George Bush presented his annual "Report to Congress on Noncompliance with Arms Control Agreements." In the report he stated that "the Russian Federation, and to a lesser extent, Ukraine and Belarus" had developed an overly restrictive definition of a declared site, consequently restricting access. But he noted that

"In its December 15, 1992, data exchange, the Russian Federation has, however, taken action to rectify its data depiction of what should be single declared sites with multiple OOVs, and discussions are continuing in the Joint Consultative Group to resolve the rest of the access issue."²⁸

The December 1992, data exchange indicated a change in the Russian position on declared sites, OOVs, and inspection team access. Confirmation came during subsequent declared site inspections in the reduction phase of the treaty. The Russians had indeed conformed to treaty requirements, but Belarus and Ukraine did not follow Russia's example.