On-site inspections associated with the INF Treaty continued unimpeded during these same months. Two types of on-site inspections remained active: continuous portal monitoring and short-notice inspections. All aspects of the continuous portal monitoring inspections at Votkinsk and Magna continued as in earlier years. All short-notice inspections were conducted in accordance with the provisions of the treaty.

In late September, approximately a month after the failed coup, President Bush announced major new unilateral reductions in U.S. strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. Bush's sweeping reductions were matched a week later when Gorbachev declared new reductions and cancellations in weapons production programs in the Soviet Union.²² One part of Gorbachev's declaration was his announcement of a one-year moratorium on all Soviet underground nuclear tests. This Soviet moratorium was reconfirmed a few weeks later by Russian President Yeltsin for all tests on Russian territory. As a direct result, the United States cancelled its plans to verify under the Threshold Test Ban Treaty a previously scheduled Soviet test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan, USSR.²³

These Soviet arms control actions and announcements demonstrated continuity. However, they were insignificant when placed against the deterioration of the Soviet Union in the fall of 1991. From August to November, the Soviet government lost legitimacy, the Soviet president lost power, and the Soviet economy collapsed. On December 1, 1991, the people of the Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union. Eight days later the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus met in Minsk, Belarus, and declared the USSR defunct. They established a limited confederation, the Commonwealth of Independent States. Stripped of territory, population, military forces, and money, President Gorbachev's Soviet government collapsed on December 25, 1991, ending 70 years of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These revolutionary developments influenced every aspect of the new states' domestic and foreign relations, including implementation of arms control treaties and agreements.²⁵

Initially, on-site inspections and exhibitions under existing treaties, specifically, the INF, the TTBT, and START treaties, continued as under the previous government. However, in the spring and summer of 1992 there was evidence that a new sense of cooperation was developing among Russian, Eastern European, Western European, and American inspectors, negotiators, and arms control policy leaders. This was most apparent for the CFE Treaty. Multinational CFE trial inspections were conducted in the spring of 1992 by teams from the NATO nations and the nations of Eastern Europe and Russia. Versed in the treaty and its inspection protocols, these inspectors cooperated on an unprecedented scale. At OSIA's European Operations Command, Colonel William R. Smith, USAF, and Colonel Lawrence G. Kelley, USMC, and CFE inspection teams participated in a series of trial inspections with teams from Russia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Czechoslovakia.²⁶

In March 1992 a new arms control agreement, the Open Skies Treaty, was signed in Helsinki by 25 nations, including the United States, NATO nations, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia. This agreement established an inspection regime of unarmed aerial flights over the entire territories of the 25 signatory nations. Covering national territory from Vancouver, Canada east to Vladivostok, Russia, this treaty in its scope is one of the most extensive agreements in modern times.²⁷

In May, General Medvedev traveled from Moscow to Washington where he joined with General Parker in a briefing to the Middle East Regional Security and Arms Control Group which included representatives from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Richard A. Clarke, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, hosted the 3-day meeting which focused on the methods and concepts in arms control from the U.S.-Soviet experience. Clarke characterized the meeting: "I think the briefing on the mission and work of OSIA [was] of great benefit to the Middle East states familiarization process."²⁸ In June, in a somewhat similar vein, Dr. Edward M. Ifft, OSIA's Deputy Director for External Affairs, led a small group of experienced team chiefs, linguists, and commanders to seven of the successor states of the former Soviet Union. In the capital cities of the Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldava, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, they briefed the senior military and diplomatic staffs on the CFE Treaty, on-site inspection concepts and protocols, and the experiences learned from the INF Treaty.

Perhaps the clearest concrete indication of continuity occurred in July 1992. The Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty entered into force, beginning mandatory data exchanges, on-site inspections, and scheduled reductions of military arms on the European continent, from the Urals to the Atlantic. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of new independent states, the number of treaty signatories increased to 29 nations. Representatives of these nations met in Helsinki, Finland at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and exchanged the treaty documents.²⁹ The actual date for the CFE Treaty's entry into force was July 17, 1992, the same day the 120-day baseline inspection period began. Just as with the INF Treaty, United States' inspection and escort teams were poised to inaugurate the CFE Treaty baseline inspections. U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Guy White led the first American CFE team as they inspected the Russian Army's 22nd Central Reserve Depot at Buy, Russia.³⁰ The nine-member team included officers and non-commissioned officers, linguists and armament specialists, team and subgroup leaders. During the inspection, Colonel White's team identified, counted, and recorded more than l,200 Russian tanks and other treaty-limited equipment items.³¹ This inspection was just the beginning, over the 120-day baseline period the United States and the other 15 NATO nations would be inspecting a portion of the more than 1,000 declared sites where conventional weapons were located in the former Warsaw Pact nations. General Parker, OSIA's Director, was an inspector on that first CFE inspection team. Just before departing for Russia, a reporter asked him to compare previous arms control treaties with the CFE Treaty. Parker explained the treaty's size, complexity, and multinational aspects, and then concluded: "The CFE Treaty is the accumulation of just about every treaty worked out in the past few years."³²

When one thinks about the breadth of these new arms control treaties, agreements, and developments, they dwarf the scope of the INF Treaty. All, however, were indebted to that treaty and the precedents it established. For in the final analysis, the INF Treaty can be considered a template for subsequent arms control agreements; a template carefully drawn, tempered through implementation, and closely watched for flaws and ambiguities. Like any good template, the pattern established for one set of materials could, if properly done, be applied to a different set. Perhaps it is time to incorporate into our knowledge of arms control treaties, the efforts of those nations and people who carried out "On-Site Inspections Under the INF Treaty."