East-West Arms Control: Challenges for the Western Alliance

East–West arms control

The INF treaty signed between the United States and the Soviet Union in December 1987 is a milestone in the history of East–West arms relations. The profound changes which have occurred within Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the closing years of the 1980s have had direct links with equivalent changes in the East–West political environment. This has resulted in negotiated arms control reemerging as a principal activity in working towards establishing a new East–West relationship. East–West arms control covers a wide range of issues from the role of arms control after the INF treaty to NATO strategy and alliance behaviour. It includes domestic and alliance politics as well as the technical treatment of arms control matters, and concludes by looking at the future prospects of East–West arms control. Professor David Dewitt is Director of the Centre for International and Strategic Studies at York University, Ontario, Canada. Professor Rattinger is currently Professor of Political Science at the University of Bamberg, Germany.

Also published for the Centre for International and Strategic Studies York University, Toronto

Deterrence in the 1990s Edited by R. B. Byers The Denuclearization of the Oceans Edited by R. B. Byers Nuclear Non-proliferation and Global Security Edited by David Dewitt The Utility of International Economic Sanctions Edited by David Leyton-Brown Sovereignty and Security in the Arctic Edited by Edgar J. Dosman

East–West arms control Challenges for the Western Alliance

Edited by David Dewitt and Hans Rattinger

London and New York

First published 1992 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. © 1992 David Dewitt and Hans Rattinger All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data East–West arms control : challenges for the Western Alliance. 1. Arms control I. Dewitt, David B. (David Brian) 1948– II. Rattinger, Hans 327.174 ISBN 0-415-03498-1 (Print Edition)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data East–West arms control: challenges for the Western Alliance/edited by David Dewitt and Hans Rattinger. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Arms control. 2. Nuclear arms control. 3. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I. Dewitt, David B. (David Brian), 1948–II. Rattinger, Hans. JX1974.E27 1991 327.1’74–dc20 91–11773 CIP ISBN 0-203-19207-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-19210-9 (Glassbook Format)

Contents

List of figures and tables Introduction Acknowledgements Part I Arms control, NATO strategy and alliance politics 1 Strategy, arms control and reassurance: dilemmas in German–American security relations Herbert Dittgen Introduction Two interpretations of NATO strategy: defence vs punishment US nuclear doctrine and NATO’s strategy Strategy and force requirements The public debate over NATO’s strategy Risk sharing Arms control: détente vs deterrence Arms control objectives Conventional force reductions in Europe Difference and reassurance Conclusions Notes 2 The political and strategic implications of the INF treaty for NATO Paul Buteux Notes

ix xi xvii 1 3 3 7 8 12 13 15 16 17 19 21 25 26 33 44

vi Contents Part II Arms control after the INF treaty 3 Requirements for successful negotiations on force reductions in Europe Jonathan Dean Notes 4 Security and arms control in Europe: a German perspective Dieter Mahncke Introduction The background The Vienna mandate Problems of conventional stability The negotiations on conventional forces in Europe Negotiations: the first phase The nuclear issue The comprehensive concept Conclusions Notes Part III The role of confidence-building measures 5 Confidence- and security-building measures: an evolving East–West security regime? Volker Rittberger, Manfred Efinger and Martin Mendler Introduction International regimes and the study of international governance Regime analysis and the study of East–West relations CSBM – a security regime in and for Europe? Towards an explanation of the CSBM regime Impact of the CSBM regime on the security problematique in Europe Conclusions Notes 6 Confidence-building processes – CSCE and MBFR: a review and assessment James Macintosh Introduction The CFE talks/CDE relationship

47

49 58

60 60 60 65 66 68 72 77 81 83 84 87 89 89 91 95 99 101 106 111 113 119 119 120

Contents vii A closer look at CFE–CDE connections CFE/CDE synergy Overview of the MBFR and CSCE processes The MBFR Negotiations on conventional armed forces in Europe The CSCE/CDE process CDE 2 Conclusions Notes

122 125 127 128 130 138 140 143 144

Part IV Public opinion, domestic policies and arms control

163

7 The INF agreement and public opinion in West Germany Hans Rattinger Introduction: all-partisan popular support for an INF agreement Perceptions of the national security environment Credit for the INF agreement and images of the superpowers Attitudes on consequences of the INF treaty Conclusions Notes 8 Towards an anti-nuclear consensus? West Germany, INF and the future of nuclear arms control in Europe Thomas Risse-Kappen Introduction Transatlantic coalition building: INF and West German–American relations Misjudgements on all sides: INF and the national security debate in West Germany Gesamtkonzept, or integrating nuclear deterrence and arms control in post-INF Europe Conclusions Notes 9 Up (or down) on arms: American and Canadian public attitudes in the mid-1980s Don Munton Introduction

165

165 167 172 178 186 189

191 191 193 198 202 206 208

212 212

viii Contents Strategy and arms control Building the model: enemies, capabilities, threat, war and weapons Reconsidering the models: the desirability of superiority Canadian–American differences Conclusions Notes

213 216 228 232 236 238

Part V European arms control in the 1990s

245

10 CFE and the future of Europe Roger Hill and Robin Hay Conventional force reductions and the political environment The complex of European security issues: mid-summer 1990 The current situation and future prospects Notes

247

11 European arms control developments James Macintosh The INF treaty and conventional force arms control The CFE and CSBM negotiations The Vienna CSBM negotiations The negotiations on conventional armed forces in Europe Conclusions Notes

272

Index

303

248 254 267 268

274 277 277 280 286 295

Figures and tables

Figures 9.1 9.2 9.3

Model of American attitudes towards arms control, 1985 Model of Canadian attitudes towards arms control, 1987 Revised model of American attitudes towards arms control, 1985

223 226 231

Proposed ceilings for each alliance Dissensual and consensual conflicts and régime-conductiveness Typology of security issues Helsinki and Stockholm C(S)BM The zero option The double-zero option The military balance The conventional military balance Threat perception Perceptions of the stability of peace in Europe Who made more concessions in INF agreement? Credit for INF agreement Seriousness of United States and Soviet Union about disarmament West European interests in INF negotiations Trustworthiness of Reagan and Gorbachev Relations with the Soviet Union under Gorbachev Remaining American nuclear weapons in Europe The military balance after elimination of INF

69 98 98 100 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 175

Tables 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14

177 177 178 179 181

x Figures and Tables 7.15 7.16 7.17 7.18 7.19 7.20 7.21 7.22 9.1 9.2 9.3

Who benefits from elimination of INF? Effect of the elimination of INF on Western security Effect of the elimination of INF on the American commitment Necessity of nuclear weapons Attitudes towards spending on conventional weapons Attitudes on new SRINF Beliefs about compliance with INF agreement Acceptance of on-site inspection in the Federal Republic of Germany Comparison of American and Canadian attitudes on arms control American perceptions of present and desired USA-USSR military balance Canadian perceptions of present and desired USA-USSR military balance

182 182 183 183 185 186 186 187 220 230 230

Introduction

Any book today on East–West arms control can be guaranteed to have been superseded by events prior to publication. Actions by political, diplomatic, military and financial leaders now seem often to run contrary to the expectations established by post-war European and North Atlantic experience. Important aspects of East–West relations have changed irrevocably, with results which are as profound as they are uncertain. The essays in this volume illustrate the challenges and problems facing analysts in such an environment. Drafted for a conference on Canadian and German perspectives of European arms control held in Toronto, Canada, in the spring of 1988, the essays were revised over the ensuing year. The rapidity of policy developments and of changes in the security milieu, as well as the inconclusiveness of the ongoing arms control negotiations, hindered our ability to engage in constant revision. Rather, a single concluding essay is offered which, among other things, bridges the period through the summer of 1990. These chapters are valuable in providing a critical perspective on arms control issues immediately prior to the dramatic developments in Eastern Europe. They constitute a useful analysis and retrospective on where we were, and much insight into where we might be heading. It is useful to recall that this is not the first phase of superpower détente and arms control efforts in post-war history. Almost 20 years ago, we entered into a period of so-called détente. Then the United States was on the defensive over Vietnam, a situation which eroded confidence in American leadership, while the Soviet Union, in its rise to strategic parity, challenged American global hegemony. From the late 1970s through much of the past decade, the Soviet Union was on the defensive, both externally regarding Afghanistan and the

xii Introduction unravelling of the Warsaw Pact, and internally with its nationalities’ question, its economic restructuring, and its efforts at democratization. The profound changes which occurred during the closing years of the 1980s within Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have been linked to equivalent changes in the East–West political–security environment. New leaders within the Soviet Union and the other countries of the Warsaw Pact have pursued new policies which have altered the international agenda. They have achieved unprecedented international public support for their policies and declared intentions. Negotiated arms control has re-emerged as a principal activity in the effort to build and to consolidate a new East–West relationship. Diplomacy and unilateralism have become ‘relegitimized’, most notably by Gorbachev’s wideranging initiatives. This has become, quite clearly, an important and powerful means for propelling arms control and for removing obstacles to substantial negotiated agreements. These past half-dozen years have made it clear that arms control and strategic thinking do not exist in isolation from each other. Strategic security concepts (especially if divergent within as well as between alliances) do constrain the options and contingent conditions for arms control; that is, cognition does impact upon action. The way we think about strategic security problems structures and preconfigures solutions. The corollary is that successful strategic analysis and policy requires continuously testing the validity of critical security concepts. Thus, new and creative conceptualization has to catch up to a changed reality. Similarly, the structure within which analysis is undertaken, policies are formulated, negotiations are managed, and decisions are implemented, must itself be assessed. Institutions require careful and considered evaluation, for they affect the momentum of ideas and actions. Hence, what is achieved (or not) by arms control has to be seen as a partial function of bureaucratic or organizational politics, both within nations and at the alliance level. In the early 1980s scepticism about the future of arms control as an approach to regulate East–West relations was widespread within the Western alliance. The American administration gave low priority to arms control, SALT II failed to be ratified, negotiations on the limitation of nuclear weapons, both in the European and the strategic arena, were suspended, and after 10 years the Vienna talks about conventional force reductions (MBFR) were at a stalemate. Many analysts and politicians concluded that the attempt to strive for mutually agreed constraints on military postures had failed, that it was fundamentally flawed and

Introduction xiii had lacked a ‘theory’ and a well-defined role within a comprehensive design of Western security policy. The conclusions drawn from such analyses ranged from the advice to abandon completely the quest for negotiated constraints (and rather focus on the need to redesign Western postures) to the assessment that the continuation of arms control processes could in itself make an important contribution to East–West relations, regardless of short-term outcomes. Such disagreement was inspired, of course, by varying interpretations of Soviet intentions, and by different conceptions of the fundamental basis of Western security. The dramatic events of the past few years have contributed to an environment in which the potential for negotiated arms control seemed virtually unlimited. The 1986 Stockholm CCSBMDE accord brought a considerable expansion of confidence-building measures in Europe over the CSCE Final Act of 1975. The December 1987 INF treaty was widely considered to be a breakthrough in that it lead to actual reductions of weapons systems, provided for strongly asymmetrical

reductions,

and

introduced intrusive

verification schemes

previously believed not to be negotiable. And as the last decade closed and the new one began, final communiqués emerging from NATO and WTO meetings, along with announcements from individual leaders, gave witness to further and often substantial changes in strategic doctrine and arms control initiatives. Thus, over only 5 years or so we have moved to a situation where negotiations not only are pursued, but also yield significant and, at times, unanticipated results. Once again, scholarly analysis has been overtaken by events. The rapid changes of the arms control agenda over the past few years make it mandatory to take a sober look at the significance of what has been achieved so far, where the arms control process is currently heading, and what prospects and challenges the Western alliance will face. The issues confronting the alliance as a result of this renewed vigour of negotiated arms control can be analytically divided into six groups, all of which are addressed in the various contributions to this volume. Their important and original achievement is that these problems are not treated in isolation, but that their manifold interactions are fully taken into account. 1 Implications of reducing strategic offensive forces. The proposed ‘deep cuts’ in the strategic arsenals of the superpowers raise a host of difficult questions for the Western alliance. How are they to be defined and verified? What will the

xiv Introduction consequences be for strategic stability, for strategic doctrine and targeting, and especially for the credibility of extended deterrence and of Western nuclear first use? How will NATO cohesion be affected? What will be the requirements for the composition of reduced strategic forces, and how will alternative means of nuclear delivery (especially long-range SLCMs) impinge on the strategic constellation resulting from a START agreement? 2 Linkages between controlling strategic offences and defences. There are two basic scenarios here, the first being that strategic defence (SDI) will serve as a bargaining chip in START, and that the narrow ABM regime will be extended. The more likely (and more complex) scenario is some form of limitation of new strategic defence technologies, but not their prohibition. The issue then is how development and possible deployment of such new defensive capabilities would interact with the reduction of offensive forces, and how North American and European members of the Western alliance would be affected in differential ways, especially as the INF treaty and conceivable further constraints on the European nuclear balance are considered. 3

Implications of the INF treaty. The reactions to the INF treaty in some

European NATO nations have not been reservations. These have mainly revolved about the continued credibility of extended deterrence and of NATO’s strategic doctrine of flexible response. Such concerns need to be analysed and evaluated very carefully in view of the West’s future options regarding nuclear weapons in Europe, which range from modernization and the addition of shortrange INF to a third zero option, and an even further gradual reduction of nuclear weapons in Europe. These experiences and options have to be reviewed carefully not only in terms of their strategic implications, but also in terms of intra-alliance relations and the interests of individual alliance members. 4 Future coventional arms control in Europe. For the European allies this arena has become of utmost importance, since the INF agreement has highlighted the potential relevance of conventional military imbalances between East and West. The two major problems facing the alliance here are the nature of the linkage between further nuclear arms control in Europe and conventional arms control, and the approach to be taken by the West towards the latter after the MBFR experience. Conceptions of removing numerical imbalances (analogous to the INF treaty) compete with proposals to focus more on force structures, and military options, deployments and movements. The choices NATO could take here and their interdependencies need analytical clarification. They will have to

Introduction xv be debated extensively in the future, and the outcomes will be of vital importance for alliance security. 5 Future of confidence-building measures. Before the INF treaty, confidencebuilding measures were almost the only arena where arms control made progress in Europe. It is therefore logical that they have to be considered seriously as a complement or even alternative to the numerical force reduction approach to conventional arms control in Europe. The Western security debate badly needs a comprehensive evaluation of the achievements of confidence-building measures, of their relation and compatibility with numerical constraints, and of their potential for restraining military options and for contributing towards an East– West security regime. 6 The publics’ response to arms control. While the various inventories of public opinion on national security issues in NATO nations have become available during the years of debate over deployment of new Western INF in Europe, research in the relevance of the new thrust of arms control for Western mass publics is still to unfold. The major issues here are to what extent these events have changed the publics’ conceptions, on both sides of the Atlantic, of threat and security, whether they have contributed significantly to the reassurance of public opinion over Western security policies that has often been found to be lacking in earlier years, and what constraints mass attitudes impose on NATO’s options for future defence and arms control priorities. As we moved from the 1980s into the 1990s, the doomsday clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist shifted dramatically from 3 minutes to 6 minutes and then in April 1990 to 10 minutes before midnight. Though uncertainty remains, the pace of concessions and the intensity of East–West negotiations, coupled with the dramatic developments with NATO and WTO, suggest that substantial agreements on both strategic nuclear forces and conventional forces in Europe are likely to be ratified and implemented much sooner than anticipated. The process of German unification, along with the opening of most of the rest of Eastern Europe, requires a fundamental restructuring of the security environment. Whether the CSCE will be an appropriate blueprint or not, it is increasingly evident that both NATO and WTO must adjust – and in a fundamental and substantial manner – to the changing realities of the continent. Mr Gorbachev has confronted the West with the greatest challenge and opportunity it has faced since the Second World War. Part of the response must be thorough and unconstrained examination of Western security interests and

xvi Introduction how best the alliance can address this profound challenge. A prerequisite is a sober assessment of East–West arms control, where it is heading, at what costs and for whose benefit? This collection of essays makes a modest effort at addressing those concerns.

Acknowledgements

The conference which generated the first drafts of all but the last chapter was organized by the Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, with the co-operation of the Centre for International and Strategic Studies, York University. Professor John Kirton, Director of Research at CIS, handled the arrangements of the Toronto meeting as part of his larger programme of symposia leading up to Toronto’s hosting of that year’s Western Economic Summit. For that, as well as for continued support as we moved slowly towards publication, we offer him our thanks. Financial support for this work came from the two research centres as well as from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, from the Department of National Defence’s Military and Strategic Studies Programme, and from the Department of External Affairs. Additional funding was provided by the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and the city of Toronto as part of their overall contribution to the hosting of the seven-power summit. The Toronto Consulate General, Federal Republic of Germany, provided assistance in finalizing arrangements for many of the German participants. We would like to acknowledge their continued help, along with that of their Embassy in Ottawa, in ensuring that German scholars continue to have regular opportunities to share their knowledge and insights with the Canadian community. The manuscript took longer than expected to reach its final version. We thus are most grateful to Mr Roger Hill, Director of Research, Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, who agreed to provide a closing chapter which would bridge the gap between the latest revisions of most of the chapters (mid1989) and when the manuscript went to press (late 1990). The perseverance of our colleagues over the unanticipated delays also is appreciated.

xviii Acknowledgements Finally, we owe our personal thanks to those at the Centre for International and Strategic Studies, York University and at Routledge for shepherding the manuscript through various preparatory stages prior to publication. David Dewitt and Hans Rattinger

Part I Arms control, NATO strategy and alliance politics

1 Strategy, arms control and reassurance: dilemmas in German–American security relations Herbert Dittgen

INTRODUCTION Given the interdependence within the East–West conflict no nation can pursue an autonomous national security policy. Rather, the members of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact are forced to cooperate within their respective alliances, and these two antagonistic alliances must co-operate with one another in at least some limited way. In Europe this system of long-term alliances, combined with the system of mutual nuclear deterrence, has to some extent mitigated the classical security dilemma which results from the lack of any truly enforceable and internationally recognized norm which would prevent nations from attacking each other. The danger of a nuclear war has raised the need for coexistence to a stabilizing imperative. However, the dilemma of nuclear deterrence has taken the place of the classical security dilemma. How can the security of an alliance be based on the threat of using nuclear weapons, when that use itself would be an irrational act? The nuclear dilemma has led not only to a latent conflict within the Western alliance, but in light of the public debate over the continued reliance on nuclear deterrence it has complicated the ability of the West to realize a common defence strategy. Michael Howard defined this relationship between deterrence and reassurance for the Western security policy: The object of deterrence is to persuade an adversary that the cost to him of seeking a military solution to his political problem will far outweigh the benefits. The object of reassurance is to persuade one’s own people, and those of one’s allies, that the benefits of military action, or preparation for it, will outweigh the costs.1 In the era of strategic parity, the relationship between a credible deterrent and the reassurance of the public has become tenuous.

4 NATO strategy and alliance politics The negative political consequences of the deterrence doctrine become especially apparent in German–American relations. Both countries play a pivotal role in the Western alliance: West Germany because of her geographical position and the number of NATO troops stationed there, and the United States because of her function as NATO’s leader and organizer, who supported the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany after the Second World War as part of her containment strategy, and who guarantees the security of Western Europe through her nuclear capability. Because of their key positions in NATO, conflicts between Germany and the United States necessarily lead to a crisis in the Western alliance. Three events from NATO’s recent tumultuous years illustrate the security dilemma inherent in the German–American relationship. The first example concerns the genesis of NATO’s double-track decision. During Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko’s trip to the United States in September 1977, a breakthrough in the SALT talks seemed to have been reached. Prior too then, the West German government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had welcomed negotiations and had described a possible treaty limiting strategic weapons between the United States and the Soviet Union as a contribution towards détente. But a month later, the then Chancellor, in his now famous speech before the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, criticized the exclusion of Soviet SS-20s from consideration at the SALT negotiations. Schmidt pointed out that the SS-20s posed a serious threat for Western Europe, but were not being considered in either the SALT or MBFR talks. He explained that: Strategic arms limitations confined to the United States and the Soviet Union will inevitably impair the security of West European members of the Alliance vis-à-vis Soviet military superiority in Europe if we do not succeed in removing the disparities of military power in Europe parallel to the SALT negotiations. So long as this is not the case, we must maintain the balance of the full range of deterrence strategy.2 The failure to include Soviet intermediate-range nuclear weapons into the SALT negotiations and the Soviet Union’s refusal to forego modernization led to NATO’s adoption of the double-track decision in December 1979. At the same time NATO worked out a military rationale for the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. It was argued that these weapons were needed to maintain the credibility of NATO’s strategy of flexible response in light of strategic parity. The requirement for an evolutionary adjustment of NATO’s nuclear forces was therefore needed to preserve a regional nuclear deterrent in Europe – to keep Soviet assets at risk – and to allow no gaps in the spectrum of nuclear deterrence. 3 However, to the

Dilemmas in German–American relations 5 public NATO justified its decision solely on the threat posed by new Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles. Seven years later, after years of fruitless negotiations, Soviet intransigence, and an unprecedented public debate in West Germany concerning NATO’s security policies, President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met for their second summit at Reykjavik. Although no agreement was reached then, the breakthrough needed for a later INF treaty occurred. At Reykjavik, the United States accepted a Soviet offer to endorse a version of the global zero option for American and Soviet INF missiles that was first proposed by the United States in 1981. At the same time, it was learned that Gorbachev and Reagan came very close to their frequently expressed goal of a world free from nuclear weapons. According to reports only the American insistence on the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) had prevented an agreement on the elimination of all offensive strategic weapons. The revelation of this near accord shocked Western Europe, as the United States had not informed her NATO allies of such a far-reaching goal, let alone consulted them.4 It also elicited a series of contradictory reactions. Officially, NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) supported the United States’ policy: We extended our warm appreciation to the President on his conduct of the talks and fully endorsed his bold attempt to seek far-reaching arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. We fully endorsed the President’s programme presented in Iceland and stressed that his programme provides the opportunity for historic progress.5 However, the goal of eliminating all ballistic missiles was not mentioned in any NATO communiqué. Similarly, the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl announced his public support for President Reagan. At the same time, during his visit to Washington shortly after the Reykjavik summit he expressed his concern about the Soviet Union’s conventional superiority in Europe, adding that ‘NATO’s strategy would be deprived of its credibility if sharp reductions in nuclear weapons were taken in isolation’.6 In actuality, the proposal to eliminate all offensive nuclear weapons in Reykjavik caused a shock wave in the governments of the European allies because the elimination of these nuclear weapons would destroy the basis of NATO’s strategy of flexible response. Yet, the proposals awakened hopes in the public that the elimination of this very same nuclear threat suddenly seemed possible.7 An observer remarked: ‘We got into an absurd situation, where everyone in the alliance is saying exactly the opposite of what he thinks’.8 One year later the INF treaty was signed at Reagan and Gorbachev’s third summit in Washington. The treaty called for the total elimination of all ground-launched

6 NATO strategy and alliance politics missiles with a range between 500 and 5500 km and for the first time included farreaching on-site verification procedures. Measured by NATO’s publicly proclaimed goals in its 1979 double-track decision, this treaty was a powerful and unexpected success for the alliance. All of NATO’s demands had been met. Accordingly, the American administration praised the INF treaty: ‘Historians may come to see the INF experience as one of NATO’s finest hours’.9 The administration not only emphasized the treaty’s political success, but also its contribution to Western security: ‘The INFTreaty strengthens U.S. and allied security’.10 Former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, however, came to a much different conclusion: The most valid argument for placing American medium-range missiles in Europe was to couple the defence of Europe and the defense of the United States in some organised manner. This coupling is being destroyed by what is now being negotiated.11 Although the West German government praised the INF treaty as a contribution to peace and as a victory for its own policies, the former Director of the Planning Staff of the German Ministry of Defence shared Kissinger’s view: With the loss in escalation control implicit in the capabilities sacrificed in the INFTreaty – the now ‘missing rungs’ in the escalation ladder – the Alliance must come to terms with the fact that the credibility of ‘first use’ of nuclear weapons, heretofore a pivotal aspect of the NATO deterrent, has been compromised.12 Not only did the official and internal assessments of the INF treaty contradict each other, but further steps in arms control negotiations have been controversial. The United States had demanded a modernization of the remaining short-range nuclear weapons in accordance with the NATO decision at Montebello, while a fight has broken out both within and between the governing parties in Bonn about the necessity of modernization and the desirability of a third zero option. This chapter examines where these apparent difficulties in defining a common German–American security policy lie. It argues that in the era of strategic parity West Germany and the United States no longer agree as to the meaning of NATO’s strategy of flexible response or the proper means that must be pursued to maintain it. Therefore, internal strategic considerations and official explanations of the Western security policy now differ substantially from each other. These contradictions in security policy negatively affect the internal consensus and accentuate the dilemmas of German–American security policy.

Dilemmas in German–American relations 7 The argument will be developed in three steps. First it will be shown that the West German and American interpretation of NATO’s strategy of flexible response differ substantially due to different concepts of deterrence, and that these different concepts affect the respective evaluations of force requirements and force assessments. The second step then demonstrates how the disagreement over military strategy hampers a common German–American approach towards arms control negotiations. Third, this chapter considers how conflicts between German and American military security policy undermine domestic West German support for NATO policy, which in turn places serious constraints on the conduct of a common Western security policy. The conclusion will place the transatlantic debate over military strategy in the perspective of the actual force structure and the political requirements of a new era in East–West relations. TWO INTERPRETATIONS OF NATO STRATEGY: DEFENCE VS PUNISHMENT The differing interpretations of NATO’s strategy of flexible response again were evident in the reaction to the report issued by a commission President Reagan established to look at long-term US foreign policy and security needs. Considering the membership of the commission, which included Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, General John W. Vessey, Samuel P. Huntington, and co-chairs Fred C. Ikle and Albert Wohlstetter, its findings, published in early 1988, were clearly significant. It recommended emphasis on a wider range of contingencies than the two extreme threats that have long dominated the US alliance policy and force planning: the massive Warsaw Pact attack on Central Europe and an all-out Soviet nuclear attack. By concentrating on these extreme cases, US planners tend to neglect attacks that call for discriminating military responses and the risk that in such situations some allies might opt out. The defence of Western Europe and the defence of American interests abroad cannot rely on threats which could provoke the annihilation of that which is supposedly being defended. Instead the report demanded effective military responses which would limit destruction.13 The explicit renunciation of the West European and West German interpretation of the strategy of flexible response led to a strong reaction among the United States’ alliance partners. The incriminating section of the report stated: The Alliance should threaten to use nuclear weapons not as a link to wider and devastating war – although the risk of further escalation would still be there – but mainly as an instrument for denying success to the invading Soviet forces.14

8 NATO strategy and alliance politics The West Europeans answered by arguing that the foundations of the alliance would be destroyed if the common risk guaranteed by the coupling of European and American security was abandoned. Due to NATO’s conventional inferiority the notion that the alliance could defeat, or at least fight, Soviet troops to a stalemate without resort to nuclear weapons was not only impossible, but also unacceptable because Europe would then lie in rubble.15 The apparent conflict over the function of the nuclear and conventional components within NATO strategy is as old as the strategy itself. In the 1960s this discussion centred around the replacement of the strategy of ‘massive retaliation’ through the strategy of ‘flexible response’.16 Under the condition of strategic nuclear parity in the early 1970s the United States shifted to a nuclear doctrine of flexible options. This doctrine calls for a war-fighting military posture which in turn places in question the idea of transatlantic nuclear risk sharing. The obstacles in forming a common German–American security policy must be seen in light of the evolution of US military strategy. US NUCLEAR DOCTRINE AND NATO’S STRATEGY In the early 1970s the Nixon administration began a two-fold reform of American foreign policy. First they wanted to limit the United States’ global responsibilities without threatening her vital foreign policy interests. This implied the assumption of more regional security responsibilities for her allies. Second, military strategy had to be adapted to the new condition of strategic nuclear parity. Already, in his first foreign policy address to Congress in January 1970, President Nixon based the necessity of a new doctrine in the form of a hypothetical question: Should a President, in the event of a nuclear attack, be left with the single option of ordering the mass destruction of enemy civilians, in the face of certainty that it would be followed by the mass slaughter of Americans? Should the concept of assured destruction be narrowly defined and should it be the only measure of our ability to deter the variety of threats we may face?17 In place of the old ‘mutually assured destruction’ doctrine, with its irrational and destructive consequences, under the direction of Defence Secretary James Schlesinger the new concept of ‘realistic deterrence’ was substituted. The new doctrine appeared as a national security memorandum (NSDM-242) in January 1974.18 Deterrence strategy would now be based on concrete and explicit warfighting plans which replaced the old uncertainty about how the United States would react in case of a conflict. This assumed that nuclear weapons could be used for a

Dilemmas in German–American relations 9 specific goal and that a limited nuclear war is feasible. In case deterrence failed, the President, according to the new operation plans (SIOP), would have more options available to him than the choice between surrender and self-destruction. With the newly formulated strategy of ‘Limited Nuclear Options’, new steps were created in strategic confrontations that were lower than an all-out nuclear retaliation. The main objective now was to contain the conflict at a lower level (intra-war deterrence) and, having a deterrent appropriate for each level, to terminate the conflict.19 The new US strategy assumed that its ability to carry out effectively limited nuclear war-fighting would make clear to the other side that they could not successfully wage war. This deterrence doctrine, which rests on credible defence options, necessarily had clear ramifications on NATO force requirements. The strategy of flexible response adopted by NATO provides for a range of possible military responses to aggression, depending on the circumstances. It commits NATO to respond initially to any aggression, short of a general nuclear attack, with a direct defence at the level of force – conventional or nuclear – chosen by the aggressor and to conduct a deliberate escalation if the direct defence could not contain the aggression and restore the situation and, finally, to initiate a general nuclear response in the event of a major nuclear attack.20 NATO strategy explicitly includes the option of first use of nuclear weapons, but it remains unclear as to when that option would be applied. It does not detail how the alliance would react to specific forms of enemy attack.21 This ambiguity can be seen as increasing the deterrent effect.22 But it also provides the United States and her European allies with the necessary margin for different interpretations which naturally arise from their different geographic security interests. The different interpretation of the flexible response strategy in West Germany and in the United States is manifested in their respective appraisals of the role of NATO’s tactical nuclear weapons. Under the strategy of massive retaliation, they were primarily a component of the strategic forces of the United States. However, with the adoption of the strategy of flexible response, these weapons acquired central importance for the strategic unity of the alliance. NATO strategy explicitly considers the possibility that deterrence can fail. Therefore, both the United States and West Germany accept the first use of nuclear weapons, although for different reasons. For West Germany, the tactical nuclear weapons and their possible use are most important because they couple her security closely with that of the United States. In the United States these weapons are seen as the means to end a war, in case deterrence should fail. It is not in the American interest to allow a conflict in Europe to escalate to the strategic nuclear level.23 The consequences of strategic nuclear parity and the new American nuclear

10 NATO strategy and alliance politics strategy for the West European allies were first discussed in the American defence community and the American Congress. For example, Fred C. Ikle wrote in a 1973 article for Foreign Affairs: Meanwhile, some of our allies have come to regard our nuclear forces based on their soil as the most tangible symbol committing our entire deterrent forces to their defence, so that our former technological reason for overseas basing has been replaced by a political one. In the midst of the incompatibility between our nuclear strategy for NATO and our global deterrence policy, our so-called ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons – also a legacy of a bygone era – introduce yet another anachronism of obsolete posture and technology.24 In 1974 Senator Sam Nunn then published a very influential report entitled ‘Policy, troops, and NATO alliance’. His analysis at that time still has validity for the present transatlantic discussion: It is clear that in a period of strategic nuclear parity between the United States and Russia, the credibility of using nuclear weapons against a conventional attack is substantially reduced. Thus, nuclear deterrence of major conventional attack has been weakened by overall nuclear parity. This places more reliance on effective conventional forces to stop and contain a conventional attack, or to require that the conventional attack be so large and overwhelming as to demand the use of nuclear weapons.25 He went on to say that leading West German officials did not share this conclusion. They preferred a low nuclear threshold out of political and strategic considerations: Some German representatives view U.S. forces as a necessary ‘big bell’ which would bring nuclear weapons into use early near the border, and thus achieve the German goal of avoiding the specter of the populated and industrial areas of West Germany becoming either a nuclear wasteland, or a conventional battleground.26 His report essentially called for a raising of the nuclear threshold through the European allies, and especially West Germany’s improvement of conventional defence capabilities. At the same time he recommended a strengthening of the conventional forces of the alliance, and demanded a reappraisal of the tactical nuclear force posture. The Nunn Amendment required a report from the Secretary of Defence explaining the purpose of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and providing a detailed justification for their deployment.27

Dilemmas in German–American relations 11 The American State Department held the view that discussion of fundamental NATO problems would be too sensitive and politically dangerous.28 The Congressional initiative, under the leadership of Senator Nunn, that became law with the Defence Authorization Bill, gave Defence Secretary James Schlesinger the opportunity to deal with some of the basic questions about NATO defence that had already been raised in both the Pentagon and the State Department. The answer of the Defence Department – the so-called Schlesinger Report – basically supported the analysis of Senator Nunn: During the 1970s the Soviets achieved overall parity in strategic forces with the United States. The threat of mutual annihilation limits the range of hostile actions which can be deterred by strategic forces and places more emphasis on the deterrent roles of theatre nuclear and conventional forces. Even during a generation of great U.S. strategic nuclear superiority, the theatre nuclear and conventional forces had important roles to play. Now, in the era of strategic equivalence, their importance has further increased.29 The report’s view that strategic nuclear weapons have only limited deterrence value for a Soviet aggression in Europe led, among others, to the following proposals: 1 Modernization and improvement of NATO’s conventional forces, to provide improved deterrence and defence against conventional attacks. 2 Structuring of NATO’s theatre forces to improve survivability, provide for greater military effectiveness in combined conventional–nuclear conflict, improve command and control, reduce collateral damage, and increase the security of nuclear weapons in peacetime.30 The American concept of deterrence based on the ability to defend requires forces which are at least equivalent to the Warsaw Pact at all levels of military engagement. However, the inferiority of NATO’S conventional and tactical nuclear forces would lead to the necessity of escalation in the event of a conflict. This contradicts the most important goal of ending a war. The most important criteria for the evaluation of forces are therefore their military effectiveness: survivability, flexibility and operational control. In West Germany, the discussion about NATO strategy was always determined by a basic dilemma that is mostly due to her geography. A nuclear defence of West Germany most certainly would lead to her destruction. On the other hand, a protracted conventional defence, especially conducted according to the principle of border defence, would also be destructive and probably impossible.31 Therefore, West

12 NATO strategy and alliance politics Germany views nuclear weapons primarily as a political instrument to influence the risk calculations of the Soviet Union. In particular, nuclear weapons in Western Europe should signal NATO’s ability and willingness to escalate in case of a conflict, and with this the strategic unity of the alliance. The West German Ministry of Defence’s White Paper put it this way: ‘The deterrence effect of the NATO triad depends on the inter linkage for escalation of its components’.32 In this view nuclear weapons do not serve war-fighting purposes, rather they are supposed to make their risk incalculable for the enemy: The first-use of nuclear weapons is less important for its military effectiveness than for its political effects’.33 In contrast, the Schlesinger Report concluded that one of the significant changes since 1967 when NATO adopted the strategy of flexible response was ‘the evolution of U.S. doctrine for employing nuclear weapons, the termination of war on terms acceptable to the United States and its Allies at the lowest feasible level of conflict’.34 American nuclear strategy, in its further development, has not changed the functional determination for nuclear weapons in the defence of Europe. With the National Defence Authorization Act FY 1988–9 Congress requested that the Secretary of Defence should discuss how INF missile withdrawal relates to the Alliance’s flexible response strategy. The Defence Department’s report concluded that: ‘If deterrence failed NATO forces would seek to deny the enemy’s military objectives and terminate any conflict quickly – restoring deterrence at the lowest level of violence consistent with NATO’s objectives’.35 It is difficult if not impossible to reconcile the American strategy of ‘war termination’ with the West German preference for escalation strategy. Thus, despite West German support for NATO’s programmes to strengthen the conventional forces in the 1980s, the basic conflict over the role of nuclear weapons in NATO strategy remained. STRATEGY AND FORCE REQUIREMENTS The different interpretations of NATO’s military strategy necessarily lead to different evaluations of force requirements and force assessments.36 The decision of NATO to deploy new intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe illustrates this. The origin of NATO’s double-track decision presents a complicated amalgam of strategic considerations and alliance politics as well as domestic politics. The history of the decision does not need to be sketched out again.37 Important for our consideration is how the different interpretations of strategy have moulded the perception of Western Europe’s security. Initially, the Carter administration did not respond to Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s concern about the threat posed to Western Europe by the Soviet SS20s. However, given the West German interpretation of NATO’s strategy of flexible

Dilemmas in German–American relations 13 response, the Soviet SS-20s were accordingly seen as a threat, decoupling the security of Western Europe from that of the United States. With strategic parity, the Soviet Union had achieved the ability to threaten Western Europe with intermediate-range nuclear forces and, at the same time, neutralize the strategic potential of the United States.38 NATO’s ability to escalate no longer existed and therefore could no longer deter the Soviet Union from using her nuclear capabilities or from potentially blackmailing Western Europe with them. In contrast, according to the version of flexible response as a war-fighting strategy, the new Soviet intermediate-range nuclear weapons were not that threatening for the security of the Alliance. Defence Secretaries Rumsfeld and Brown argued, like Schlesinger before them, that even under the aegis of SALT, the cental US nuclear systems and the SLBMs assigned to SACEUR would still be sufficient to eliminate all the Soviet weapons systems of strategic importance to NATO.39 From this perspective an escalation strategy shaped in the era of US nuclear superiority had lost its military meaning. From the American viewpoint NATO would be militarily worse off, not better, if it ascended the nuclear escalation ladder.40 Therefore, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff supported the ‘double-zero option’ on Euromissiles. Their concern was not the nuclear decoupling, rather the lack of NATO’s conventional capabilities, which lowers the nuclear threshold and thereby raises the risk of general escalation.41 THE PUBLIC DEBATE OVER NATO’S STRATEGY It was no one less than former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who questioned the rationale of NATO’s double-track decision, even before the final decision in Brussels came about. With that, he opened the public debate about NATO strategy of flexible response. In his speech at a Brussels conference on the future of NATO, he shocked the West Europeans by asserting that the United States could really implement her constantly repeated promise to provide a nuclear guarantee for the security of Western Europe because it would be absurd to base American strategy on the threat of mutual destruction. And therefore I would say – what I might not say in office – that our European allies should not keep asking us to multiply strategic assurance that we cannot possibly mean or if we do mean, we should want to execute because if we execute, we risk the destruction of our civilization. Our strategic dilemma is not solved by verbal reassurance, it requires redesigning our forces and doctrine.42 The European reaction ranged from annoyance to consternation. Karl Kaiser,

14 NATO strategy and alliance politics Director of the West German research institute ‘Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Auswaertige Politik’, blamed Henry Kissinger for contributing to the psychological decoupling of Western Europe from the United States. He stated that ‘the contradiction of planning to use nuclear weapons in order to prevent their use must be accepted, because there is no viable alternative’.43 Although Kissinger set off the debate, the ‘no-first-use proposal’ of McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara, George F. Kennan and Gerald Smith, presented in Foreign Affairs in 1982, received more public attention. The four former prominent government officials proposed a formal renouncement of the first use of both tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. They based their proposal on theassumption that any use of nuclear weapons would be untenable. The authors also conceded that a no-firstuse policy would touch upon the core of the transatlantic agreement. German– American security relations especially would be affected: The quite special character of the nuclear relationship between the Federal Republic and the United States is a most powerful reason for defining the relationship with great care. It is rare for one major nation to depend entirely on another for a form of strength that is vital to its survival. It is unprecedented for any nation, however powerful, to pledge itself to a course of action, in defence of another, that might entail its own nuclear devastation. A policy of no-first-use would not and should not imply an abandonment of this extraordinary guarantee – only its redefinition. It would still be necessary to be ready to reply with American nuclear weapons to any nuclear attack on the Federal Republic, and this commitment would in itself be sufficiently demanding to constitute a powerful demonstration that a policy of no-first-use would represent no abandonment of our German ally.44 The strengthening of the conventional component of NATO forces would free them from the necessity of an early use of nuclear weapons. The desired policy of no first use would strengthen Alliance cohesion and also reinforce the trust of the Western public in the defence policies of NATO. The German response to the proposal, given by Karl Kaiser, Georg Leber, Alois Mertes and Franz-Josef Schulze, emphasized that the critical point in the discussion over strategy was not just the prevention of nuclear war, rather the prevention of any war.45 The deterrence effect of NATO strategy is to confront the enemy with an incalculable risk which would stop him from the use or threat of military force. The risk of nuclear destruction has prevented every form of aggression in Western Europe and the coupling of conventional and nuclear weapons has made a war between East

Dilemmas in German–American relations 15 and West unwinnable. A renunciation of the threat of first use of nuclear weapons by the West would jeopardize the strategy of war prevention and the risk of conventional war again would become calculable. The coherence of the Atlantic Alliance rests on the principles of equal risks, the same burdens, and of equal levels of security. It is the indivisibility of the security of the Alliance as a whole that makes deterrence credible. West Berlin, especially, gains its security through the incalculability of the nuclear risk. And the NATO double-track decision was formulated primarily to guarantee the credibility of NATO’s strategy: ‘From the very beginning, the double-track decision was essentially conceived to couple the intercontinental with the Europe-related nuclear weapons force’.46 From the West German point of view, the American nuclear security guarantee is the mainspring of the Atlantic Alliance. The nuclear risk, including the possible use of American strategic weapons, is the only way to deter military aggression or to counter attempts at blackmail. By introducing intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe, NATO tried to guarantee this strategic goal, even under the condition of nuclear parity. RISK SHARING West Germany had faced the risk of conventional and nuclear war since its founding in 1949. In contrast, the risk of nuclear destruction was a new experience for the United States and one that was never accepted as inevitable. Since the War of 1812, when the British sailed up the Potomac and burned the White House, the United States had not been vulnerable to foreign aggression. The issue of risk sharing is also evident in the transatlantic debate concerning the Strategic Defence Initiative of the United States. For the United States SDI holds out the hope to achieve once again a high degree of invulnerability. From the European perspective, a functioning strategic defence capability of the superpowers would remove the strategic basis of flexible response and ‘extended deterrence’, which depend on mutual vulnerability and the principles of equal risks. Ballistic missile defence would save the superpowers from nuclear war and at the same time make Europe safe for conventional war.47 The American demand, constantly reiterated after the introduction of flexible response, that her West European allies improve their conventional defence capabilities served the purpose of keeping the nuclear risk for the United States as small as possible. Accordingly Senator Nunn has demanded: America should not plan and pay for a robust conventional defence, when our allies are planning for and paying for a trip wire strategy. If the nuclear escalators

16 NATO strategy and alliance politics are not eliminated, there is no credible conventional defence, thus NATO’s flexible response is not flexible.48 However, the 1983 West German Defence White Paper dissents from this view: ‘The purely conventional defence of Europe would dissolve the link with the United States strategic potential and so relinquish the strongest tool in deterrence, the one threatening an aggressor with unacceptable damage’.49 The idea of having an autonomous conventional deterrence was always rejected by West Germany. By splitting the unity of nuclear and conventional options into independent deterrents – that means nuclear against nuclear and conventional against conventional – NATO’s military reaction to the Warsaw Pact aggression would become incalculable, therefore increasing the risk of war in Europe, and shifting the burden of war disproportionately on the direct victims of an aggression.50 Even though the government officials of the Western Alliance announce their support for NATO’s strategy of flexible response, the credibility to use nuclear weapons during a solely conventional Warsaw Pact attack remains open. Former US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara declared that nuclear weapons could not serve any military purpose other than preventing the opponent from using his nuclear weapons. He would never have recommended the use of nuclear weapons.51 Henry Kissinger frequently stated that under conditions of strategic parity, the use of American strategic nuclear forces for the defence of Western Europe had become at best questionable, therefore he concluded that West European defensive capabilities needed to be strengthened.52 Helmut Schmidt admitted as well that he, as Commander-in-Chief, was determined, ‘for the (improbable) case of Soviet conventional attack not to abet a Western escalation to nuclear war-fighting’.53 These frank statements by former politicians who carried the primary responsibility for the security of their countries prove the self-deterring effect of nuclear weapons. American criticism about the self-destructive nature of the security guarantee for Western Europe touches the sore point of the Alliance. It began a discussion whose end is not in sight. It also has substantially contributed to the erosion of the West German security consensus. ARMS CONTROL: DETENTE VS DETERRENCE The ending of American military superiority in the 1970s and its replacement with strategic parity represents the most important reason for detente and US arms control efforts.54 Because of the belief that superiority does not necessarily mean greater security, the SALT talks became the central forum for American–Soviet co-operation.

Dilemmas in German–American relations 17 The stabilization of the strategic force relationship always stood at the centre of American interests: equitable limitations on strategic nuclear weapons would strengthen American and Soviet national security by stabilizing the prevailing military relationship of rough equivalence. In the ‘Era of Negotiations’, the United States not only aimed at securing strategic stability through arms control negotiations, but also sought more far-reaching goals. The signing of the SALT I treaty was celebrated by President Nixon as, ‘the beginning of a process that can lead to a lasting peace’.55 The improvement in superpower relations, which was already apparent in the 1960s, had moved the Atlantic Alliance in 1967 to work on a conceptual study about the future tasks of the Alliance. The ‘Harmel Report’ established the doctrine that Western security depends on two pillars: on the ability to deter and defend, and on the willingness for political co-operation with the East. Both elements should complement each other: ‘Military security and a policy of detente are not contradictory but complementary.’56 In this context the possibility of troop reductions was seen as a contribution to effective détente with the East. For West Germany, the Harmel doctrine of defence preparedness and simultaneous pursuit of détente became the backbone of her foreign policy. Arms control was not justified for its military advantages, but rather as a contribution to détente. This explanation corresponded to American statements. ARMS CONTROL OBJECTIVES There has never been agreement in the West, either in theory or in practice, about the specific objectives of arms control. Economic, military and political goals have been carried forward in an unrelated or irreconcilable manner. Furthermore, the history of arms control negotiations shows that expectations linked to these negotiations have not been realized. Instead, a comparison of expectations and practice reveals, that ‘proponents and critics all seem to exaggerate the potential and actual impact of arms control’.57 In any case, arms control and national military strategy should serve the same basic objectives: avoidance of war, limiting damage in the event of conflict, and a limitation on arms races.58 However, due to differing interpretations of the strategy of flexible response, positions on force assessments and force requirements diverge within NATO, and therefore the goals of arms control necessarily diverge. There is neither a common interpretation of NATO strategy, nor a common concept for the different East–West arms control negotiations.59 West Germany is only directly represented at the negotiations to limit

18 NATO strategy and alliance politics conventional forces in Europe (MBFR and now CFE), in the negotiations on confidence-building measures in Europe (CDE) and in the UN Conference on Disarmament for a verifiable worldwide ban on production and development of chemical weapons. At the talks concerning strategic nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons in Europe, West Germany must rely on its consultations with the United States. The negotiations on strategic nuclear weapons and INF demonstrate clearly that the lack of a comprehensive concept for arms control has affected German– American relations negatively. The problem of the credibility of NATO’s strategy of flexible response, given strategic parity, was first recognized in West Germany when the USSR began to extend her intermediate-range nuclear weapons potential, and thereby skirt the principle of parity established by the SALT negotiations. The USSR used the grey area in the SALT negotiations – the exclusion of intermediaterange nuclear weapons – to increase her military threat towards Western Europe. Chancellor Schmidt pointed publicly to the new threat in his London speech. In the light of strategic parity US strategic nuclear weapons now would only have limited efficacy for the defence of Europe. The disparities in Europe in the area of intermediate-range nuclear weapons and conventional weapons now gained added significance. Schmidt demanded consideration of the European security requirement in the arms control negotiations. By ignoring the new Soviet weapons in the American negotiation strategy, the danger developed that different zones of security would emerge within the Alliance.60 However, the Carter Administration gave the SALT talks the highest priority and wanted to defer the question of European-related armaments to a subsequent negotiating round. The fears about a decoupling of Europe from American security, like those expressed by the Chancellor, were not shared by the United States. The West German government had both domestic and foreign policy reasons to support the SALT negotiations. The SPD–FDP coalition hailed the SALT talks as a contribution to détente, and therefore domestically it had to appear supportive of arms control negotiations. The government also feared that any criticism stated in the United States would be used by the opponents of the SALT treaty, thus endangering the ratification of the SALT II treaty by the Senate, which was a requirement for further talks under SALT III, where negotiations about intermediate-range nuclear weapons were to be conducted.61 The SALT negotiating strategy of the United States from 1977 to 1979 led to a deep crisis in German–American relations. The elements of deterrence and détente in NATO’s political strategy were apparently at odds with each other. The NATO double-track decision is also an example of how the lack of a

Dilemmas in German–American relations 19 common understanding of military strategy makes a common arms control concept impossible. If one understands the NATO strategy of flexible response as an escalation strategy, then intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe are necessary to prove to the Soviet Union that a conventional conflict would swiftly escalate into a nuclear conflict which would expand on to Soviet territory. From this perspective, a zero-option was not desirable. Arms control was only complementary to the introduction of longer-range nuclear forces in Western Europe.62 On the other hand, if one assumes that deterrence in Europe is best served by the ability to deny the opponent successful military action on all levels, then the stability of military options in Europe is decisive. In this case, a zerooption is desirable. On both sides of the Atlantic the double-track decision resulted more from the necessity for political reassurance. The consequence was that the rationale for new systems in Europe became clouded.63 NATO limited its justification for the need for new intermediate-range weapons in Europe on the SS-20 threat. Although arms control was only given a complementary character in the consultation of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, with this justification the goal of a zero-option followed naturally. With separate negotiations for the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons and intermediate nuclear weapons in Europe, a new conflict in the Alliance was certain. The unified character of conventional and nuclear forces in the escalation strategy necessitated unified negotiations. The numerical balance is not decisive, rather the possession of credible nuclear options at all levels. Numerical parity, in contrast, leads to the gradual decoupling of the American strategic potential. CONVENTIONAL FORCE REDUCTIONS IN EUROPE The negotiations on the reduction of conventional forces in Europe were also blocked by different objectives. At first, the West Europeans tried to stop the United States from pulling out troops by referring to future negotiations. After the US Congress withdrew this demand, the United States turned the argument back on those NATO states who did not want to increase their outlays for conventional defence. In East and West, the readiness to make significant reductions in the conventional forces was not imminent. The stalemate at the MBFR talks, conducted in Vienna since 1973 over differences on the issue of data exchange and verification, makes this apparent.64 Flexible response as a war-fighting strategy does not allow political or economic utilization of arms control. According to this view the Soviet achievement of nuclear parity requires that the West be able to

20 NATO strategy and alliance politics fight and win a long conventional war with the Warsaw Pact, as well as possess the capability of protecting NATO territory and even of seizing some Warsaw Pact territory at the end of a Pact aggression.65 In light of the Warsaw Pact’s assumed large conventional superiority, mutual reductions would almost be impossible. At most, confidence-building measures could be agreed upon to contribute to the reduced danger of a surprise attack. In contrast, flexible response as an escalation strategy is compatible with goals other than military stability. For example, arms control could be used to pursue economic and political objectives. Conventional inferiority is seen as desirable even by many of the proponents of this view, because it would mean that the risk of an early nuclear escalation would be more likely and thus increase the deterrence effect. Even without the extreme positions outlined here, the chances for a meaningful reduction in conventional forces in Europe are slim, because the principle of forward defence in West Germany does not allow for a substantial reduction of troops in the border area. The retention of the highest possible number of Allied forces in the border areas is the key to effective deterrence.66 However, if the West were to agree upon the necessity of a ‘stalwart conventional defence’, under the geographical and political conditions of NATO this would require that substantial asymmetrical reductions were agreed upon at the new conventional arms talks which cover the extended area from the Atlantic to the Urals. A study by the Rand Corporation concluded that reductions must follow at least a Pact:NATO ratio of 5:1 in combat capability and even higher division ratios.67 A treaty on the basis of such asymmetrical reductions would be singular in the history of arms control. In spite of the willingness of the USSR under Gorbachev to follow new paths of arms control, such a treaty is highly improbable because the West has little to offer in return. For example, although NATO enjoys superiority in the category of aircraft, with the withdrawal of intermediate-range nuclear weapons, it is unlikely that NATO would be willing to include aircraft in negotiations as aircraft will have to assume the tasks performed earlier by the INF missiles.68 The most that can be expected are confidence-building measures which do little to influence military stability. Such a limited goal is, however, compatible with both versions of flexible response. The challenge for NATO will consist in meeting the high expectations that have arisen with the INF treaty and Gorbachev’s new arms control initiatives.69 The experience with the INF treaty and NATO’s double-track decision shows that the policy of the Western Alliance is only successful when military concerns and arms control policy are in harmony on the governmental level and are convincing to the public. The difficulty of uniting different interpretations of strategy and arms

Dilemmas in German–American relations 21 control objectives with political demands will remain a basic problem of German– American relations. DIFFERENCE AND REASSURANCE The American containment strategy in Europe after the Second World War aimed not only at preventing an unlikely Soviet military aggression, but primarily sought to facilitate the political and economic stabilization of Western Europe. A successful democratic and economic rebuilding was supposed to assist the old and new American allies in attaining self-reliance, and thereby frustrate Soviet expansionistic intentions.70 Confidence in the Western policy and the defence willingness and containment of Soviet power were seen as intertwined. George F. Kennan’s characterization of the Soviet threat as a predominantly political– psychologic one has proven itself correct in Europe. A politically united West does not need to fear a Soviet threat or military aggression, given sufficient defence preparedness. An internal consensus and the political cohesion of the Alliance are also prerequisites for successful political co-operation with the Soviet Union. The presence of American troops and the American nuclear umbrella made possible a unique democratic and economic development for West Germany, with close ties to the West. The tensions of the Cold War promoted the internal consensus for a Western orientation in West Germany as well as the development of close political and military co-operation within NATO. After the debate in the 1950s concerning rearmament and the equipping of the Bundeswehr with delivery systems for nuclear warheads, most public criticism about the military basis of Western security faded away and the latter enjoyed widespread support both by the public and by the major political parties. The Berlin Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis have proven the necessity of military defence by the Alliance. Even in the era of détente, the West German Ostpolitik only was feasible because the close ties to the West were never in question. The discussion about specific questions on armaments and military strategy remained within the purview of a small circle of defence experts. A public discussion about NATO’s strategy change and its precarious consequences for the German–American security relationship did not take place. West Germany’s security dilemma was ignored due to the assumption of a still valid security guarantee by the United States.71 With the new ‘Era of Negotiations’ in Soviet–American relations, the threat of the Soviet Union in Europe was seen in a different light. The public ignored that détente with the Soviet Union was based on a military equilibrium because the military threat posed by the Soviet Union seemed remote. There was no necessity

22 NATO strategy and alliance politics for the German government to present the basics of Western security policy in its military aspects to the public. The Ostpolitik of the SPD–FDP government of the 1970s widened West Germany’s room for manoeuvre in foreign policy, without reducing her dependence on the American security guarantee. This lack of awareness concerning West Germany’s security needs affected the security consensus disastrously when military security and détente became contradictory in German–American relations. The Soviet Union’s exploitation of the grey area in the strategic arms control negotiations through her deployment of new intermediate-range nuclear missiles forced the West German government to go public on the issue of military security. It had to demand recognition of the principle of parity by the Soviet Union as well as recognition of European security interests by the United States in her conduct of arms control negotiations. Debate over the fundamentals of West German security policy was precipitated by the discussion within the SPD and the criticism from within the party against its Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt. When Egon Bahr, in a visible and controversial article for the party paper Vorwaerts, called the neutron bomb a ‘symbol of perverted thinking’, the moral legitimacy of nuclear deterrence and the strategy of the Atlantic Alliance were placed in question.72 This debate over nuclear weapons found a public resonance because of the already existing sensitivity concerning the use of atomic energy. The NATO double-track decision was the event that caused further discussion about nuclear deterrence and its possible alternatives. Owing to the opposition within his own party the Chancellor was put in the difficult position of having to rely on the support of the opposition parties to implement the NATO double-track decision. With the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the imposition of martial law in Poland, a dramatic deterioration in East–West relations occurred. Some factions within the peace movement and within the SPD argued that both superpowers were equally responsible for the worsening of relations. A few went so far as to say that the policies of the United States were actually the greater danger to world peace. The confrontational rhetoric of President Reagan heated up these anti-American sentiments. Misleading and careless statements by members of the new administration about the possibility of a limited nuclear war in Europe added to West German fears and sharpened internal conflicts.73 Even Helmut Schmidt compared the crisis in relations between the superpowers with the situation before 1914.74 The critical turn in the East–West relationship in the early 1980s showed that West Germany’s room for manoeuvre in foreign policy was limited and out of loyalty West Germany was forced to join the American economic sanctions against

Dilemmas in German–American relations 23 the Soviet Union. This caused many Social Democrats to envisage a new security order in Europe, as if West Germany could remove itself from the East–West conflict. This discussion led some foreign observers, particularly the United States, to believe that West Germany was on the path to neutralism. The talk about the ‘self-Finlandization of the Federal Republic of Germany’ made the rounds in the United States. The West German attempt, despite the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the introduction of martial law in Poland, to continue to pursue a policy of détente, along with its reluctant and limited participation in the sanctions demanded by the United States, reinforced this impression.75 A strange coalition of conservatives in the United States and leftists in West Germany questioned the basis for the Western Alliance, though for different reasons.76 The concern that the heated debate in West Germany raised was largely unfounded. Opposition to the double-track decision was also largely unfounded. Polls showed that a Western orientation and NATO membership were still supported by a large majority of the public.77 The reservations expressed by political activists, inside and outside the party, and in published opinions against the United States and the NATO alliance, did not correspond to the opinion of the majority of the population. Even clearer than the polls, the election of March 1983 showed that the security policies of the Atlantic Alliance, to the extent that they were important for political consciousness and orientation, found great support in the West German population. The landslide victory for the coalition of CDU/CSU and FDP, which had clearly stated its support for deployment in case the negotiations in Geneva failed, was a clear sign. The SPD, which had run the campaign under the slogan ‘in the German interest’ and had clearly distanced itself from its former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s support for both elements of NATO’s double-track decision, suffered a considerable defeat. West Germany’s ties to NATO, which were questioned by a few SPD politicians, found unchanged broad support. The consensus on NATO’s security policy was therefore endangered much more by the SPD than by public opinion. The dissolution of the security consensus within the SPD then had ramifications on the public discussion. Most important, however, conflicts within NATO over security policy substantially undermined Helmut Schmidt’s position within his own party. In 1977 Schmidt had pointed with concern to the threat posed by new Soviet intermediaterange nuclear weapons, while at the time the United States had held on to the belief that the security conditions of Europe had not changed and the American nuclear guarantee had not been affected by this change in force balance. Therefore, it was not surprising that those in the SPD who gave détente priority used the position of

24 NATO strategy and alliance politics the Carter Administration against the preferred policy of their Chancellor. When the American President expressed moral misgivings about the introduction of neutron weapons, German opponents of this weapon adopted his argument as well. When prominent American politicians, who had formerly held responsibility for their nation’s security, placed the credibility of NATO strategy and its moral legitimacy in question, again this reinforced the position of German critics. Finally, when President Reagan justified the Strategic Defence Initiative as an alternative to the immoral strategy of mutually assured destruction, this necessarily damaged West German confidence in NATO strategy and the American security guarantee, which has depended on the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. The conflicts over NATO’s security policy damaged the West German domestic consensus and therefore have made consensus in the Alliance more difficult to reach. The security dilemma, caused primarily by geostrategic factors and the change in the balance of forces, was thereby accentuated. The domestic discussion about security policy drastically limited the freedom of action of the Chancellor and eventually contributed to his fall.78 The divergence of interests in the Alliance had the effect of making security a constant subject in domestic politics. This led not only to further irritations in the German–American relationship, but also to a weakening of West Germany and the Alliance’s position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union could assume that intransigence would strengthen her position and weaken that of the West, and thus negotiations became a battle for West German public opinion.79 But once the deployment had begun and a change had taken place in the West German government, domestic conflicts calmed down. A new round of negotiations could then begin which was oriented to the substance of arms control. The foreign policy consensus which had existed among the major West German parties had been destroyed by the conflict over the deployment of INF missiles. The consequences of this development cannot yet be fully estimated. Michael Howard pointed out that the necessary connection in Western strategy between credible deterrence and reassuring one’s own population is endangered: For an appreciable number of Europeans, what was once seen as the prime requirement of deterrence, that is, the commitment of American power to the defence of Western Europe, no longer provides the political reassurance that it once did; in some respects indeed the exact opposite.80 An analysis of public attitudes on security issues sees the danger of a nuclear war as greater than that of the Soviet threat to Europe.81 More significant is the fact that inside the Alliance, the character of the security guarantee remains unsettled. If the

Dilemmas in German–American relations 25 security guarantee, which is at the core of the transatlantic bargain, is questioned within the Alliance, then it has to lose its reassuring effect for the people it is supposed to protect. These effects of Alliance conflicts on the parties and the public are inevitable and paradoxically are more dangerous for the cohesion of the Alliance than divergences on the governmental level itself. CONCLUSIONS The contradictions and differences in the Western security policy essentially derive from diverging deterrence concepts and strategy interpretations: will aggression by the Warsaw Pact be better deterred by the ability to defend effectively or by the high probability of nuclear destruction of the aggressor’s territory? These interpretations are primarily represented, respectively, in the United States and in West Germany, but the extreme positions, used here for analytical purposes, are usually avoided. The compromise of NATO strategy, which allows both views, does not have to be a disadvantage for deterrence purposes. On the contrary, as Michael Legge wrote . . .for the strategy to be credible it must not only be capable of conveying the desired message in the peacetime so as to avoid a conflict occurring at all (prewar deterrence) but also, should it fail in this fundamental purpose, then it must still offer the prospect of terminating the conflict at the lowest level (intra-war deterrence).82 But the ambiguity of NATO strategy negatively affects the ability of the Alliance to form a common military and arms control policy which can also find broad support at home. As was shown, the lack of agreement on military strategy allows no formulation of a common concept for arms control. The necessity of demonstrating unity leads to contradictions which do not stay hidden to the public. These contradictions confuse the domestic public, and raise the danger that Western governments lose the political support necessary to maintain realistic security policies.83 Ever since the adoption of the strategy of flexible response by NATO the conflicting views over the purpose of deterrence in German–American relations have strained the co-operation within the Western Alliance. The conditions of strategic nuclear parity and hence the resulting evolution of US nuclear strategy highlights the difficulties of finding a common approach for NATO’s military policy. In coming of age, NATO’s strategy has lost much of its viability. In recent years the adherence to this strategy was only possible through the acceptance of high political

26 NATO strategy and alliance politics costs at home. The experience with NATO’s double-track decision starkly unveiled these consequences. With the intensified and more public controversies over military strategy on the governmental level, the strategy has also forfeited its objective of reassuring the Western public. The security dilemmas in German–American relations, which are due to geographical and political conditions and the insolvable paradox of nuclear deterrence, will not go away. They are only manageable through prudent Alliance policies. But transatlantic public debates over nuclear strategy, which are especially destructive, reflect political differences more than the military realities in Europe. American experts argue that Western European strategy, if carried out, would result in annihilation, while Europeans charge that a deterrence resting on conventional and nuclear war-fighting capabilities in Europe would also lead to an apocalypse in the event of conflict. Common sense must justifiably draw the conclusion that doom is inevitable in any case. This kind of discussion is the surest way to rob NATO strategy of its legitimacy and to increase the alienation between the United States and West Germany. Furthermore, this discussion of NATO’s declared strategy is only vaguely related to the actual structure of NATO’s forces. The conventional defence capabilities of NATO are not so inferior that a conflict would inevitably lead to nuclear escalation and destruction, as many fancy brochures argue for political reasons.84 On the other hand, the Soviet Union cannot be sure that a conflict will be limited to her European perimeter and that the use of nuclear weapons on her territory is ruled out. This would be the prerequisite for a war limited to Europe, as is feared in West Germany. Finally and most important, one must remember that military strategy is only a part of a comprehensive political strategy. A Western failure to find a common and convincing political answer to Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’ will have a much more serious long-term deleterious effect on the future of German–American relations than the academic debate over NATO strategy. NOTES

1 Howard, Michael (1982/3) ‘Reassurance and deterrence: Western defence in the 1980s’, Foreign Affairs 61:2: 317. 2 Schmidt, Helmut (1978) ‘The 1977 Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture’, Survival 20:1: 4. 3 See Ruehl, Lothar (1987) Mittelstreckenwaffen in Europa. Ihre Bedeutung in Strategie, Ruestungskontrolle und Buendnispolitik, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, pp. 170–1.

Dilemmas in German–American relations 27 4 For an account and analysis of the summit see: Haley P. Edward, (1987) ‘You could have said: Lessons from Reykjavik’, Orbis 31:1: 75–97, and Yost, David S. (1987) ‘The Reykjavik summit and European security’, SAIS Review 7:2: 1– 22. 5 Communiqué, Meeting of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, 21–22 October 1986, Gleneagles. 6 Quoted in: The Reykjavik Process: Preparations for and Conduct of the Iceland Summit and its Implications for Arms Control Policy. Report of the Defence Policy Panel of the Committee on Armed Services House of Representatives, 99th Congress, 2nd Session, January 1987, p. 16. 7 See Ruehl, op. cit., pp. 349–371, and Kaiser, Karl (1986) The NATO strategy debate after Reykjavik’, NATO Review 34:6: 6–13. 8 Robert O’Neill, director of the IISS, (1986) quoted in: Sullivan, Scott ‘Reykjavik whiplash’, Newsweek 10 November, p. 44. 9 Secretary of State George P. Schultz, (1988) Statement before the Committee on Foreign Relations, The INF Treaty, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 100th Congress, 2nd Session, 25–28 January, part 1, p. 15. 10 ibid., p. 11. 11 Kissinger, Henry (1987) ‘After Reykjavik: Current East–West negotiations’, The San Francisco Meeting of the Trilateral Commission, March, New York: The Trilateral Commission, p. 8. 12 Ruehle, Hans (1988) ‘NATO strategy: The need to return to basics’, Strategy Review 16:4: 33. 13 Ilke, Fred C. and Wohlstetter Albert, (Co-Chairmen) (1988) Discriminate Deterrence, Report of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy, January, p. 2. 14 ibid., p. 30. 15 Howard, Michael, Kaiser Karl, and de Rose François (1988) ‘Differenzierende Abschreckung’, Europa-Archiv 43:5: 129–31. 16 See, for example, Stromseth, Jane E. (1988) The Origins of Flexible Response. NATO’s Debate over Strategy in the 1960s, Houndsmills: Macmillan. 17 Nixon, Richard M. (1970) ‘U.S. foreign policy for the 1970s – A new strategy for peace’, Report to the Congress, vol. 1, Washington, DC, p. 122. 18 See Garthoff, Raymond L. (1986) Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, p. 417. 19 See Report of the Secretary of Defence to Congress on the Fiscal Year 1975

28 NATO strategy and alliance politics Budget and the FY 1975–1979 Defence Program, 4 March 1974, and Davis, Lynn E. (1975–6) Limited Nuclear Options. Deterrence and the New American Doctrine, Adelphi Papers, no. 121, London: IISS. 20 See Legge, J. Michael (1983) Theatre Nuclear Weapons and the NATO Strategy of Flexible Response, Report R-2964-FF, Santa Monica, CA : Rand Corporation, April, p. 9. 21 See Sinnreich, Richard Hart (1975) ‘NATO’s doctrinal dilemma’, Orbis 19:2: 461–76. 22 This is the view most commonly held in West Germany. The German White Paper of 1983 put it this way: ‘The flexibility planned into NATO defence, the continuum of deterrence required, and the striven for incalculability of risk, are closely associated. NATO cannot confine itself to meeting every possible form of aggression solely with identical means. Any such defence planning would make the NATO type of response predictable and, consequently, the risk to the aggressor calculable.’ Bundesministerium der Verteidigung, Weissbuch 1983, Bonn, p. 147. 23 See Legge, op. cit., p. 10. 24 Ikle, F. C. (1973) ‘Can nuclear deterrence last out the century?’ Foreign Affairs 51:2: 278. 25 US Senate, Policy troops and NATO alliance. Report of Senator Sam Nunn to the Committee on Armed Services, 2 April 1974, p. 14. 26 ibid., p. 3. 27 US Senate, FY 1976 and July–September 1976, Transition Period Authorization for military Procurement, Research, and Civilian Personnel Strength, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 94th Congress, 1st Session, 6, 7, 14, March 1975, S. 2218. 28 See Cotter, D. R. Hansen, J. H. and McConnell, K. (1976) ‘Das nukleare Kraefteverhaeltnis in Europa. Stand, Entwicklungen Folgerungen’, ProPace. Beitraege und Analysen zur Sicherheitspolitik, Bonn: Deutsches StrategieForum, p. 30. 29 The ‘Schlesinger report’ is published in an abridged form under the title ‘The theatre force posture in Europe’, reprinted in Pranger, Robert J. and Labrie, Robert P. (1977) Nuclear Strategy and National Security. Points of View, Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, p. 168. 30 ibid., p. 170. 31 See Nerlich, Uwe (1965) ‘Die nuklearen Dilemma der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’, Europa-Archiv 29:17: 644. 32 Bundesministerium der Verteidigung, Weissbuch 1975/1976, p. 22.

Dilemmas in German–American relations 29 33 ibid., p. 51. 34 ‘The theatre nuclear force posture in Europe’, op. cit., p. 173. 35 ‘Support of NATO strategy in the 1990s’, Report by the Department of Defence, reprinted in: US Senate, The INF-Treaty, Hearings before the Committee of Foreign Relations, 100th Congress, 2nd Session, 22–24 February and 3 March 1988, part 4, p. 317. 36 The classical study on this subject is Snyder, G. H. (1961) Deterrence and Defence: Towards a Theory of National Security, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 37 For the history of the ‘double-track decision’ see Schwartz, David N. (1983) NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, and Thomson, James A. (1984) ‘The LRTNF decision: Evolution of U.S. theatre nuclear policy 1975–79’, International Affairs 40:4: 601–14. 38 Helmut Schmidt said in his speech at the IISS: ‘SALT codified the nuclear strategic balance between the Soviet Union and the United States. To put it another way: SALT neutralizes their strategic nuclear capabilities. In Europe this magnifies the significance of the disparities between East and West in nuclear tactical and conventional weapons.’ The 1977 Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture, pp. 4–5. 39 See Ruehl, op. cit., p. 174. 40 For this argument see the new book by the former US NATO ambassador: Abshire, David M. (1988) Preventing World War III. A Realistic Grand Strategy, New York: Harper & Row, p. 92. 41 See the statement of Admiral William J. Crowe Jr, USN, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in his testimony before the Armed Services Committee in the hearings on the INF treaty. US Senate, U.S. Defence and the INF-Treaty. Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 100th Congress, 2nd Session, 25–27 January 1988, part 1, p. 47. 42 Kissinger, Henry (1980) ‘The future of NATO’, in Kenneth A. Myers (ed.) NATO the Next Thirty Years: The Changing Political, Economic and Military Setting, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 7–8. 43 Kaiser, Karl (1979) ‘Kissingers Breitseite. Zu seinen Bruesseler Thesen gegen die gueltige Strategie’, Vorwaerts 13 September, p. 16. 44 Bundy, McGeorge, Kennan, George F., McNamara, Robert S., and Smith, Gerald (1982) ‘Nuclear weapons and the Atlantic Alliance’, Foreign Affairs 60:4: 759. 45 Kaiser, Karl, Leber, Georg, Mertes, Alois, and Schulze, Franz-Josef (1982) ‘Nuclear weapons and the preservation of peace: A German response to no first use’, Foreign Affairs 60:5: 1157–70.

30 NATO strategy and alliance politics 46 ibid., p. 1166. 47 See Hanrieder, Wolfram F. (1988) ‘Strategic defence and the German– American security connection’, Journal of International Affairs 41: 2: 247–68. 48 Nunn, Sam (1987) ‘NATO’s challenges and opportunities: A three-track approach’, NATO Review 35:3: 4. 49 Bundesministerium der Verteidigung, Weissbuch 1983, p. 147. 50 See Mack, Hans Joachim (1987) ‘Die Zukunft der NATO. Weichenstellung ins naechste Jahrtausend’, Europaeische Wehrkunde 36:1: 19–28. 51 McNamara, Robert S. (1983) ‘The military role of nuclear weapons: Perceptions and misperceptions’, Foreign Affairs 62:1: 59–80. 52 Kissinger, Henry A. (1982) Years of Upheaval, Boston: Little, Brown, p. 1000. 53 Schmidt, Helmut (1987) Menschen und Maechte, Berlin: Siedler, p. 144. 54 See Garthoff, op. cit., pp. 53–68. 55 ‘Address by President Nixon to the Congress, June 1, 1972’, in (1972) Documents on Disarmament, pp. 251–3. 56 The Future Tasks of the Alliance, Report of the Council, Annex to the Final Communiqué of the Ministerial Meeting, December 1967. 57 For a comprehensive examination of this issue see Carnesale, Albert and Haass, Richard N. (eds) (1987) Superpower Arms Control – Setting the Record Straight, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. 58 Schelling, Thomas C. and Halperin, Morton H. (1985) Strategy and Arms Control, New York: Pergamon, p. 142. 59 See Dean, Jonathan (1987) Watershed in Europe. Dismantling the East–West Military Confrontation, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 91–222. 60 Schmidt, Helmut ‘The 1977 Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture’, pp. 2–4. 61 For a description of West Germany’s ambivalent attitude towards the SALT negotiations, see SALT and the NATO Allies, A Staff Report to the Subcommittee on European Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, October 1979. 62 See Communiqué of the Special Meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers, Brussels, 12 December 1979, sec. 7, and Thomson, J. A. (1982) Planning for NATO’s Nuclear Deterrent in the 1980s and 1990s, Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, pp. 14–17. 63 See Treverton, Gregory (1981) ‘NATO alliance politics,’ in R. Betts (ed.) Cruise Missiles. Technology, Strategy, Politics, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, pp. 415–41. 64 See Ruehl, Lothar (1982) MBFR: Lesson and Problems, Adelphi Papers, no. 176, London: IISS. 65 See Cordesman, Anthony H. (1988) ‘Alliance requirements and the need for

Dilemmas in German–American relations 31

66 67 68

69

conventional force improvements’, in Uwe Nerlich and James A. Thomson (eds) Conventional Arms Control and the Security of Europe, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 77–102. See Dean, Jonathan ‘Can NATO unite to reduce forces in Europe?’ ibid., pp. 108–20. Thomson, James A. and Gantz, Nanette C. ‘Conventional arms control revisited: Objectives in the new phase’, ibid., pp. 108–20. See Haass, Richard N. (1988) Beyond the INF Treaty, Arms Control and the Atlantic Alliance, CSIA occasional paper series, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, pp. 31–52. See Hans Rattinger’s article in this volume, Chapter 7.

70 See Kennan, George F. (1947) ‘The sources of Soviet conduct’, Foreign Affairs 25:4: 566–83, and Lewis, John, (1982) Postwar American National Security Policy New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 25–88. 71 See Stratmann, K. Peter (1985) ‘Strengthening NATO’s deterrence in the 1980s’, in Uwe Nerlich and James A. Thomson (eds) in The Soviet Problem in American–German Relations, New York: Crane Russak, pp. 273–305. 72 Bahr, Egon (1977) ‘Ist die Menschheit dabei, verrueckt zu werden?’, Vorwaerts 21 :August. 73 An example of these statements is seen in President Reagan’s remark that ‘I could see where you could have the exchange of tactical weapons against troops in the field without it bringing either one of the major powers to pushing the button.’ New York Times 9 August 1981. 74 ‘Angst, das die Sicherungen durchbrennen’, Der Spiegel 21 April 1980. Schmidt’s historical comparison is related to Miles Kahler’s article (1979/80) ‘Rumours of war: The 1914 analogy’, Foreign Affairs 58:2: 374–96. 75 See Brzezinski, Zbignew, (1982) ‘For a broader Western strategy’, Wall Street Journal 19 February and Kissinger, Henry (1981) ‘Something is deeply wrong in the Atlantic alliance’, Washington Post 21 December. 76 See, for example, Kristol, Irving (1983) ‘What’s wrong with NATO?’, New York Times Magazine 25 September 1983, pp. 64–71, and Lafontaine Oskar, (1983) Angst vor den Freunden. Die Atomwaffen-strategie der Supermaechte zerstoert die Buendnisse, Reinbek: Rowohlt. 77 See Rattinger, Hans (1985) ‘The Federal Republic of Germany: Much ado about (almost) nothing’, in Gregory Flynn and Hans Rattinger (eds) The Public and Atlantic Defence, London: Rowman & Allanheld, 101–74. 78 For a description of the dissolution of the SPD–FDP government and Helmut Schmidt’s resignation, see Jaeger, Wolfgang and Link, Werner (1987)

32 NATO strategy and alliance politics

79 80 81 82 83

Republik im Wandel 1974–1982. Die Aera Schmidt, Stuttgart: Brockhaus, pp. 201–51. On the political character of the INF talks see Ruehl, op. cit., pp. 220–3. Howard, op. cit., p. 315. See the concluding in Flynn and Rattinger, op. cit., pp. 365–88. Legge, op. cit., p. 41. See Brown, Harold (1983) ‘Domestic consensus and nuclear deterrence’, in Defence Consensus: The Domestic Aspects of Western Security, Adelphi Papers, no. 183, London: IISS, p. 27.

84 For this argument see the articles by Joshua M. Epstein, Kim R. Holmes, John J. Mearsheimer and Barry R. Posen in (1988) International Security 12:4: 154–202.

2 The political and strategic implications of the INF Treaty for NATO Paul Buteux

The treaty signed between the United States and the Soviet Union in Washington on 8 December 1987, on the elimination of their intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles (INF Treaty), is significant in a number of ways. For a start, it represented the first major American – Soviet arms control agreement in nearly 10 years; second, it was the first substantive outcome of the Geneva ‘Nuclear and Space Arms Talks’; and, third, it was the first nuclear arms control agreement to incorporate a substantial measure of disarmament. The verification procedures that are built into the treaty and its associated protocols were path breaking, and established clear precedents for future arms control agreements. Finally, the adoption of the global ‘zero-zero’ formula for the weapons covered by the treaty linked deployments in Asia and Europe, with consequent implications for American ‘extended deterrence’ postures globally. As will be argued below, this latter aspect of the treaty is compatible with a trend towards the increasing ‘regionalization’ of US security policy. This chapter is concerned primarily with the political and strategic implications of the treaty, rather than with its character as a formal arms control agreement. The position taken here is that the character of any arms control agreement is determined by the political and strategic context in which it is negotiated, and that its significance is determined by the political and strategic consequences that flow from it. From this perspective the INF Treaty is an important one, in that it is both a measure of political and strategic change in NATO, and in East–West relations generally, and an augury of a transformed environment for European security. The Washington Treaty is symptomatic of trends in the East–West strategic relationship that go back a decade or more, and it may be seen as evidence of underlying pressures for political strategic change in the arrangements presently supporting European security.

34 NATO strategy and alliance politics The changes that have occurred in the strategic environment affecting European security are relatively familiar ones. In the nuclear dimension, the evolution of strategic parity since the SALT I agreements of 1972, and the consequent impact on the strategic postures and doctrines of the two superpowers, constitute the key strategic variables affecting the structure of European security. To this, however, must be added developments in the area of European-based ‘theatre’ weapons as well. In short, the combination of changes in the nuclear balance at both the strategic and theatre force levels has undermined many of the strategic ‘verities’ that have underpinned the NATO consensus for many years. On the strategic side, first and foremost, the impact of the INF agreement on the alliance’s strategic concept of flexible response must be considered. This concept, enshrined in NATO document MC 14/3, has proved remarkably resilient to the political and strategic changes that have occurred since its adoption in 1967. None the less, its continued viability as the basis of NATO’s deterrent posture has been increasingly questioned since the late 1970s, and today, not only its strategic credibility, but, more importantly, its political credibility are in doubt. As conceived, flexible response is essentially an escalatory doctrine designed to ensure that deterrence operates across a range of possible military threats to Western Europe. In practice, it has rested on two somewhat contradictory premises: first, that the alliance by exercising escalation control would achieve some military and bargaining benefit from initiating the escalatory process; and, second, that crossing the nuclear threshold would be the first step in an escalatory chain linked to US strategic forces. From the very beginning of its adoption by NATO, flexible response was subject to different, albeit nuanced, interpretations on each side of the Atlantic. For the United States, escalation control was a way of limiting the risks of its nuclear commitment to the European allies. It provided the President with at least the possibility of using nuclear weapons in defence of Western Europe without immediately invoking the unacceptable prospect of a central nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Given the ability to exercise escalation control, flexible response was seen also as a useful diplomatic and crisis bargaining tool within the framework of the East–West balance. For most European countries, however, the essential feature of flexible response was the link it provided with US strategic nuclear forces, and with the deterrent threat that once the nuclear threshold was crossed there was the very great risk that the conflict would escalate to the strategic level. As German spokesmen in particular have constantly reiterated, in

Implications of the INF treaty 35 their view the strategic objective of NATO is to deter all war, rather than to fight it in a controlled fashion should it occur. In essence, these two interpretations of flexible response conform to two different theories of nuclear deterrence. On the one side, deterrence is held to be enhanced by the apparent ability to use and control force at levels short of complete catastrophe; on the other side, deterrence is held to reside in the prospect that once war broke out there would be the risk of uncontrollable escalation taking place.1 Clearly, a theory of deterrence based on the prospect of controlled escalation conformed better to American interests than did one based on ‘the threat that leaves something to chance’; whereas for most Europeans it is the latter approach which has had greatest appeal. In this case the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons lies not so much in the possibility that there are circumstances in which it would be rational to use them, but that even in circumstances in which their use would appear to be irrational, in the event of war the final decision might be, in Schelling’s words, ‘not-altogether under the threatener’s control’.2 It should be noted, however, that in the United States as well there have been powerful advocates of a deterrent posture based on the inherent risk that any use of nuclear weapons could get out of hand. These advocates can be identified with the American school of ‘finite deterrence’.3 The key point about this school of thought though, is that it advocates measures, such as ‘no-first-use’, which are designed to minimize the escalatory link between war in Europe and the use of American nuclear weapons. Any strategy premised on the United States initiating nuclear war is to be ruled out, and measures of command and control should be undertaken which would completely separate nuclear weapons from the regular military command structure. Military planning should proceed on the assumption that nuclear forces in Europe are there simply to threaten demonstrative retaliatory use in the event of Soviet forces crossing the nuclear threshold.4 So far, the views of the ‘finite deterrence’ school have not prevailed; but, on both sides of the Atlantic, there is the growing perception that, in terms both of policy and prudence, the United States in fact is moving towards a posture in which the link between deterrence in Europe and US strategic forces is being weakened. The INF treaty fits this evolving pattern, as does the likely future direction of nuclear arms control in Europe. At the declaratory level, the role of theatre nuclear forces in NATO strategy has been to confront an aggressor with the threat of ‘first use’ in the event that an assault could not be contained by conventional means alone, thus initiating the escalatory process; and, second, of deterring Soviet first use by the threat of

36 NATO strategy and alliance politics retaliation appropriate to the circumstances. What never has been developed is an agreed strategy as to how NATO might in fact fight a nuclear war. Both doctrines of flexible response outlined above rely on the possibility of nuclear escalation for their effect, rather than on the contribution that nuclear weapons might make to defensive military operations. Although, from time to time, there have been discussions in the United States and in the alliance generally about how nuclear forces might be used on the battlefield, in fact an acceptable nuclear war-fighting doctrine has never been developed.5 Claims that the United States is moving towards a nuclear war-fighting posture, as in the ‘neutron bomb’ debate, and in interpretations given to some of the early statements of the Reagan administration, have been at best tendentious and at worst downright falsifications. Though targeting plans for the use of nuclear weapons in Europe exist, these plans do not amount to an operational doctrine for the fighting of a nuclear war. Flexible response is decidedly not ‘Clausewitzian’ in its conception. Rather, in practice, the function of US nuclear weapons in Western Europe has been to bridge the gap between the American view that they are there to make the risks to the United States of extended deterrence bearable, and the European view that they are there to ‘couple’ US forces in Europe with the American strategic deterrent. The rationale for the deployment track of the ‘two-track’ decision of December 1979 lay precisely in this ‘coupling’ function of theatre nuclear weapons. In the light of strategic parity, and of the accompanying growth of Soviet battlefield and intermediate-range nuclear forces, there were concerns expressed that a ‘gap’ in the spectrum of possible NATO responses to aggression was appearing.6 The argument was that in the post-SALT environment the threat to use strategic weapons as a deterrent to Soviet Eurostrategic forces had lost credibility. Thus the decision to deploy ground-launched cruise missiles and Pershing II ballistic missiles was taken in order to reinforce NATO’s deterrent capabilities at the long-range theatre nuclear level. Given parity at the level of strategic nuclear weapons, the significance of the theatre nuclear systems for the alliance’s deterrent posture was enhanced. It can be argued also that the decisions taken at the Montebello meeting of the Nuclear Planning Group, in October 1983, are consistent with this interpretation. It was decided to reduce the NATO nuclear stockpile by a further 1,400 warheads and to consider the modernization of the remaining weapons. Now, not only has the INF treaty undermined the original rationale for the deployment of the alliance systems that are to be eliminated, but, as will be suggested below, it has compromised the modernization programme as well. Despite the assertion by alliance authorities of the continuing validity of flexible

Implications of the INF treaty 37 response,7 the removal of the intermediate-range missiles, and the prospect that limits might well be extended to short-range ‘tactical’ systems as well, makes it very difficult to interpret flexible response any longer as providing for a ‘seamless web’ of graduated responses to Soviet actions on a European battlefield all the way up to strategic use. In particular, the INF treaty undermines the intention of the 1979 decision to strengthen the link between the defence of Western Europe and US strategic forces.8 Again, although long-range American systems capable of reaching targets in the Soviet Union are still deployed in Europe (notably the F111s based in Britain, and, in a separate category, the Poseidon, missiles targeted according to SACEUR’s General Strike Plan), the studies that led to the 1979 decision in the first place, in effect concluded that these forces were inadequate to the political and strategic needs of the alliance. Of course, the strategic environment has been altered by the fact that Soviet intermediate-range missiles are to be eliminated too, but quite apart from the fact that the treaty conforms both to long-term Soviet strategic objectives and to current trends in the evolution of Soviet strategic doctrine, the Soviet Union will retain more than enough counterforce capability to cover its likely European target set.9 Perhaps more significantly, the treaty has underlined more firmly the problem posed by Soviet conventional forces for NATO strategy, and has focused attention on the role of shorter-range systems and unconstrained longer-range systems in flexible response. The issue for NATO now seems to be the determination of what kinds and levels of nuclear forces in Europe are needed in order to convince Europeans (and the Soviets too, presumably) that an adequate nuclear deterrent continues to exist. In the post-INF environment, the criteria of adequacy will of necessity have to be less stringent than those that led to the modernization decision in the first place. Since Montebello, the Nuclear Planning Group has been examining the possible deployment of modernized nuclear systems that fall outside of the INF agreements. Reports have indicated that a new tactical missile to replace the Lance is being considered, as well as new aircraft-delivered bombs and, possibly, a new airlaunched attack missile. The alliance has also reiterated its determination ‘to continue to implement those measures required to maintain the effectiveness, responsiveness and survivability of our nuclear forces’.10 None the less, this intention faces at least four problems. First, it is politically doubtful that the alliance could undertake new deployments that would be widely perceived by the allies, as well as by the Soviet Union, as amounting to an ‘end run’ around the INF treaty. Suggestions such as the forward deployment of US B-52s armed with

38 NATO strategy and alliance politics ALCMs are just not on. An alternative suggestion that SLCMs based on US submarines and surface vessels in European waters be assigned to SACEUR would also face political difficulties of a similar kind, and, anyway, may well be compromised by a future strategic arms control agreement. Second, modernized tactical and battlefield systems are no substitute, either operationally or for deterrence purposes, for the INF missiles. Third, the whole question of introducing any new nuclear systems into the alliance after the political trauma caused over the past decade by efforts to modernize the alliance’s theatre nuclear arsenal, makes nearly all European governments very unwilling to contemplate another long drawn-out battle over the issue. On this last point, the position of the German government is a particularly uncomfortable one. Finally, there are current proposals for placing short-range missiles on the arms control agenda, and these suggestions have evoked a sympathetic response from important sections of European opinion. Limits on short-range systems would have further implications for the alliance’s nuclear posture and for the implementation of the strategic concept of flexible response. Even if the proposed modernization of short-range systems does take place, it is arguable that neither of the two escalatory theories which have been applied to flexible response is sustainable any longer in a politically credible form. If the purpose of flexible response is to hold out the prospect of escalation control, then, even with modernized forces, it is likely that control might be exercised only at very low levels of use. Beyond ‘demonstrative’ use, it is difficult to envisage circumstances in which the alliance would be able subsequently to control nuclear conflict. In so far as Kahn’s notion of escalation control rests on the ability to exercise ‘escalation dominance’, then the current military balance holds out little prospect of such dominance being exercised by NATO. On the other hand, the elimination of INF, when coupled with evolving trends in US strategic doctrine, reduces the element of ‘automaticity’ that underlies the alternative theory of flexible response. Admittedly, the declaratory policy of the alliance maintains that what is required is a range of options sufficient to respond at any level appropriate to the threat offered, but it has been recognized by most European governments that the deterrent credibility of a response at anything other than the very lowest levels of nuclear use depends on the threat of further uncontrolled escalation. It is because of this that steps taken to reduce the risks of a central nuclear exchange, through such measures as the elimination of INF, improvements in the ability of political authorities to control the release and use of nuclear weapons, and, perhaps most importantly of all, shifts in US strategic doctrine, inevitably generate doubts in

Implications of the INF treaty 39 Europe about the credibility of flexible response. Moreover, on the other side of the deterrence equation, the manifest ability of the Soviet Union in a post-INF environment to hold targets in Western Europe hostage to nuclear weapons, while at the same time posing a powerful deterrent threat to US strategic forces, must also undermine the alliance’s confidence in its central strategic concept. Indeed, Pierre Lellouche has argued that NATO has not possessed a credible military doctrine since the mid-1970s,11 and, certainly, the whole issue of nuclear modernization which emerged at that time was related to attempts to maintain the political and military viability of flexible response. In particular, US policy towards the modernization of the alliance’s nuclear forces has, through two administrations, been subject to contradictory tensions. On one side, the search for limited nuclear options throughout the US arsenal, which began with James Schlesinger in 1974 and which culminated with PD 59 and the new Strategic Integrated Operational Plan of the Carter administration in 1980, can be interpreted as an attempt to integrate better the US strategic posture with an extended deterrence umbrella. On the other side, although the initial statements of the Reagan administration appeared to confirm and extend the ‘countervailing strategy’ with their definition of the need to prepare for the possibility of protracted nuclear exchanges, the actual direction of US strategy over the past 8 years has been towards the ‘regionalization’ of Europe, and its separation from the workings of the US strategic deterrent. That is, the American contribution to the security of Europe has been seen as but one among several regional demands on US military capabilities. Although Europe, in terms of resources committed, may retain the highest priority, the trend has been one of looking at US interests in Europe as having to be balanced against US interests elsewhere. And, it may be observed, many commentators on both sides of the Atlantic have noted that for both Europe and the United States the balance of interests is changing.12 The political and economic stresses of the current Atlantic relationship, when coupled with the changed strategic balance, have raised the price of the US strategic commitment both absolutely and in relation to the interests at stake. The result has been a reassessment of the nature of the US military commitment, and its redirection towards a lower risk posture. Thus the ‘Maritime Strategy’ is capable of this interpretation. Rather than focusing on the controversy surrounding the feasibility and prudence of attacking Soviet attack and ballistic missile submarines in their home ‘bastions’ early in any conflict, a politically more pertinent consideration is the extent to which the Maritime Strategy may reflect a more regional approach to the defence of US

40 NATO strategy and alliance politics interests overseas.13 Further, such an interpretation is consistent with a trend in US strategic thinking towards the conduct of both limited and protracted conventional conflicts in Europe and elsewhere.14 Given that the main thrust of the Reagan administration’s defence expenditures has been towards the modernization of the strategic deterrent and US maritime power projection capabilities, then it also follows that what the United States is attempting in NATO is unilaterally to force the Europeans themselves to undertake the building of an effective conventional defence capability. This emphasis on conventional forces recalls the attempts of Robert McNamara in the 1960s to persuade the Europeans that a conventional defence in Central Europe was possible. Then, as now, the European allies have been unable and unwilling to accept such a strategy. Flexible response has been understood as requiring a major conventional component in a policy of deterrence, but the notion of ‘conventional deterrence’ has been rejected, along with the parallel notion of ‘no-first-use’.15 None the less, current US policy again is emphasizing the conventional war-fighting option, backed this time, however, by a much more uncertain nuclear commitment. It has been suggested by some in Europe that the INF treaty, when combined with START and the possibility of limits on shorterrange systems, is leading to the de facto denuclearization of Europe. This goes too far, but the whole trend in nuclear arms control is one which is compatible with the American finite deterrence school, with its severe limits to the US nuclear commitment to Europe.16 The changed strategic environment in which NATO now operates, of which the INF treaty is a symptom, is structuring not only the military posture of NATO, but its political agenda as well. The reinforcement of the ‘sanctuary’ status of the United States and Soviet Union in the event of conflict in Europe underlines two long-standing concerns: first, that decisions vitally affecting European security will be taken over the heads of Europeans; and, second, that, faute de mieux, NATO will have to rely on conventional defence. In turn, a number of consequences flow from this which have both military and political implications. One consequence highlighted by the INF treaty is the enhancement of the strategic and political status of French and British nuclear forces. There will be continued pressure from the Soviet Union that these forces should be incorporated into the ongoing arms control process. This, naturally, will be resisted, not only by France and Britain, but by the United States and others too. None the less, should the Soviet Union link European nuclear forces to concessions in other areas that otherwise would be attractive either to the United States or other

Implications of the INF treaty 41 allies, then this is likely to place strain on any attempt to develop a more harmonized European response to strategic change. The rather informal AngloFrench discussions on nuclear strategy that have been taking place are perhaps one straw in the wind indicating, among other things, Franco-British concerns in this respect. An additional issue raised by the existence of Franco-British nuclear forces involves the question of whether they in any way ‘compensate’ in terms of strategic purpose for the withdrawal of American INF. Without entering into an analysis of the present and planned composition of their respective nuclear arsenals, it is none the less clear that the strategic postures of both Britain and France, based as they are on a strategy of ‘minimum’ deterrence, have little or no credibility as extended deterrents. The number of independently controlled British tactical systems that could be employed on land in a European conflict is small, and, as far as can be determined, is fully integrated into SACEUR’s targeting plans; and, anyway, since the phasing out of the V Bomber force, the British have not had any non-strategic weapons systems in the INF range. (This fact may account for the continuing interest shown by certain sections of the RAF in the acquisition of air-launched cruise missiles.) Simply, the British do not have the range of nuclear forces that would give plausibility to a declared graduated response strategy that would extend deterrence over their European allies. The planned French nuclear arsenal is in many ways more ambitious than that of the British. The evolution of their ‘pre-strategic’ forces, in particular, has raised the issue of the status of the Federal Republic of Germany in French strategic planning, and there have long been inconclusive Franco-German discussions on this question. Again, however, whatever targeting plans the French might have for their pre-strategic forces that involve German territory (East or West), present and likely French strategy is based on the hope that its minimum strategic deterrent is adequate to establish a sanctuary status for French territory. Even if the threat of ‘pre-strategic’ use of nuclear weapons by the French does confer some deterrent umbrella over Germany, French doctrine envisages the use of these weapons only in the event that forward defence had failed and that NATO was in fact losing the battle in Europe. The growing interest shown by France in recent years in greater European defence co-operation, and the rethinking of the part that might be played by French forces in the event of war in Europe, has not not altered, so far, the basic French position. Again, neither in terms of capabilities, nor of doctrine, can the French offer credible extended deterrence. Under present circumstances, then, British and French forces cannot revive strategically, let alone politically, NATO’s strategic concept of flexible response.

42 NATO strategy and alliance politics Given, however, the political necessity of NATO having an agreed strategic concept that has military and political plausibility, and given the doubts that have arisen about its present one, then the question emerges whether an alternative strategy is available.17 The decision in principle to plan for Follow-On Forces Attack (FOFA), and the Conceptual Military Framework (MC 299), endorsed by the Defence Planning Committee in December 1985, when coupled with the Conventional Defence Initiative, may hold out a prospect for a revised alliance strategic concept. But it is far from clear that at present the political conditions exist that would enable the alliance to undertake a formal revision of MC 14/3. It is thus understandable that in the absence of a political consensus around an alternative military strategy, there has emerged a search for alternative security policies among a wide range of political forces across the alliance. These range from the advocacy of strategies of ‘structural non-offensiveness’, often linked with a revival of national traditions of neutrality, through further measures of arms control, to the reinforcement of détente under the slogan of ‘common security’. In this latter respect, attention might be drawn to Egon Bahr’s suggestion that, as much as possible, the security debate should be separated from the military confrontation. Such thinking points out the extent to which the search for alternative security policies outside of considerations of the state of the military balance has gone, not only in Germany, but in many other parts of Europe as well. It should be noted also that this kind of thinking is not only the prerogative of the Left. In practice, the idea that détente is ‘divisible’ – that the political foundations of European security can be separated from Soviet actions elsewhere, and from the state of Soviet–American relations – is a position increasingly adopted across the European political spectrum. Both the Left and Right are attracted by policies of ‘equidistance’ from the two superpowers. Frequently, transatlantic alliance relations are presented in the form of a dilemma between European fears of either ‘entrapment’ or ‘abandonment’ by the United States. That is, fear of being dragged into a conflict over interests and policies of the United States that either are not shared, or are not held to warrant the risk of conflict. This risk of entrapment, on the other hand, must be balanced by the fear that if the allies do not co-operate sufficiently with the United States, there is the risk of their being ‘abandoned’ in the sense that the United States may be unable or unwilling to provide the necessary support in the event of a challenge to their own security interests.18 What appears to be happening now, however, is that in Europe the direction of security policy is one in which the United States risks abandonment on the political side and too great a degree of entrapment on the military one.

Implications of the INF treaty 43 What all this suggests is that future rounds of arms control in Europe, whether nuclear or conventional, are going to place a premium on the maintenance of unified alliance positions. It is also possible to suggest that this will be difficult to achieve. Clearly, much will depend on the evolution of domestic politics in a number of key NATO countries, among which must be included those on the flanks, and on the extent to which a European solution can be found. Here, again, a tension arises. In this case the tension is one between European co-operation within the framework of the European wing of NATO (the EEC or WEU for example), or whether, as in the evolution of the Helsinki process, the neutrals and East Europeans have a part to play. Many ideas about conventional arms control, involving, as they do, suggestions for zones of weapons limitation (both nuclear and conventional) have been picked up on both sides of the confrontation in Europe. Implementation of these ideas, even in limited form, would further undermine the alliance’s present military posture. Implementation would undermine also present alliance attempts to reformulate the role of conventional forces in alliance strategy. It is noteworthy that the arms control proposals that have emerged from the Warsaw Pact since the Budapest Appeal would have considerable impact on the alliance’s ability to sustain forward defence in Germany, and would make the implementation of FOFA extremely difficult. Ever since the 1960s, it has been observed that the alliance has been in a constant state of crisis. It has also been observed that the alliance has survived none the less; what may be the situation today, however, is that there are structural changes taking place in the environment of European security that require a fundamental change in the conceptual framework within which that security is sought. There are political and strategic indications that the current security regime in Europe cannot be sustained. Among possible alternatives currently on the political agenda is the search for some form of Pan-European security arrangement. Were this to be pursued then a fundamental shift in transatlantic alliance relationships would occur. At present, the orthodox solution of greater European co-operation and acceptance of a larger share of the defence burden is being attempted, but given fiscal and budgetary constraints, this is likely to occur only as a result of unilateral decisions on the part of the United States to reduce its forces deployed in, or committed to, Europe. The result might well be greater political weight in the alliance for some of the European allies, possibly a more defined European defence identity, but not necessarily any improvement in the military balance in Europe or a less problematic strategic environment. At first sight, the unilateral cuts in Soviet forces in Europe announced by Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1988 would appear to alleviate the security

44 NATO strategy and alliance politics problems of the European allies, and certainly Gorbachev’s announcement was welcomed by them, but these unilateral gestures by themselves do little to alter the military balance in Europe. Rather, the Soviet initiative reinforced the political pressure on NATO to achieve a substantive outcome from the negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). Whatever the result of these negotiations, and some agreement is to be expected from them, it is unlikely to sustain the present political and military status quo in NATO, and will reinforce the trends towards fundamental change discussed in this chapter. NOTES 1 Lawrence Freedman has suggested that these two positions can be identified with the ideas about escalation of Herman Kahn and Thomas Schelling respectively. See Freedman, Lawrence (1986) ‘The first two generations of nuclear strategists’ in Peter, Paret (ed.) Makers of Modern Strategy, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 764–6. 2 Schelling, Thomas C. (1963) The Strategy of Conflict, New York: Oxford University Press, Galaxy edn, p. 188. 3 Two complementary restatements of this position are to be found in Jervis, Robert (1984) The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, and Halperin, Morton (1987) Nuclear Fallacy: Dispelling the Myth of Nuclear Strategy, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. 4 Halperin, op. cit., p. 56. 5 Instructive, in this respect, was the fate of the 1977 draft US Army Field Manual FM 100–5 –1 ‘Conventional–Nuclear Operations’. This represented an attempt to articulate a battlefield nuclear war-fighting doctrine, but was withdrawn under criticism both from within the US armed forces and from allies. 6 Communiqué, Special Meeting of NATO Foreign and Defence Ministers, Brussels, 12 December 1979 . 7 See, for example, Communiqué, NATO Defence Planning Committee, Brussels, 2 December 1987 . 8 Many European opponents of the 1979 decision to deploy modern INF argued that its effect would be better to enable the United States to fight a nuclear war in Europe while retaining a nuclear sanctuary status for itself. In the United States, however, the new deployments were seen widely as increasing the risks to Americans rather than to the Europeans. In the words of Henry Kissinger,

Implications of the INF treaty 45 public demonstrations against their deployment should have been taking place not in Europe, but ‘on the American side of the Atlantic’. See Kissinger, Henry A. (1982) ‘Nuclear weapons and the peace movement’, The Washington Quarterly, 5:3: 34. I have argued elsewhere that the deployments can be interpreted as being designed to shore up extended deterrence without imposing incredible demands on the United States to threaten the use of strategic forces in response to a Soviet threat limited to Western Europe. See Buteux, Paul (1983) Strategy, Doctrine and the Politics of Alliance, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 83–8. 9 Soviet strategic doctrine and Soviet strategic objectives in European arms control are beyond the scope of this chapter. None the less, that the INF treaty is a good deal for the Soviet Union should be kept in mind when analysing the implications of the treaty for NATO. A recent and comprehensive discussion of Soviet arms control objectives within the context of Soviet strategic doctrine can be found in McGwire, Michael (1987) Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, see especially pp. 258–82. 10 Communiqué, NATO Nuclear Planning Group, Monterey, CA, 3–4 November 1987 . 11 Lellouche, Pierre (1985) L’Avenir de la Guerre, Paris: Mazarine, p. 49. 12 See, for example, the contributions of Ralf Dahrendorf and Theodore C. Sorensen in Andrew J. Pierre (ed.) (1986) A Widening Atlantic? Domestic and Foreign Policy, New York: Council on Foreign Relations. 13 A piece of advocacy for a US maritime strategy which is consistent with the interpretation offered here, but which goes much farther in its prescriptions than would the author of this chapter, can be found in Gray, Colin S. (1986) Maritime Strategy, Geopolitics and the Defense of the West, New York: National Strategy Information Center. 14 This theme runs through Discriminate Deterrence, the Report of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy, Washington, DC, January 1988. 15 Buteux, Paul (1985), ‘NATO, no first use and conventional deterrence’, in R. B. Byers (ed.) Deterrence in the 1980s: Crisis and Dilemma, London: Croom Helm, pp. 166–82. 16 For a strong statement of the thesis that nuclear weapons are becoming ‘marginalized’ in the strategies of both superpowers see Luttwak, Edward N. (1988) ‘An emerging postnuclear era?’ The Washington Quarterly 11:1: 5–15.

46 NATO strategy and alliance politics 17 For a discussion of the political function of strategic doctrine in NATO see Buteux, Strategy, Doctrine and the Politics of Alliance, op. cit., pp. 1– 31.18(1986), and Strategic Survey 1985–1986, London: IISS, pp. 36–40. 18 Snyder, Glen H. (1984) ‘The security dilemma in alliance politics’, World Politics XXXVI:4: 466–7.

Part II Arms control after the INF Treaty

3 Requirements for successful negotiations on force reductions in Europe Jonathan Dean

There now appears to be a real opportunity to build down the NATO/Warsaw Pact confrontation in Europe which is no longer functional at its present high level and high costs. Given the unexpected similarity in the starting positions of the NATO and Warsaw Pact negotiators at the new talks on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, or CFE, which opened in March 1989 in Vienna, and given the capacity of both alliances to show flexibility on details, a first complete agreement should be possible within the next 2 or 3 years, a partial agreement even sooner. Several indications, among them General Secretary Gorbachev’s December 1988 announcement of unilateral reductions, his statements at that time that there would be more Soviet cuts, and the Pact’s proposal in the CFE talks for two phases of reductions in men and major armaments down to a new equal level amounting to 40 per cent of NATO’s current holdings, make it appear plausible that the Soviet leadership has decided to make deep cuts in its forces west of the Urals during the next 5 years or so.1 Discussion with Soviet officials indicates that the Soviet leadership may also decide to make these reductions whether or not NATO is ready to reduce its forces in the conventional force talks. Soviet leaders will observe developments at the Vienna CFE talks while they implement the already announced unilateral reductions in 1989 and 1990. Because the motives for these reductions surely include saving money and impressing Western opinion with a conciliatory Soviet attitude, it would be counter-productive for the Soviets to fail to carry them out in full. It is probable that, after the present programme of unilateral reductions has been completed, Warsaw Pact leaders will review progress in the new Vienna talks and decide whether the talks are likely to bring results in a reasonably short time. If the forecast is negative, the Soviet leadership, driven primarily by cost-saving motives, may decide to make further unilateral reductions in their forces, including those deployed west of the Urals.

50 Arms control after the INF treaty If this forecast is correct, then the United States and the other NATO countries have a choice between concluding agreements on force reductions or playing catchup with the Soviet Union on unilateral reductions. In the latter case, the governments of the alliance may be pitted against their own public opinion and parliaments in a losing effort to maintain the level of NATO forces. There are further strong reasons – most of them connected with reducing uncertainties about the continuation of Gorbachev’s policies – why the Western interest is to go the route of negotiated agreements rather than the unilateral route: negotiated agreements will provide greater insurance than unilateral measures – in the form of commitments not to exceed residual levels, early-warning and verification measures and constraints on force activities – against possible recurrence of a negative Soviet policy. Negotiation seems likely to bring even deeper unity and better cohesion in a negotiating situation than in the more erosive situation of competitive force cuts. Negotiated agreements will provide external endorsement of the Gorbachev policy which can help assure its continuation. Let us go back to the beginning of the new force reduction talks on 9 March 1989 to explain these predictions in more detail. As indicated by Foreign Minister Shevardnadze in his 6 March speech in Vienna, and by General Secretary Gorbachev in his 11 May Moscow discussion with Secretary of State Baker, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies appear ready to accept in principle the main aspects of NATO’s highly demanding opening proposals for reductions. The Warsaw Pact’s opening proposal called for reduction of the same armaments which NATO has proposed for reduction – tanks, armoured troop carriers and artillery – to a new equal level below the present level of the numerically weaker side. As the Pact’s own published data shows quite clearly, the weaker side for these armaments is NATO.2 Although the Pact’s own proposals suggested a somewhat bigger stage 1 reduction than NATO proposals, in his May 1989 discussions with Secretary Baker, General Secretary Gorbachev in principle accepted the levels NATO had proposed for tanks and armoured troop carriers and came close to the NATO position on artillery. (Differences in definition appear to be the main problem on artillery.) As Soviet negotiators in Vienna later confirmed in detail, Gorbachev also stated agreement in principle to accept the sufficiency of the national ceiling on Soviet forces west of the Urals (limiting these forces to 60 per cent of the permitted Warsaw Pact total) and to a low limit – for example, 3,200 tanks – on armaments of forwarddeployed Soviet units in Eastern Europe. The last step is the most significant because

Requirements for successful negotiations 51 it means a treaty limit on Soviet capacity to reinforce forward-deployed forces, whether to prepare an attack or to maintain political control in Eastern Europe.3 At the outset, there were differences between this Pact position and the NATO position: the Pact was calling for reduction of some force components which NATO then did not wish to reduce. These are: military manpower; combat aircraft; armed helicopters; and, in a separate negotiation, surface-to-surface missiles. These divergences over what should be reduced were dealt with by President Bush’s dramatic initiative at the NATO summit in late May of 1989 when he agreed, with the support of other NATO members, to the inclusion of combat aircraft, helicopters and military manpower in stage 1 reductions. The President was also successful in gaining agreement with NATO to hold the separate American–Soviet talks on reducing tactical nuclear arms suggested by the Soviets after conclusion of a CFE agreement and the beginning of its implementation.4 If the two alliances can reach a compromise for a first-stage agreement to reduce all these armaments to new equal levels which conform to the 5–10 per cent reduction of its own forces proposed by NATO – and compromise on this point definitely appears possible – then, estimating on the basis of NATO’s data, the Pact would be reducing 37,000 tanks to NATO’s 2,200; 29,000 artillery pieces to NATO’s 830, a ratio of 36:1; and about 23,000 armoured troop carriers to NATO’s 600 or so. All in all, this would amount to cutting about two-thirds of Soviet and Pact tanks, artillery and troop carriers west of the Urals. Against the background of the unilateral reductions announced by Gorbachev in December 1988, this pre-emptive Soviet opening bid at Vienna, followed by further important Soviet concessions in accepting NATO’s idea that there should be national sublimits on Soviet forces deployed west of the Urals and on Soviet forces deployed in Eastern Europe, provides conclusive evidence of a Soviet desire for a build-down in Europe. If the Soviet leadership had only been interested in public relations impact in the West, it could have effectively publicized the implementation of the Soviet unilateral reductions starting in April 1989, and left it to NATO to make the first move in the new Vienna talks.5 But the Soviets have gone far beyond that. Yet this Soviet opening position does raise one question in fairly acute form: do the Soviets have a real negotiating partner in NATO? NATO did well in formulating and presenting its demands for elimination of the huge Pact superiority in armoured forces and artillery. American, British and German officials also did well in helping to bring less willing NATO member states like France and Turkey to a common position. President Bush added new force components and some impetus to the Western position. But the price for NATO cohesion is still a low common denominator.

52 Arms control after the INF treaty NATO’s opening position is a restrictive one. NATO is not calling for deep cuts in the NATO–Pact confrontation as such. Instead, it is calling for the Pact to reduce its tanks, artillery and troop carriers to equality between the alliances at a level only slightly below NATO’s current holdings of these armaments, about 10 per cent. The proposed reduction of US personnel is also only 10 per cent. Only the proposal for reduction of combat aircraft and helicopters is a little larger at 15 per cent. The Western allies have said in general terms that they were prepared to go further if this goal were achieved. However, NATO members informally decided among themselves at the outset of their preparations for CFE to accept the advice of their military commanders to hold NATO reductions in the new talks to 5–10 per cent of NATO’s current levels. This modest goal should be compared with the Warsaw Pact’s proposal for a 40 per cent reduction from the NATO level in the first two stages. One major reason for NATO’s reluctance to propose deeper reductions in its own forces is that it is worried about maintaining forward defence and an adequate forceto-space ratio along the Federal German border with East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Its minimum number of ready divisions is already stretched beyond the lowest force-to-space criterion of one division for each 25 to 30 km of defensive line. NATO itself believes it can absorb the cuts it is proposing for the first phase of reductions, cuts which the Pact is apparently accepting. But it does not want to go any further. None the less, for further cuts later on, if the Pact has actually made the huge reductions of armour NATO is asking for, there should be new ways of implementing and restructuring forward defence which will permit further NATO cuts. The NATO countries should not permit themselves to be defeated by traditional thinking on this subject. NATO cannot get itself in the position of putting the floor on its own reductions, no matter how much the Pact is willing to reduce. That could mean that NATO was locking itself into continuing the NATO Pact confrontation at a high level indefinitely. A position like this is not politically sustainable. Clearly, the force-to-space or force density issue is going to be a focus of Western debate and dispute in the coming years. A second major weakness of the current NATO approach is that it would do little or nothing to reduce the costs of the NATO Pact confrontation. These costs are running at $300 billion a year, with the United States paying about half of this total. A 5–10 per cent reduction of NATO forces would produce very little savings in the defence budgets of the NATO allies. Moreover, the absence heretofore of provision for alliance-wide manpower reductions in its programme – President Bush has

Requirements for successful negotiations 53 proposed only the reduction of US and Soviet personnel in a Central European area – prevents NATO from making savings through cutting the manpower costs which comprise 50–60 per cent of NATO defence budgets. Although partially overtaken by the requirement to verify President Bush’s proposal to cut manpower in Central Europe alone, this omission still rests on NATO’s belief that manpower ceilings would be difficult to verify. It leaves untested Soviet willingness to accept intensive verification. Beyond this, the absence in the current NATO proposal of residual ceilings on Soviet manpower in the USSR, on units of the type reduced, and on continuing production in the reduction area of armaments of the type reduced, detracts considerably from the military value of the NATO proposal and, if uncorrected, will make it easier to circumvent. As we have pointed out, if the NATO governments do not take the initiative to move to a more ambitious overall approach, the likelihood may increase that individual NATO countries will, in time, act unilaterally to cut NATO budgets. The prospect of continuing to pay indefinitely for the present level of NATO forces in the face of continuing evidence of Soviet conciliation will not be attractive. This is especially so in those NATO countries, like the United States, which have in recent years increased their national debt in order to maintain high military readiness. The result is likely to be a high level of partisan political pressure to cut defence budgets, with legislators, not defence establishments, deciding how this should be done. A process of competitive unilateral reductions by individual NATO countries under the pressure of their domestic public opinion would result in friction among member states and the weakening of NATO. There is room for agreed unilateral action in the West, but not for this type of cutting by individual NATO governments under the pressure of domestic political forces. NATO does not have to change the scope or dimension of its present proposal for force cuts because it appears feasible to achieve a first-reduction agreement with the Warsaw Pact for reductions of these dimensions. But it should expand its overall objective. It should develop a specific proposal for a second phase of deep cuts. Several people in the West have suggested more ambitious approaches, among them Chairman Les Aspin of the House Armed Services Committee and Senator Sam Nunn, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. General Andrew Goodpaster, the former NATO Commander, has proposed a cut of 50 per cent from present NATO levels. My own recommendation is that NATO countries should envisage a 50 per cent cut in NATO’s holdings of six armaments – surface-to-surface missiles, ground-

54 Arms control after the INF treaty attack aircraft, and armed helicopters, as well as artillery, tanks and armoured troop carriers – and also a 50 per cent cut in NATO’s active-duty ground and air force personnel, with Warsaw Pact forces coming down to NATO’s new levels in stages over a 10 year period. By the end of that period, these reductions should yield substantial cuts, perhaps as high as 30 per cent, in current Western budgets for European defence. Under the approach suggested here, US ground and air force personnel in Europe would be reduced by 50 per cent down to a level of about 150,000. Two and a half ground force divisions and five tactical air wings would be withdrawn from Europe and disbanded. Two to three ready divisions and comparable air force units now stationed in the United States for deployment to Europe would be converted to reserve units. Estimated savings would be about $30 billion per year and might be increased by another $10 billion by foregoing some modernization of the remaining forces. Savings for European NATO countries would be much higher since they now have the bulk of the forces in Europe and would consequently be making far larger cuts in personnel and armaments.6 Cutting nuclear-capable combat aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles has been highly controversial in NATO. Yet President Bush’s decision to agree to include aircraft in reductions was a sound one. True, NATO’s air forces are vital for resisting conventional Pact attack if it comes. Moreover, after the INF treaty’s elimination of US Pershings and ground-launched cruise missiles deployed in Europe, aircraft represent the one land-based US nuclear delivery system capable of striking Soviet territory which is still deployed in Europe. At the same time, NATO deploys these armaments in response to the Warsaw Pact’s superiority in tanks and artillery. If the Pact is prepared to eliminate that superiority, NATO should, on balance, be in a position to offer a modest reduction of 15 per cent of its tactical aircraft. Depending on which aircraft are included in the reduction base, NATO might be called on to reduce 500–1,000 aircraft in a first phase, with the Pact probably reducing more aircraft. The same logic applies to reduction of tactical-range missiles. The Pact has a large numerical superiority in both these armaments, a superiority which it would use, possibly decisively, at the outset of a Pact attack on NATO forces, even before Pact tanks moved. Thus, it would appear much in NATO’s own security interest to eliminate this Pact superiority along with the Pact superiority in tanks and artillery. A 15 per cent reduction of NATO’s 600 or so tactical-range missiles would bring a NATO cut of under 100 and a Pact cut of up to 6,000, depending on how many reload missiles the Pact has stored in the reduction area.7

Requirements for successful negotiations 55 It is necessary for the continued adherence of Federal Germany to the NATO alliance and for the survival of a healthy alliance that the NATO allies remain committed to forward defence in Germany. If the forward defence strategy, based on the effort to give maximum protection possible to the densely settled population of the Federal Republic, is abandoned, war in Europe might still be deterred but Federal Germany would not be receiving much benefit from its participation in NATO if conflict did in fact take place. To maintain forward defence, it is necessary too that Federal Germany’s NATO allies which now deploy forces in Federal Germany should continue to do so; there seems little doubt that this forward deployment is an important deterrent, perhaps the most crucial one, to war in Europe. But to make these points does not mean endorsing the view that the requirements of force-to-space or of force density mean that NATO cannot afford to make cuts in its own ready forces on the Central Front without abandoning forward defence and causing the demise of the NATO alliance. Some NATO commanders are currently arguing that cutting back NATO’s present minimal number of combat-ready divisions on the Central Front will in fact oblige NATO to abandon forward defence and pull back its forces from their present forward positions to make them available to counter a possible blitz attack from Pact forces. The result, it is claimed, is that NATO will have to recast its defence strategy in the form of manoeuvre warfare by smaller armoured forces, creating new instability in the NATO Pact relationship.8 In response, it should be pointed out that the equality in tanks, artillery and armoured troop carriers at a level slightly below NATO’s current holdings of these armaments which NATO is now urging would not of itself assure greater NATO Pact stability if it could be achieved. With NATO now equal to the Pact in these arms, the Pact could still launch a surprise attack and NATO could in theory for the first time attack the Pact. Pact military commanders would be as nervous as NATO commanders now are with regard to the Pact about unexplained actions or changes in NATO force dispositions. There would be heightened risk of miscalculation on both sides and risk that Pact commanders would be panicked into pre-emptive action, say, in the event of widespread unrest in Eastern Europe. Many of those who assert that deep cuts would have destructive effects on forward defence argue in a single dimension. They omit from calculation the support which NATO air forces, equal in number and technologically superior even after reductions, could give to NATO ground forces. They ignore that, with a system of observation and verification under an agreement, especially observers attached to Soviet reserve components, NATO would have much better and earlier warning of a

56 Arms control after the INF treaty possible Soviet attack – so good, in fact, that the Soviets would be confronted by a need to give that warning or to forego early preparation of a serious reinforcement gap. Not only would NATO have better warning of an impending Soviet attack from a properly designed reduction agreement, with allied observers permanently stationed at Soviet headquarters and traffic choke points in Eastern Europe and with its steadily improving airborne-radar capabilities, it would also have clear advance indication of the direction of Soviet attack. If there were a restricted military area prohibiting deployment of Soviet tanks closer than 100 or 150 kilometres east of the Federal German border and that restriction were violated, NATO and conventional missile forces could begin interdiction action while Soviet forces were still in East Germany or Czechoslovakia. Furthermore, defending NATO armoured and air forces and attacking Pact forces west of the Urals would be of the same size, even when fully mobilized. In fact, after a 50 per cent reduction, the NATO force total would be larger than that of Soviet forces west of the Urals. With continued political change in Eastern Europe, the case for adding the non-Soviet forces will become even weaker than at present. In NATO’s vital Central Front area, armoured NATO forces would be more numerous than all the armour the Soviet Union would have west of the Urals, whether for an attack with minimum preparation or a fully mobilized attack. But the NATO defenders would not only have strong air and armoured forces at their disposal. The defenders would have unrestricted capacity for defensive weapons – anti-tank, anti-aircraft, obstacles, mines and barriers. The Soviet attacker too would have these largely static assets, but could not bring them along on the attack. Already feasible improvements in television-aiming devices, periscopes and fibreoptic guided missiles, short-range rocket artillery, and servo-directed machine guns and rapid-fire cannon will permit defending troops to maintain a heavy rate of fire from cover. The combined firepower of the defence would exceed that of the offence. Two further advantages for NATO would arise from deep cuts: if attacked, the defending NATO armoured force could counterattack into Pact territory. Here the Soviet Union is far more vulnerable politically than NATO. Second, with a much smaller Soviet attacking force, the United States has a far better chance of maintaining a defensible logistics and reinforcement bridgehead in Europe as long as the war remains conventional. Before Soviet military planners decided to attack Western Europe, they would have to take these possibilities into account, together with the possibility of a worldwide conventional war pitting the major industrial

Requirements for successful negotiations 57 powers of the West – the United States, Western Europe and Japan – against the Soviet Union. And in the background, NATO would continue to have its nuclear deterrent. In this situation, with deeper cuts in Soviet offensive weapons, NATO would be more secure than it would be with a higher number of combat divisions deployed by both sides, as would be the case with NATO’s starting reduction approach. One major reason why NATO is not taking a more far-reaching approach is an issue familiar to all: uncertainty about the future of the Gorbachev line in the Soviet Union. This uncertainty is reason for caution, but it is not a reason for inaction. We can meet this problem by negotiated cuts, constraints and early-warning measures that at each stage will leave the Western states more secure than if they had stayed with the status quo. True, for many NATO commanders, the existence of uncertainty as to whether Gorbachev might be succeeded by some more expansionist Soviet leader is a reason for NATO countries to keep their power dry and not to cut back too many NATO forces. But an even more rational – and effective – way to deal with the possibility of re-emergence of an expansionist Soviet leadership would be to utilize the flexibility offered by the Gorbachev leadership to cut Soviet forces to such an extent and in such a way that it would take a long time – several years – for any less conciliatory successor regime to gain a sufficient edge over NATO forces to feel confident over the outcome of attack. Moreover, given the many thousands of Soviet contacts with the West under glasnost, the NATO countries would have clear and immediate warning of any political change in the Soviet Union. An East–West agreement providing for negotiated reductions would have a further important advantage for NATO countries. Under the impact of the Gorbachev reform movement, the whole of Eastern Europe is today in ferment. Over the next decade, the most likely trigger for war in Europe is widespread, uncontrollable unrest in one or more Eastern European countries similar to the unrest in the Balkans which sparked the First World War. Arms control agreements are not the problem here – the political pressures which could lead to widespread unrest have already been released by glasnost and perestroika. But arms control is part of the solution. An East–West agreement which contains the proper range of constraints and early-warning measures – these were missing from NATO’s initial proposals – will not only provide additional treaty barriers to Soviet intervention in Eastern Europe. It will also provide for reciprocal restraints on Western military activities, and many possibilities for checking actual force activities on both sides. In a crisis, this clarity as to the nature of military

58 Arms control after the INF treaty activities would help to reduce errors or miscalculations on both sides, especially fears of a nervous Soviet leadership that the NATO alliance was seeking to take military advantage of possible unrest. Fears like these might otherwise lead the Soviets to take pre-emptive military action. The growing risks in Eastern Europe are an additional reason to press for an EastWest force reduction agreement in Vienna. But to achieve that outcome, the NATO countries will have to be prepared to give as well as to take. Specifically, they will at some point in the negotiating process have to be ready to negotiate on deeper cuts in their own forces to an equal plateau with the Pact than they now plan and to negotiate on cutting nuclear weapons. It is uncertain whether leaders of the NATO countries will be able to find ways to bridge the wide differences of view on the latter subject separating most of the non-nuclear NATO states, among them Federal Germany, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Spain, and probably the Netherlands, from the NATO nuclear powers, the United States, Britain and France. Failure to do so could lead to slow-down and even deadlock in the negotiations on reducing conventional as well as nuclear forces. NATO’s capacity to cope with this issue is therefore likely to be the key question for the success of efforts to make deep cuts in the NATO Pact military confrontation in Europe and also for the survival of an effective NATO alliance. NOTES

1 2

3 4

5 6

‘Soviets propose three-stage cuts in European arms’, New York Times 7 March 1989, p. A1. Warsaw Pact figures are listed in detail in (1989) ‘Warsaw Pact releases figures on force strengths’, Foreign Broadcast Information Service: Soviet Union, 30 January, pp. 1–8. NATO figures on force levels of the two alliances can be found in (1988) Conventional Forces in Europe: The Facts, NATO Military Committee, December. ‘Soviets offer large reduction in arms, troops in Europe’, Washington Post 24 May 1989, p. A1. ‘Bush proposes 30,000 cut in US forces in Europe’, Washington Post 30 May 1989, p. A1. For discussion of the many practical difficulties of reducing aircraft, see Debouzy, Oliver (1989) ‘The balance of air forces in Europe – The devil is in the details’, NATO’s Sixteen Nations, June. ‘Soviet switch’, Wall Street Journal 25 April 1989, p. A1. Further details on a 50 per cent reduction are contained in Dean, Jonathan (1989) ‘How to reduce NATO and Warsaw Pact forces’, Survival, XXXI:2:March/April.

Requirements for successful negotiations 59

7

8

Estimates of US savings from a 50 per cent reduction of NATO forces are provided in Dean, Jonathan (1989) Meeting Gorbachev’s Challenge, New York: St Martin’s Press. For a good discussion of the future of NATO nuclear deterrence see Binnendijk, Hans (1989) ‘NATO’s nuclear modernization dilemma’, Survival XXXI:2:March/April. For more information on the force-to-space problem, see Dean, Jonathan (1988) ‘Can NATO unite to reduce forces in Europe?’ Arms Control Today 14–15 October.

4 Security and arms control in Europe: a German perspective1 Dieter Mahncke

INTRODUCTION Throughout the spring of 1989 – as NATO prepared to celebrate its fortieth anniversary – the Alliance was considered to be in one of the most serious crises since its founding. The issue concerned primarily the role of short-range nuclear weapons in the defence of Western Europe, but, overtly or covertly, it raised questions about the role of the Federal Republic of Germany in the Alliance. Joined by Denmark, Greece and Belgium, Germany called for rapid (baldige) negotiations on short-range nuclear forces (up to 500 km), while the United States and Britain pointed out the need to modernize them and most of the other members of the Alliance looked on uneasily. Meanwhile, the issue of conventional arms control, previously presented as the centrepiece of Western arms control policy in Europe after the INF treaty of December 1987, seemed to have moved to the edges of Alliance interest. The purpose of this chapter is to trace the development of NATO’s position on conventional arms control in Europe, to show the relationship to short-range nuclear forces and to analyse how this relationship was finally described in the Alliance’s ‘Comprehensive Concept of Arms Control and Disarmament’ passed at the NATO summit in May 1989, thus resolving the crisis that had plagued the Alliance for many months. THE BACKGROUND At the NATO ministers’ meeting in Halifax from 29 to 30 May 1986, the foreign ministers agreed on the ‘Halifax Statement on Conventional Arms Control’ in which they declared that ‘our objective is the strengthening of stability and 1. The views expressed in this chapter represent the opinion of the author alone and do not represent the official policies or views of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany.

A German perspective 61 security in the whole of Europe, through increased openness and the establishment of a verifiable, comprehensive and stable balance of conventional forces at lower levels’.1 To this end a ‘High Level Task Force’ was set up to begin work on a Western arms control position. The group presented a report to the NATO ministers, which in turn formed the basis of the ‘Brussels Declaration on Conventional Arms Control’ of 11 December 1986.2 Already on 11 June 1986, the Warsaw Pact had responded to NATO’s Halifax initiative. In the communiqué of their meeting in Budapest and the so-called Budapest Appeal, the Pact countries declared that they were ready to negotiate on conventional forces in Europe.3 They proposed substantial reductions of ‘all components of the land forces and tactical strike aviation’ as well as of ‘operational–tactical nuclear arms with a range of up to 1000 km’ in Europe ‘from the Atlantic to the Urals’. Such reductions were to take place step by step, in agreed-upon schedules and under maintenance of a military balance at lowered levels without impairing the security of either side. As a first step a reduction of 100,000 to 150,000 troops on both sides was proposed. Beyond that, land forces and tactical strike aviation could be reduced in the early 1990s by roughly 25 per cent or 500,000 troops on each side. In view of the existing imbalances of conventional forces in Europe, the proposal of equal reductions on both sides was obviously unacceptable to NATO. On this particular point NATO’s Brussels Declaration was characterized by remarkably clear language: Statements by European spokesmen sometimes imply that the present military situation in Europe is stable and balanced. It is not. On the contrary, it is marked by asymmetries and disparities which vary from region to region but which are detrimental to Western security and which are a source of potential instability.4 Among the ‘relevant factors’ contributing to this situation, armaments, deployment, numbers, mobility and readiness of forces, information and predictability as well as ‘considerations of geography’ were specifically mentioned. NATO’s objectives for negotiations were thus defined as ‘the establishment of a stable and secure level of forces, geared to the elimination of disparities’, a stepby-step negotiating process focusing on ‘the elimination of the capability for surprise attack or for the initiation of large-scale offensive action’, the redressing

62 Arms controls after the INF treaty of regional imbalances, as well as more openness, calculability and an effective verification regime. Finally, the NATO ministers suggested two distinct negotiating fora, namely a thirty-five-member forum (i.e. all CSCE participants) to continue the development of the confidence-and security-building measures decided upon at Stockholm,5 and a twenty-three-member forum to eliminate existing disparities, from the Atlantic to the Urals, and establish conventional stability at lower levels, between the countries whose forces bear most immediately upon the essential security relationship in Europe, namely those belonging to the Alliance and the Warsaw Pact.6 At the invitation of the Western Alliance participants in the CSCE follow-up conference in Vienna, regular meetings started among the twenty-three NATO and Warsaw Pact member states on 17 February 1987 (alternating in the various embassies) on the format and mandate for negotiations on conventional stability. The subjects of these mandate talks included (apart from the venue and procedures of the planned negotiations on conventional stability in Europe and its exact connection to the CSCE process) the objectives, the methods, the scope, area and verification of such conventional force limitations. Both sides put forward a number of proposals between June and November 1987. A preliminary agreement on the ‘objectives and methods’ was reached before the Christmas recess on 14 December 1987, postulating three major aims: the establishment of a stable and secure balance of conventional armed forces, which included conventional armaments and equipment, at lower levels; the elimination of disparities prejudicial to stability and security; and the elimination, as a matter of priority, of the capability for launching surprise attack and initiating large-scale offensive action. In addition to these objectives, several measures were delineated as to how these goals were to be achieved: by the application of militarily significant measures such as reductions, limitations, redeployment provisions, equal ceilings and related measures . . .; measures should be pursued for the whole area of application with provisions, if and where appropriate, for regional differentiation to redress disparities within the area of application and in a way which precludes circumvention; the process of strengthening stability should proceed step-by-step, in a manner

A German perspective 63 which will ensure that the security of each participant is not affected adversely at any stage. The Western Alliance repeatedly restated its most important objectives, both at the NATO ministers’ meeting in Reykjavik in June 19877 and in some detail in a declaration on ‘Conventional Arms Control: The Way Ahead’, passed at the NATO summit conference in Brussels from 2 to 3 March 1988.8 The Reykjavik communiqué called for a ‘coherent and comprehensive concept of arms control and disarmament’ which would include: the establishment of a stable and secure level of conventional forces, by the elimination of disparities, in the whole of Europe; in conjunction with the establishment of a conventional balance . . . tangible and verifiable reductions of American and Soviet land-based nuclear systems of a shorter range, leading to equal ceilings. The Brussels Declaration emphasized two points. First, it was stressed that the conventional imbalance, based on an overextension of Soviet forces, remained the centre of concern. In addition to force asymmetries there were, however, a number of other asymmetries that needed to be taken into account, for example geographical, force generation and reinforcement asymmetries and differences in ‘transparency’ of forces and postures between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Second, it was pointed out that the conventional imbalance was not the only reason for the presence of NATO’s nuclear weapons in Europe. NATO countries, it was argued, remain threatened by Soviet nuclear forces of varying range, and, although parity in conventional forces would enhance stability, a potential aggressor would be confronted by unacceptable risk only if the Alliance had at its disposal adequate nuclear forces: ‘Therefore, for the foreseeable future, deterrence will continue to require an adequate mix of nuclear as well as conventional forces.’ Again, the Soviet Union responded relatively rapidly. In fact, since January 1988, there had been indications of Soviet readiness to admit their numerical superiority of conventional forces in certain categories. In June 1988 Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze proposed a Soviet plan for conventional reductions. The plan, which was delineated in more detail and formally accepted by the Warsaw Pact on 16 July 1988,9 foresaw reductions in three phases, aiming at ‘roughly equal collective levels’ of forces that would be ‘lower than those currently existing on either side’. The first phase, in fact encompassing the

64 Arms controls after the INF treaty substance of the matter, was to be devoted to ‘eliminating the imbalances and asymmetries in individual classes of conventional arms’. This would occur in steps by withdrawing and disbanding forces, while equipment would be eliminated or converted to peaceful uses. In particular, ‘lower-arms level strips would be created along the line of contact between the two military-political Alliances, from which the more dangerously destabilizing kinds of conventional arms would be removed or reduced’, thus keeping ‘military potentials’ in these strips ‘at a level ensuring only defensive capability but ruling out the possibility of a surprise attack’. In addition, confidence-building measures ‘would limit military activity in these strips’. Once rough equilibrium was achieved, the second phase would see further reductions on both sides and in the third phase would be undertaken in a manner leading to a purely defensive structure of forces on both sides. Data would be exchanged ‘early in the talks, or if possible, even before their commencement’ with the possibility ‘of verifying this data . . . by means of on-site inspections’. Finally, a verification regime would be established to ‘cover the process of reducing, eliminating (dismantling) and storing arms and of disbanding formations and units as well as troop activities and the limit on the numbers of armed forces and armament left following the cuts’. The regime would include onsite inspections without the right of refusal as well as entry–exit monitoring points. This was basically the position with which the Warsaw Pact entered the CFE negotiations. At last adding substance to its repeated proposals of an exchange of data, the Warsaw Pact for the first time put forward its own figures in January 1989.10 (NATO had last published figures in November 198811.) The most significant development, however, was the announcement of unilateral reductions of Warsaw Pact forces, first by Soviet Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev in his noteworthy speech at the United Nations in December 198812 and then in the course of the next weeks successively by the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria.13 Most observers agreed that these proposals represented ‘a step in the right direction’. Once they were carried through as announced (i.e. within 2 years) they could contribute to an improvement as far as the balance is concerned, even if the Warsaw Pact countries reduced primarily older equipment. Nevertheless, there was also general agreement that the reductions would not imply a real redressing of the balance favouring the Pact. But, whatever value was attributed to them, they did represent a confirmation of the Western position by recognizing Warsaw Pact numerical superiority and – implicitly – the need for asymmetrical cuts. In addition, they seemed to confirm American and French views, namely that some

A German perspective 65 unilateral cuts by the Warsaw Pact prior to an agreement would be sensible in order to lessen the asymmetries, thus making a formal agreement or reductions less ‘unbalanced’ with regard to the required cuts and hence more easily acceptable to the Soviet Union. Finally, the announcements were remarkable in that they were quite precise, both in terms of forces to be reduced as well as in terms of time schedules for the reductions, an indication, as Western observers believed, of the seriousness of the announcements. THE VIENNA MANDATE The ‘Mandate for Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe’ (CFE) was one of the most important results of the third CSCE follow-up conference conducted in Vienna in January 1989.14 The original Western suggestion of two separate negotiating forces – a thirty-five-nation forum for confidence- and security-building measures and a thirteen-nation forum for conventional force reductions – was accepted, the CFE members, however, being obliged to inform the other CSCE members and to meet with them twice a year for substantive discussions. The mandate is clearly influenced by Western positions and ‘language’, the major reasons for this undoubtedly being the solidity of Western arguments on substance as well as Western patience and ultimately political solidarity. NATO in particular has performed valuable services, not only as co-ordinating body, but as an institution for developing sound substantive positions and forging consensus on them. It is worthwhile repeating the objectives of the mandate: The objectives of the negotiations shall be to strengthen stability and security in Europe through the establishment of a stable and secure balance of armed forces, which include conventional armaments and equipment, at lower levels; the elimination of disparities prejudicial to stability and security; and the elimination, as a matter of priority, of the capability for launching surprise attack and for initiating large-scale offensive action. This formulation indeed moves into the centre the major problems of Western security, namely Soviet conventional superiority and the Warsaw Pact’s capability for surprise attack and large-scale offensive action. As to the methods, the mandate foresees a step-by-step process of reductions, limitations, redeployments,

66 Arms controls after the INF treaty equal ceilings and similar measures as well as regional differentiation, where appropriate, to address disparities within the area of application. The subjects of the negotiations are to be ‘conventional armed forces, which include conventional armaments and equipment, of participants in Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals’ (except for a narrow stretch of Turkish territory adjacent to Iran, Iraq and Syria). Nuclear weapons, naval forces and chemical weapons are expressly stipulated as not forming a subject of negotiation. Conventional weapons, however, that also have a nuclear capability (e.g. artillery) are not excluded from the negotiations. Finally, the mandate foresees ‘an effective and strict verification regime which, among other things, will include on-site inspections as a matter of right and exchanges of information’. PROBLEMS OF CONVENTIONAL STABILITY From the Western point of view the main security issue in Central Europe is the Warsaw Pact’s ‘capability for launching surprise attack and for initiating largescale offensive action’. In terms of arms control criteria this ‘invasion capability’ translates primarily into numbers, deployment, readiness and mobilization capability of forces. More precisely, this includes severe numerical advantages in combat-decisive arms; concentrated deployment of Soviet forces with a high state of readiness close to NATO’s boundaries; the ability to move forces into offensive action more rapidly than the West could move into corresponding defensive positions; a superior force generation and reinforcement capacity; geographical advantages, implying not only the capability of moving reinforcements across just a few hundred kilometres whereas NATO’s American reinforcements would have to cross the Atlantic Ocean, but also inner lines of supply; and, finally, less openness and transparency with regard to forces and doctrines, hence not only making a surprise attack an easier option but generally enhancing the difficulties of appropriate assessments by the defender. A first important aim, therefore, is to reduce the peacetime strength of Warsaw Pact forces and to achieve common overall ceilings. This pertains in the first place to such combat-decisive weapons systems as main battle tanks, armoured infantry fighting vehicles and artillery where Soviet advantages range between two and a half to one and three to one. These Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces, in forward deployment and in a high state of readiness, are far in excess of what would be required for an effective defence. Equal ceilings for both sides thus imply

A German perspective 67 asymmetrical reductions of the Warsaw Pact’s forces. Such reductions could not, however, be limited to forward-deployed active forces (sometimes termed ‘frontend reduction’). Although reductions on the front line would be an improvement they would not yet be an adequate assurance of stability, because in addition to numerical superiority the Warsaw Pact has significant advantages in readiness and mobilization capacity. NATO studies indicate that the Warsaw Pact would require less time to achieve the operative minimum of forces required for an attack than NATO requires for preparing to defend against such an attack. This is what the West has come to call the Warsaw Pact’s capability for surprise attack, not implying that NATO would be completely unaware of preparations for an attack and hence be taken totally by surprise – that is quite unlikely – but rather that the preparations for attack would proceed at a faster rate than the corresponding preparations for defence, mainly because of the higher state of readiness and forward deployment of Warsaw Pact, and in particular of Soviet troops. The aims here would thus be a reduction, or better even an elimination, of these time advantages in preparing for an attack, hence improving the position of the defence and the outlook for a defensive posture. Unless this is achieved, even equal numbers do not necessarily ensure stability, since quicker preparation would again – once such preparations were started – serve to create inequalities favouring the attack. Obviously, the Warsaw Pact advantages here have something to do with geographical asymmetries: whereas Soviet troops need to be moved only a few hundred kilometres American reinforcements would have to cross a distance of 7,000–8,000 km, depending on where the forces are located in the United States. Hence, an aim could be to slow down the Warsaw Pact/Soviet mobilization capacity by something like 7–9 days. In the NATO jargon this has been called ‘force build-up control’. Both the time advantage and the advantage in mobilization capacity may be decreased by such diverse measures as reduced numbers, a lower state of readiness, redeployment further back, separation of forces and equipment or possibly restraints on logistical and transport capacity.15 Numbers, readiness and mobilization capability are, of course, all related to total force levels after full mobilization, which again are higher for the Warsaw Pact than for NATO. The aim is to come to common ceilings in such a way that Warsaw Pact ‘rear-end’ or ‘total force reductions’ (in contrast to the front-end reductions above) are also achieved. The crucial point is that all of these aims are interrelated. The pursuance of one alone, in particular only the removal of forward-deployed ready forces, without consideration of the others, would not

68 Arms controls after the INF treaty adequately enhance stability in Europe. Front-end reductions alone would be insufficient. Even though they might ease NATO’s capability of stopping the first echelon of an attack, such a move would not solve NATO’s problem of coping with follow-on echelons. Even total force reduction to parity, although more promising, would be insufficient if Warsaw Pact time advantages and mobilization capability were not also restrained. Hence, all conventional arms control measures must ensure that the operative minimum of Warsaw Pact active forces necessary for a successful surprise attack is not available and that the mobilization and reinforcement capacity of the Warsaw Pact is limited in a manner that such a capability also is not achieved at any point in time of a mobilization process. In short, what is required is a combination of front-end reductions, force build-up control and rear-end or total force reductions. At present, every NATO division on the Central European Front is already assigned a larger segment for defence than would seem appropriate under operational requirements. As long as the Warsaw Pact’s ability for more rapid force build-up and surprise attack remains uninhibited every significant reduction of Western forces would enhance Warsaw Pact advantages even if there were some reductions of active forces on the Eastern side. In other words, Western reductions on the front line do not in the first place require some formula for asymmetrical reductions on the part of the Warsaw Pact, but indeed significant inhibition, if not the prior elimination, of the Warsaw Pact’s capability for surprise attack and large-scale offensive action. THE NEGOTIATIONS ON CONVENTIONAL FORCES IN EUROPE The negotiations on conventional forces in Europe (CFE) opened in Vienna on 6 March 1989 – just a few weeks after the unsuccessful Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks, that had been going on since 1973, were closed down without much further ado on 2 February 1989. The NATO proposal After an intensive process of intra-Alliance consultation and negotiation, NATO moved into the Vienna negotiations with a ready and fairly detailed proposal. The often-voiced opinion that all the initiatives were coming from Gorbachev was certainly not true for Vienna. The NATO proposal is based on the Vienna mandate, aiming at a reduction of the capability for surprise attack and large-scale offensive action. Reductions should begin with landbased forces, concentrating in the initial

A German perspective 69 phase on combat-decisive weapons systems, namely main battle tanks, artillery and infantry fighting vehicles. In order to avoid reopening the frustrating MBFR discussions on data, NATO, in contrast to the Warsaw Pact at this stage, suggested an agreement on common ceilings for these systems rather than percentage reductions based on controversial figures. Nevertheless, the differing figures presented by NATO in November 1988 and by the Warsaw Pact in January 1989 indicated that even in the case of an agreement on ceilings there would have to be consensus about what forces would be included in order to be able to verify the agreed-upon ceilings. At the same time, however, presentation of the figures by the Warsaw Pact at last opened the opportunity for negotiations on this in concrete terms and with a chance of success. NATO proposed ceilings below the levels of the numerically weaker side (by both NATO and Warsaw Pact figures this would be NATO in the proposed weapons categories), subdividing the ceilings on a regional, political and structural basis. The ceilings are to be achieved in four regional subdivisions; the agreement, however, would only go into effect as a whole. The regions are the core region (Federal Republic of Germany, Benelux, GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia), the central region (core region plus Denmark, Great Britain, France, Italy, Hungary and the Soviet military districts Baltic, Byelorussia, Carpathia), the extended central region (central region plus Portugal, Spain and the Soviet military districts Moscow, Volga and Urals). Finally, there is the ‘fourth region’ which is in fact the entire area from the Atlantic to the Urals as defined in the Vienna mandate. Table 4.1 Proposed ceilings for each alliance MBT

Artillery

Atlantic to Urals

20,000

16,500

Extended central region

11,300

Central region

10,300

9,000 (in active units) 7,600 (in active units) 4,500 (in active units)

Core region

8,000

IFV 28,000 (of these no more than 12,000 APCs) 20,000 18,000 11,000

70 Arms controls after the INF treaty For these regions NATO has proposed the ceilings in table 4.1 for each Alliance (‘regional rule’). The sublimits in the NATO proposal are to include active forces only; equipment in depots is thus excluded. In addition, NATO has proposed that no single state should maintain more than 3 per cent of the total forces both Alliances have together in the overall area (‘sufficiency rule’), that is, no state party to the agreement should have more than 12,000 main battle tanks, 10,000 pieces of artillery or 16,800 infantry fighting vehicles. Finally, the NATO proposal states that there should be a ceiling on active forces stationed outside national boundaries in the area (‘stationing rule’), namely 3,200 tanks, 1,700 artillery pieces and 6,000 infantry fighting vehicles. Clearly, these last two proposals are intended to reduce the overextension of Soviet forces. This is in line with the NATO position that the major factor of military instability in Europe is indeed the size and overextension of Soviet forces. In addition, in the NATO view the various suggestions must be seen as integral parts of a single proposal; only the application of all of its elements will lead to a reduction of Soviet capability for surprise attack and large-scale offensive action. The emphasis on active units means that some equipment may be put into depots. This is important from NATO’s point of view because of its high dependency on reinforcements across the Atlantic. At the same time, a proportion of equipment in depots could increase the time required for Soviet mobilization, hence increasing warning time and decreasing the dangers of surprise attack. NATO has made, or has indicated that it will make, further suggestions with regard to an increase in transparency and stability (e.g. regular exchanges of information on forces deployment and movement as well as limitations concerning the state of readiness). Finally, NATO will insist on a stringent verification regime including on-site inspections. Although the implications of an agreement along the lines of the NATO proposal are difficult to assess in any detail at this stage, it is safe to assume that they would be militarily and politically significant. Both sides have indicated that the data published in November 1988 and in January 1989 respectively does not form the basis of negotiations; moreover, this data proceeds from very different assumptions and counting rules. Nevertheless, these figures do give some idea of the scope of possible reductions. If the NATO proposal were to be accepted, the number of tanks in Europe would be reduced, according to NATO figures, by

A German perspective 71 2,200 on the Western and 31,500 on the Eastern side. According to Warsaw Pact figures the reductions would be 10,700 and 39,000 respectively. For artillery pieces NATO figures foresee a reduction of 800 on the Western and 26,900 on the Eastern side, whereas by Warsaw Pact figures the numbers would be 40,500 for NATO and 55,000 for the Warsaw Pact. Of course, these figures do not at this point take into consideration the unilateral reductions announced by the various Warsaw Pact countries. The Soviet proposal In contrast to NATO the Warsaw Pact did not present nearly as precise a proposal when negotiations opened on 6 March 1989, but proceeded rather from its paper of July 1988. In this the Warsaw Pact countries had postulated – like NATO and the subsequent Vienna mandate – the aim of enhancing stability and security in Europe by significant conventional force reductions in order to achieve a balance of power at a lower level. Forces should then have a purely defensive orientation without the capability to attack by surprise and to conduct large-scale offensive operations. Reductions would take place step by step in order to ensure the security of every participant in all phases. In addition to reductions there might be other limitations, for example on deployment, as well as ceilings for forces and equipment in Europe and its regions. The overall reductions agreed upon would be carried through within each of the Alliances, but all states should participate in them according to the proportion their forces contribute to the totals. Moreover, force reductions should be accompanied by reductions in military budgets and a restructuring of military production. While all of the proposed measures could be the subject of an agreement they could also be undertaken unilaterally. Finally, during negotiations no state would increase its conventional forces or do anything contrary to the purpose of the negotiations. In detail the Warsaw Pact proposed that in a first phase (about 1990–4) reductions should remove all asymmetries with regard to tanks, infantry fighting and armoured transport vehicles, artillery (including mortar and multiple launch rocket systems), fighter aircraft and attack helicopters. In contrast to the previous Soviet position, however, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze at the opening session in March 1989 announced that reductions should not be by certain agreed-upon percentages, but rather result in common ceilings (as the West had suggested). These ceilings should, however, lie 10 to 15 per cent below the present lowest levels of equipment. A data exchange could take

72 Arms controls after the INF treaty place once definitions and counting rules were agreed upon; such data would be verified. Reduced equipment should be destroyed or converted for peaceful uses. According to the Warsaw Pact proposal, steps should be taken to eliminate the capability for surprise attack and large-scale offensives, among which could be certain zones of reduced military presence along the boundary between the two alliance systems; the depth of such zones would be determined by geographical considerations, but also by such factors as the reach and capability of weapons systems. Military activities in these zones should be limited with regard to size, number, duration and frequency. In the second phase (1994–7) forces on both sides would be reduced by about 25 per cent or 500,000 men. Additional categories of weapons not included in phase 1 could be included as well as further steps to restructure forces for a purely defensive role. This defensive character of forces should be achieved fully in phase 3 (1997– 2000), during which ceilings for all remaining weapons would be agreed upon. Finally, the proposal foresaw an extensive verification system: on-site inspections on land or by air, controlling points in the zones of reduced armament and in the other areas as well as national technical means. Reductions, ceilings, destruction of weapons and distribution of troops, depots and military activities would be subject to such inspection. A standing commission set up by the parties would survey the verification regime. NEGOTIATIONS: THE FIRST PHASE The negotiations in Vienna opened on 6 March. The first round lasted until 23 March; the second round commenced on 5 May and lasted until 13 July 1989. In both of these two first rounds noticeable progress was made, the most significant perhaps being that the Soviet Union in fact proceeded from the Western proposal as a basis for negotiation. By the end of March it was clear that the Soviet Union had accepted the Western concept of equal ceilings at a level slightly lower than the numerically weaker side. It had given up its own idea of an initial data discussion, but displayed continuing readiness to exchange information, to discuss definitions and counting criteria and to foresee data verification including on-site inspections. Moreover, in the opening days of the second negotiating round the Warsaw Pact was to present its own ideas on four of the most important points open: on concrete figures for the ceilings, on the regional issue, on limitations for national

A German perspective 73 forces as a percentage of total forces in Europe, and on limitations for forces stationed outside national boundaries. As early as 5 May, on the opening day of the second negotiating round, the Soviet chief delegate, Oleg Grinevsky, presented a proposal for regional divisions of the total area from the Atlantic to the Urals, reiterating, however, that reductions in the different regions should be conducted ‘simultaneously’, that is to say ‘the entire zone of reductions would be considered as a single area’.16 This corresponds to the NATO position and represents a point of particular importance to the Federal Republic of Germany, which has emphasized that it would not be willing to accept Germany becoming some type of ‘special zone’ of arms control. Concretely, the Soviet Union proposed to divide the area from the Atlantic to the Urals primarily into two regions: ‘strips of contact’ on both sides from Norway to Turkey and ‘rear areas’. The ‘strips of contact’ would include, on the Warsaw Pact side, the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria as well as the Soviet military districts Leningrad and Baltic in the north and Odessa, North Caucasus and Trans-Caucasus in the south. On the NATO side the strips would include Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Greece and Turkey. The ‘rear areas’ would obviously include the remaining territories, that is, for NATO, Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and Iceland, and for the Warsaw Pact the remaining military districts of Byelorussia and Carpathia in the centre as well as Kiev, Moscow, Volga and Urals. In addition, it was stated that a further region, called ‘Central Europe’ could be ‘singled out’. This region corresponds in fact to the ‘Jaruzelksi zone’ and includes, on the Warsaw Pact side, the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary plus, on the NATO side, West Germany, Benelux and Denmark. It is, in other words, the old MBFR zone extended – with some military justification, it would seem – by Hungary in the south and Denmark in the north. In some ways the Soviet proposal is simpler than NATO’s, and it does form a basis for further negotiations. Clearly unacceptable from the NATO point of view is the inclusion of the two central military districts Byelorussia and Carpathia in the ‘rear area’. Together with the districts Leningrad and, in particular, Baltic, they form an important element for Soviet operative planning in Central Europe. Excluding them would allow the Soviet Union to maintain and concentrate forces in what would be termed a ‘rear area’, but would in fact be within a few hours of the border line in Central Europe. On 18 May the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact states presented figures

74 Arms controls after the INF treaty for ceilings in the overall area, thus for the first time responding concretely to Western proposals.17 The proposals encompassed the following categories: Personnel strength

1,350,000

Combat strike aircraft of frontal (tactical) aviation

1,500

Combat helicopters

1,700

Tanks

20,000

Artillery pieces (100 mm calibre or above)

24,000

Armoured fighting vehicles

28,000

A remarkable difference is the much higher ceiling for artillery than the one NATO proposed (16,500), which would actually permit NATO to increase its forces in this category by about one-third. Next, on 23 May, the Warsaw Pact submitted a proposal on the levels of forces for any one state. According to the NATO proposal, the forces of any one state should not exceed more than 30 per cent of the total forces in Europe, meaning 12,000 tanks, 10,000 pieces of artillery and 16,800 IFVs. The Warsaw Pact suggested a level of ‘35% to 40%’, specifying this to mean: Personnel

920,000

Combat strike aircraft

1,200

Combat helicopters

1,350

Tanks

14,000

Artillery (100 mm plus)

17,000

Armoured fighting vehicles

18,000

Contrary to NATO’s position, these figures would include not only active units, but also units in depots. Finally, the Warsaw Pact presented ceilings for conventional forces of either alliance stationed outside national territories:

A German perspective 75 Personnel

350,000

Combat strike aircraft

350

Combat helicopters

600

Tanks

4,500

Artillery (100 mm plus)

4,500

Armoured fighting vehicles

7,500

Again, these include active units and units in depots. By comparison, the NATO proposal for active units only in the three categories put forward by NATO would be 3,200 tanks, 1,700 artillery pieces and 6,000 IFVs. Obviously, the difference between active units and equipment in storage is a relatively critical difference because of the different logistical systems of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, with NATO in fact relying heavily on depots whereas the Warsaw Pact relies primarily on mobile cadre units. A further critical difference in these original proposals is the fact that the Warsaw Pact proposed three additional categories, namely personnel, ‘combat strike aircraft’ and combat helicopters. NATO’s position on personnel reductions had been that negotiations on these would once again involve many of the old definitional problems of MBFR quite apart from problems of verification. It would therefore be better to concentrate on hardware and to proceed on the assumption that manpower would be correspondingly reduced as tanks, artillery pieces and infantry fighting vehicles are reduced. Problems of definition and verification are even more difficult, however, with regard to aircraft. First, there is the issue of defining an attack aircraft, since many aircraft have multiple capabilities and multiple roles. Second, there is the question of mobility. This not only makes verification difficult, but it in fact enhances geographical asymmetries to NATO’s disadvantage: the Soviet Union would be in a much better position to move aircraft rapidly back into Central Europe than the United States, NATO’s major air power. This would be even more true if the Warsaw Pact’s regional proposal with two central Soviet military districts excluded from the central zone was to be accepted. To indicate some of the problems, Soviet figures of January 1989 mention

76 Arms controls after the INF treaty 2,783 ‘combat aircraft of tactical aviation’ for the Warsaw Pact and 4,075 such aircraft for NATO, giving NATO an edge of 1,292. This edge, in fact, does not exist. On the contrary, NATO counts 3,977 Western combat aircraft as against 8,250 on the side of the Warsaw Pact. But the issue becomes much more complicated if one takes the Warsaw Pact’s figures of 7,876 ‘combat aircraft of the air force, air defence and navy’ for the East and 7,130 for NATO. This would give the Warsaw Pact an edge of 746 aircraft, but the Warsaw Pact then subtracts 1,829 interceptors from its subtotal of 5,355 ‘tactical aircraft’, claiming that the former cannot be used for tasks against ground targets, thus leaving it only 3,526 aircraft. By contrast it allows only 50 in this category to be subtracted from NATO’s subtotal of 5,450 ‘tactical combat aircraft’, hence again giving NATO an edge of 1,824 aircraft. Finally, the Warsaw Pact has excluded roughly 7,000 aircraft from its ‘home air defence forces’. These are primarily interceptors, which can, however, also be used as fighter support for attacking bombers or as fighterbombers in a ground-support role. The low ceiling of just 1,500, which the Warsaw Pact has proposed for aircraft, seems to indicate a keen interest in limiting what is considered a very important element of NATO’s defence posture, while at the same time trying to balance the now admitted Warsaw Pact advantage in tanks, artillery and infantry fighting vehicles by coming up with a category in which it attributes advantages to NATO. NATO did not rule out negotiations on aircraft and helicopters, however. Pointing to the difficulties that such negotiations pose, it proposed, rather, to take up these categories at a later stage, first concentrating on such ground forces that could invade, capture and hold occupied territory. While air power would be an important element of an attack, one would not be able to occupy and hold territory with air forces alone. Nevertheless, NATO’s posture changed significantly when President Bush, on the occasion of NATO’s summit meeting in Brussels on 29–30 May 1989, proposed that the West should indeed include discussions on personnel, helicopters and aircraft in the Vienna negotiations. The NATO partners accepted this proposal in principle on 29 May, with only France making some reservations with regard to its own dual-capability aircraft. The proposal on personnel was limited to American and Soviet forces. President Bush proposed reducing American and Soviet land and air force personnel stationed in allied countries in Europe to a ceiling of 275,000 men on each side. For American forces this would imply a reduction of about 30,000, for the Soviet Union the reduction would amount to roughly 325,000 men. Aircraft and helicopters are to be limited to a level about 15 per cent below present NATO

A German perspective 77 totals. According to the proposal reduced equipment is to be destroyed under supervision. Finally, the President called for the conclusion of an agreement within a year, a move most certainly intended to indicate to the Germans that negotiations on short-range nuclear weapons, which could begin some time after such an agreement, would not have to wait indefinitely. Indeed, the proposal brought movement into the NATO summit and unquestionably contributed to the compromise on the nuclear question.18 At the same time the Soviet Union, usually quite ready to make publicly effective calls on the West to come to speedy agreements, warned that such a short time might not be quite realistic. But whatever the case may be, the Bush initiative brought a concession on the part of the West after the Warsaw Pact had moved closer to the original Western proposal on conventional force reductions and, perhaps more important, it prepared the way for a compromise on the issue of short-range nuclear forces and hence opened the door at last to a Western comprehensive concept of arms control and disarmament. THE NUCLEAR ISSUE The nuclear question is intrinsically related to conventional arms control. NATO has reiterated more than once that its strategy of war prevention by deterrence requires an appropriate mix of both conventional and nuclear forces. But in the course of 1988 the two issues were separated more and more – the work on a proposal for conventional force reductions making rapid progress while the question of short-range nuclear weapons19 turned into an issue of serious dissent within the Alliance – although the idea of a ‘comprehensive concept of arms control and disarmament’ as foreseen at the NATO ministers’ meeting in Reykjavik in June 1987 was precisely intended to draw these elements together.20 The real question, it seemed, would have been the role of short-range nuclear weapons in NATO’s concept of deterrence under present (i.e. post-INF) and under changing circumstances if an agreement on conventional force reductions were to be achieved. In fact, however, two other questions moved rapidly into the foreground. First, should negotiations be conducted also on theatre nuclear forces, and if so, at what stage and with what aim? Second, what relationship exists and should be taken into consideration between required modernization measures of existing short-range nuclear forces and the possibility of such negotiations? Perhaps the initial hopes attached to the comprehensive concept had been too ambitious. In the

78 Arms controls after the INF treaty German view, as it was originally portrayed, the concept was to delineate Western security interests and defence options and their relationship to possible arms control measures. Interests, problems and proposals were to be considered in their relationship to each other; no segment was to be dealt with in isolation. For some, the INF experience seemed to indicate the need for a clearer and more detailed NATO concept. There is no question that the West German government supported the agreement, having in fact contributed to its coming about by agreeing in summer 1987 to the eventual elimination of its own Pershing IA missiles. In the course of negotiations on the INF treaty, however, two developments had taken place and became apparent that were to have some effect on German (and European) thinking. Despite support for the INF agreement there was a degree of uncertainty about whether NATO had started the arms limitation process in Europe at the right end. As the process proceeded and the zero option was brought forward by President Reagan and supported by the FDP and SPD in 198121 (abandoning the original concept of a common ceiling) some wondered whether or not NATO was preparing to give up an option – namely, a deterrent threat to Soviet territory from Western Europe with the most modern intermediate-range land-based weapons systems available to NATO – that ought to have been given up at the end of the process rather than at the beginning. In addition, there were some who believed that they were witnessing a certain congruence of superpower interests which possibly existed irrespective of Western European interests. In any case it seemed wise to go into the next round of arms control talks well prepared and on an Alliance platform that would include the whole array of defence options, regardless of the time stages in which the negotiations of various segments might proceed. Part of this, and perhaps in itself a further reason for the proposal, was that there was a general feeling that more thought needed to be given to the future implementation of NATO’s strategy of flexible response and to the fact that NATO’s primary interest is deterrence, which relies to a substantial degree on the role of nuclear weapons. Neither an extensive conventional nor a nuclear defence is ultimately acceptable from the European point of view. Although it is an understandable American position to maintain as much flexibility as possible, from the European point of view such flexibility should not lend itself to the appearance of decoupling, and hence weaken NATO’s deterrent posture. A third reason for the German proposal can be seen in thedomestic situation in the Federal Republic of Germany. There is a very strong and popular interest in arms control in Germany – much more so than in most other allied countries – and obviously the West German government has an interest in taking this into account. To many, modernization of

A German perspective 79 short-range nuclear weapons at this stage would run counter to what appear to be new opportunities for arms control. Modernization now would be a ‘wrong signal’. Thus, one should move carefully on this issue, and one can because – in the German view – a decision on modernization is not imperative before 1992. Indeed, some hoped that a comprehensive concept would tie together the politically more difficult elements, such as arms modernization, with other elements which are politically much easier to ‘sell’, such as arms limitations. What is more important, the entire security posture would have to fit and would have been assigned its proper place, thus avoiding the difficulty of having to explain and present individual parts of Western policy without reference to the whole. In fact, at an early stage some observers believed that it might be possible for such a comprehensive concept to give an idea about the minimum number of theatre nuclear forces required in order to continue to fulfil the two major functions within the concept of flexible response, namely to extend deterrence and to place an enhanced risk on concentration of conventional forces capable of achieving a quick breakthrough; to indicate where NATO needs to improve or modernize existing forces; and to show where and by how much NATO might possibly reduce. As it turned out, such hopes were exaggerated and perhaps unfounded in the first place. In the course of 1988 and 1989 the West German government felt that the issue of short-range nuclear weapons was becoming increasingly difficult. There were a number of reasons for this. The first is what may be called the ‘delegitimization’ of nuclear weapons. Whereas many were still willing to attribute a deterrent function to strategic weapons, fewer and fewer could see much value in short-range nuclear weapons. These weapons – artillery with ranges up to 30 km and the Lance missile with a range of about 110 km – would hit German territory only, in fact making it possible for the superpowers to fight a limited nuclear war in Europe without escalating to strategic levels. The INF treaty of 1987, by which intermediate-range weapons capable of reaching Soviet territory are to be withdrawn, and NATO’s Wintex exercise of 1989, in the course of which eighteen nuclear weapons were ‘employed’, seventeen of them targeted on German territory, seemed to confirm these fears.22 The shorter the range, the deader the Germans’ became a much quoted slogan. All too often the role of the short-range weapons – conforming to the original reasoning with which they had been introduced – was seen primarily in offsetting the conventional imbalance. Their main function was almost completely replaced: to deter by enhancing the credibility of American nuclear involvement in case of an

80 Arms controls after the INF treaty attack. Forward deployment would increase the risk for any attack by making it very difficult to avoid nuclear escalation with any degree of certainty. At the same time, the capability for a limited response would avoid confronting the United States almost immediately with the question of a strategic response, making it ‘easier’ to respond, as it were, and thus again enhancing credibility. Of course, herein lies one of the problems: from the German point of view any nuclear response, if it became necessary, ought to be a political response with the primary goal of restoring deterrence. A purely military reaction with the possibility of unleashing a theatre nuclear war in Europe would put into question the raison d’être of the Federal Republic’s membership of NATO.23 It was exactly this, however, that increasingly developed into the central issue, particularly, it must be admitted, after the INF agreement, by which many of these weapons, which place a direct risk on Soviet territory, will be removed. In addition, the argument that short-range weapons were needed to offset the conventional imbalances – wrong in the first place, but foremost in the public debate – was questioned, with the widely perceived declining threat from the Soviet Union, the announcement of unilateral reductions by the Warsaw Pact and the promising prospects for further agreed-upon reductions in the Vienna negotiations. Indeed, in general the rising anti-nuclear movement, only partially subdued by the INF deployment in 1983 but supported by the Chernobyl accident in May 1986, coupled with the ‘Gorbachev effect’, made any decision on nuclear modernization seem to be close to impossible from the government’s point of view. The rising German sentiment against low-level flight training (60 per cent by the Allies), dramatically enhanced by the accidents at Ramstein and Remscheid, as well as the relatively weak position of the German defence minister in the West German political set-up, contributed further to the overall picture as it unfolded in 1988–9. Last, but not least, there were the results from state and local elections which showed a steady decline for the governing coalition. Whether rightly or wrongly, this was attributed to some extent to the anti-nuclear and pro-disarmament feeling. In particular, the smallest of the coalition parties, the FDP, seemed to be looking for a niche that would ensure its political survival, and pro-détente and prodisarmament seemed to be one. In fact, it was difficult to convey the idea that there would be negotiations in all sectors – on strategic and intermediate nuclear weapons and on conventional forces – except for the one that the Germans felt posed the greatest threat to them. Objectively, little sense could be found in nuclear munitions for artillery with a range of 30 km, although for the modernization of land-based missiles, range

A German perspective 81 extension and negotiations with the aim of reaching a common lower ceiling, thus also eliminating the large Soviet advantage of 15:1, would, it seemed, make sense. It was probably a mistake for the British and Americans to start pressing for SNF modernization almost immediately after the conclusion of the INF treaty, while at the same time being adamant in their refusal to consider negotiations. This ran counter not only to the realities of the German political situation but also to everything that the comprehensive concept was supposed to do, namely to tie all elements together in order to come up with a position that would allow both modernization and negotiation. There was, or so it seemed, mistrust of the Germans here: once negotiations started, movement towards a ‘third zero’ for short-range weapons might gain momentum, leading to further denuclearization of Western defences in Europe. While the Americans had pushed for the ‘first zero’ for LRINF (1,000–5,500 km), and the British had abandoned the Germans in the summer of 1987 in the move to keep the German Pershing IA out of the INF negotiations, as a consequence of which the ‘second zero’ for SRINF (from 500 to 1,000 km) came about, they now feared that the Germans might be the ones to opt for a ‘third zero’. As it turned out, the Americans finally recognized the German government’s domestic assessment and accepted a postponement of a German decision on modernization of the Lance, and both Britain and the United States had to accept that there would have to be negotiations on SNF at some point. In the meantime the alliance went through a crisis that lasted more than a year and possibly gave the supporters of a ‘third zero’ in Germany a chance to strengthen their position. THE COMPREHENSIVE CONCEPT The ‘Comprehensive Concept of Arms Control and Disarmament’ passed at the NATO summit meeting on 30 May 1989,24 did mainly four things: it resolved a serious political crisis in NATO; it reiterated and in some respects clarified basic lines of NATO strategy; it postponed the decision on modernization of short-range landbased nuclear missiles in Europe; and it accepted that there would at some stage be negotiations on these missiles. The latter two issues obviously were of most immediate importance. With regard to modernization the Concept stated that the ‘question concerning the introduction and deployment of a follow-on system for the Lance will be dealt with in 1992 in the light of overall security developments’. This meant that basically the German position was accepted. An exact interpretation of the phrasing in fact indicates that it

82 Arms controls after the INF treaty is not modernization as such but the decision on modernization that has been postponed. As for current research on a possible follow-on system, the German position is also reflected in the wording, but it is strongly buffered, and there is an expression of allied support for the United States: While a decision for national authorities, the Allies concerned recognize the value of the continued funding by the United States of research and development of a follow-on for the existing Lance short-range missile, in order to preserve their options in this respect. With regard to negotiations on short-range nuclear weapons, another German demand, these were accepted in the Concept, but tied to three conditions in the conventional field: first, negotiations would be entered into only when implementation of a conventional arms reduction agreement is underway (in other words, not when there is progress in the negotiations or even when an agreement is signed); second, the aim of the negotiations would be only a ‘partial reduction of American and Soviet land-based nuclear missile forces of shorter range to equal and verifiable levels’ (the word ‘partial’ is underlined in the original document);25 and third, any reductions agreed to will not be carried out until after the results of the conventional agreement have actually been implemented. By tying them to relatively severe criteria one could argue that this comes to the American and British positions on negotiations. On the other hand, the prospects for results in the conventional area are perhaps better than they have ever been before; they have repeatedly been declared to be a ‘test’ of Soviet intentions, and President Bush clearly intended to speed up the negotiations by expressing his hope that an agreement could be achieved within 6 to 12 months, this point being taken up in the Comprehensive Concept. In addition to these two issues of immediate importance the Comprehensive Concept stated or restated some basic guidelines for NATO policy. With regard to nuclear forces it is again mentioned that NATO’s strategy of war prevention by deterrence depends on

an appropriate mix of adequate and effective nuclear and conventional forces which will continue to be kept up to date where necessary. Where nuclear forces are concerned, land-, sea-, and air-based systems, including ground-based missiles, in the present circumstances and as far as can be foreseen will be needed in Europe. But, importantly, the deterrence function of these ‘substrategic nuclear forces’ is

A German perspective 83 emphasized by pointing out that they are ‘not principally a counter to similar systems operated by members of the WTO’ and that they are ‘not designed to compensate for conventional imbalances’. Rather nuclear forces below the strategic level provide an essential political and military linkage between conventional and strategic forces and, together with the presence of Canadian and the United States forces in Europe, between the European and North American members of the Alliance. . . . Their role is to ensure that there are no circumstances in which a political aggressor might discount the prospect of nuclear retaliation in response to military action. Nuclear forces below the strategic level thus make an essential contribution to deterrence. CONCLUSIONS The acceptance of the Comprehensive Concept, uncertain to almost the very last minute, caused a sigh of relief throughout the Alliance. The United States and specifically President Bush had demonstrated initiative, creativity and effective leadership. They had put forward proposals which not only turned out to be acceptable to everyone, but which contributed significantly to a solid NATO platform on arms control and brought movement into the East–West scene. The Germans, whose position was not an easy one in the Alliance, were able to bring their specific points of interest to bear while avoiding the role of the scapegoat that had thrown the Alliance into crisis and dissension. If the British were unhappy about any aspect of the Concept, they were certainly not going to risk tainting the very close relationship Margaret Thatcher had built up with the Americans by openly showing dissatisfaction. Finally, the Alliance as a whole had every reason to be content: a politically very serious crisis had been staved off and the Alliance was all the better for now having a concept on security and arms control that is indeed comprehensive, acceptable and plausible as a framework for Western negotiating positions. In fact, the Comprehensive Concept was overdue for a number of reasons. It outlines NATO’s strategy, emphasizing its continuing validity, and points out what this means both for defence and arms control. Second, it sets a framework for the ongoing arms control negotiations, both in the conventional and in the nuclear field. In fact, it specifies the relationship between conventional arms control and nuclear weapons to a greater extent than might have been expected. Finally, it brings clarity to a number of aspects that to many had seemingly become unclear in the course of the debate, for example the role of shorter-range nuclear forces for deterrence or the

84 Arms controls after the INF treaty continuing soundness of the Harmel Report of 1967, according to which the first function of the Alliance ‘is to maintain adequate military strength and political solidarity to deter aggression and other forms of pressure and to defend the territory of member countries if aggression should occur’. On that basis, the Alliance can carry out its second function ‘to pursue the search for progress towards a more stable relationship in which the underlying political issues can be solved’. As far as the ongoing negotiations are concerned, the Comprehensive Concept makes two points quite clear: that the West is putting priority on conventional arms negotiations in Europe and is expecting results in the near future; and that the Comprehensive Concept shows that NATO has political vision and that it is determined to maintain the foundations of its past success. These foundations are NATO’s defence capability, its political solidarity, its eminent and all too frequently underestimated value as an instrument of co-ordination for the West, and the determination of its members to stand together and to negotiate together. On this basis the Alliance can move forward with confidence towards its aim, formulated in the Comprehensive Concept, of an undivided continent where military forces only exist to prevent war and to ensure self-defence; a continent which no longer lives in the shadow of overwhelming military forces and from which the threat of war has been removed; a continent where the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states are respected and the rights of all individuals, including their right of political choice, are protected. NOTES 1 Cf. NATO Communiqués 1986, Brussels, p. 29. 2 Cf. ibid., p. 31f. 3 Cf. text in (1986) Europa-Archiv 16:D 443–53 . 4 Cf. NATO Communiqués 1986, p. 31. 5 See the detailed analysis in Mahncke, Dieter (1987) Vertrauensbildende Maßnahmen als Instrument der Sickerheitspolitik. Ursprung–Entwicklung– Perspektiven, Melle: Knoth. 6 Although the French were initially somewhat hesitant about the NATO–Warsaw Pact negotiating forum, the development of this negotiating process does go back to a French proposal of May 1987 (accepted with some changes by the NATO foreign ministers in December 1979). France at that time had suggested a two-

A German perspective 85 phased disarmament conference, the first phase dealing with confidencebuilding measures, the second with actual reductions of conventional forces (cf. ibid., p. 52f). The first phase was indeed the Stockholm conference from 1984 to 1986, which, however, is to be continued (thus the term ‘Stockholm I b’), while the disarmament phase, according to NATO preference, will be conducted in a separate, twenty-three-nation forum, although with some ties to the overall CSCE process. 7 Cf. Communiqué, NATO Press Service, 12 June 1987. 8 Cf. text in (1988) Europa-Archiv 7:D 204–28 . 9 Cf. FBIS-Sov-88-137, 18 July 1988, p. 11ff. 10 Cf. (1989) NATO’s Sixteen Nations, 34: 1(special edition), pp. 90–6. 11 ibid., pp. 85–9. 12 Cf. text in (1988) Moscow News supplement to issue no. 51 (3351). 13 Cf. (1989) The Arms Control Reporter section 407.B.115, p. 121ff. 14 Text in (1989) Arms Control Today 3: 18f. 15 These factors need further investigation. For example, it is unclear whether restraints on logistical and transport capacity are really feasible in view of extensive peacetime capacities which might easily be converted to military use. 16 See on this Ruehl, Lothar (1989) ‘Der Osten will Europa unterteilen’, Die Welt 25 May. 17 Cf. Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine, 26 May 1989. These figures were first presented to Secretary of State James Baker in Moscow on 11 May 1989; cf. Pravda 12 May 1989. 18 On this see the following section. 19 Theatre nuclear forces include shorter-range intermediate nuclear forces (SRINF) between a range of 150 and 500 km. Since the conclusion of the INF agreement the tendency has grown to call all nuclear weapons below the range of 500 km short-range nuclear forces (SNF). 20 For this reason, the Federal Republic of Germany would have preferred to call it a ‘Comprehensive Concept of Security, Arms Control and Disarmament’. See on this Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s statement before the Bundestag on 10 December 1987, in Deutscher Bundestag, Stenographische Berichte 10 December 1987, pp. 3400-6. In fact, on the insistence of the Germans and in contrast to the NATO communiqué of 12 June 1987 in Reykjavik, this formulation was adopted at the NATO summit in March 1988. However, the final version, as passed in Brussels on 30 May 1989, was again only called ‘Comprehensive Concept of Arms Control and Disarmament’.

86 Arms controls after the INF treaty 21 See on this Ruehl, Lothar (1987) Mittelstreckenwaffen in Europa. IhreBedeutung in Strategie, Ruestungskontrolle und Buendispolitik, Baden-Baden: Nomos, p. 289ff. 22 Cf., for example, the report in Der Spiegel, ‘Wir Europaeer sollen uns opfern’, 24 April 1989, p. 14ff. 23 This is one of the fundamental issues the Alliance has always been confronted with; see a history of the issue in Mahncke, Dieter (1972) Nukleare Mitwirkung. Die Bundersrepublik Deutschland in der Atlantischen Allianz 1954–1970, Berlin. 24 NATO Press Communiqué M-1 (89) 20, Brussels, 30 May 1989. 25 In paragraph 43 of the Concept there is talk of ‘equal ceilings at lower levels’.

Part III The role of confidencebuilding measures

5 Confidence- and security-building measures: an evolving East–West security regime?1 Volker Rittberger, Manfred Efinger and Martin Mendler

INTRODUCTION In the introductory chapter of a major volume on American–Soviet security cooperation, the editors summarize the perspective from which the contributors have addressed their subject: The starting point of this study is the hypothesis that the United States and the Soviet Union perceive that they have a strong interest in managing their rivalry in order to control its costs and risks. This shared interest . . . is coupled with a more diffuse recognition of two other goals: namely, the desirability of developing over time a more cooperative, orderly, and stable US–Soviet relationship, and regional and global institutions and arrangements that create some additional order in the international system from which the two superpowers benefit at least indirectly. However, although the United States and the Soviet Union may subscribe to these longer-range goals, they have rather amorphous and somewhat divergent conceptions of what the norms, ‘rules’ and modalities of a more cooperative relationship and a better structured international system should be.1 What these authors have assumed about the overall American–Soviet security relationship can be stated with equal force with respect to East–West security relations in Europe. Not only do the United States and the Soviet Union abide by the ‘broad injunctions’ to ‘limit competition to avoid war’ and to ‘respect spheres of influence’ in Europe, as Joseph S. Nye 2 has pointed out; equally important, their 1. A very similar article by the authors has previously been published as (1990) ‘Toward an East–West security regime: The case of confidence- and security-building measures’, Journal of Peace Research 27:1:55–74.

90 Confidence-building measures European allies, including the two Germanies, to this day have few if any incentives, and lack the capabilities, to challenge these superpower security arrangements in and for Europe. This does not mean that European countries do not occasionally disagree with the superpowers’ strategies towards European security, nor does it exclude that European countries take the initiative in proposing, and lobbying for, additional measures of East–West security co-operation which had not been at the top of the agenda of one or both of the superpowers. What is implied here can be stated as the proposition that the security arrangements in and for Europe seem to depend on the hegemonic rivalry or co-operation, as the case may be, between the two superpowers, and that the European countries remain subordinate actors even though they enjoy various degrees of residual autonomy and of influence on the superpowers (especially through alliance decision making). One example of East–West security co-operation in Europe in which several European countries took a special interest, and which was not given very high priority status by the United States, and which had received mostly rhetorical support from the Soviet Union, has been the project of confidence- and securitybuilding measures (CSBM) originally launched at the Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in 1975 and significantly expanded at the Stockholm Conference on Confidence-Building and Disarmament in Europe (CDE) in 1986.3 This project of East–West security co-operation in Europe can be said to have evolved into a specific security ‘regime’ for several reasons to be examined in greater detail later on.4 First, the norms and rules of the CSBM regime appear to be complied with by the states involved in an almost routine manner – not only because of short-term calculations of prudential behaviour but out of a longterm interest in creating convergent expectations about what are permissible military activities and what are not. Second, the CSBM regime, while not addressing itself to the hypothetical objective threat arising from military capabilities to wage a war, has at least the potential of reducing, if not overcoming, the threat of surprise attack and, thus, of contributing to the stabilization of East– West security relations. Furthermore, a successfully implemented CSBM regime might give rise to the question whether prevailing assumptions, in the East and West, about the strategic intentions of the other side continue to be valid or need to be reassessed. However, the ‘behavioural’ approach towards constraining the option of using military force in conflict management as represented by CSBM runs the risk of being stymied if it is not followed up by ‘structural’ changes, to be engineered in a piecemeal fashion, at the level of military postures (including force structure and military doctrine). Thus, one has to consider the positive, or negative,

An evolving East–West security regime? 91 interaction between the effectiveness of a CSBM regime and the quest for, or the failure to move towards, conventional arms control (including theatre nuclear and dual-capability weapons). The present study reflects both a theoretical and a practical policy-oriented interest. On the one hand, it seeks to explore the applicability of ‘regime analysis’ to the collective management of East–West security relations, especially in Europe. On the other hand, it seeks to determine whether or not agreement on, and implementation of, CSBM has indeed led to the formation of a security regime from the Atlantic to the Urals affecting, however modestly, policy-makers’ expectations about the nature and salience of certain aspects of their adversary’s behaviour. While the next four sections of this study will focus on the former, especially the formation of the CSBM regime, the consequences of this security regime will be discussed in the penultimate section of this chapter. INTERNATIONAL REGIMES AND THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE The traditional view of international relations holds that the politics of international relations should be conceptualized in terms of an anarchic, decentralized self-help system of states seeking to maximize their relative security and welfare; states, in turn, are defined as unitary, rational actors driven by the pursuit of power and wealth. Since this model view of international politics is based on the assumption of an all-pervasive security dilemma, international relations research in this tradition has an in-built bias for investigating competitive strategies which are based on independent national decision making and, at the same time, oriented towards the maintenance of national independence. Thus, this traditional view of international relations is not easily reconciled to the fact of institutionalized cooperation between states (often involving transnational co-operation of various sorts and intensities); that is, voluntary co-operation with a wide time horizon regulated by ex ante set norms and rules. To be sure, ‘anarchy’ also allows for cooperation among competitors but includes the restriction that it is of an ad hoc nature or that it helps form a temporary alliance against a third party. However, institutionalized co-operation between states for the collective handling of problems or conflicts turns our attention away from the model of ‘international anarchy’ to one of ‘international governance’; that is, to how states manage collectively to rule themselves without setting up ‘international (supranational) government’. Consequently, the coexistence of patterns of state behaviour as

92 Confidence-building measures diverse as strategic competition and institutionalized co-operation suggests that international relations research needs to keep an open mind to accommodate the rival (and, at the same time, complementary) analytic perspectives of ‘international anarchy’ and of ‘international governance’. For a long time, from about the 1880s until the 1950s, international governance became equated with the creation and the activities of intergovernmental organizations. Partly as a result of the growing disillusionment with the United Nations in the wake of the ‘Cold War’, partly flowing from the seemingly successful efforts in Western Europe at forming a political community which was expected to be emulated in other world regions, international, and especially regional, integration was held to form the core of international governance. Yet the high hopes invested, by scholars and political practitioners alike, in regional integration schemes as a way of expanding ‘supranationalism’ in international politics proved to be premature, to say the least. Nevertheless, analysts of international relations could not close their eyes to the persistence and growth of institutionalized co-operation among states in a wide variety of issue areas and ranging from bilateral to all kinds of multilateral projects. To capture the essential meaning of these efforts of states at ruling themselves collectively by consensus rather than by force and to avoid the teleological connotations of previous interpretations of ‘international governance’, the notion of international regime was introduced in the mid-1970s5 and gained wide acceptance in the study of international governance during the 1980s.6 Despite the vast amount of research generated under the auspices of the ‘regime analysis’ of international relations, the practitioners of this approach only reluctantly considered its applicability to security issues7 and tended to shy away altogether from extending their field of interest from West–West and North–South relations to encompass East–West relations. There is little doubt that unexamined assumptions about the basis of ‘the East–West conflict’ and the pervasive methodological holism in research on East–West relations perceived as the ‘Great Contest’8 have contributed to almost dismissing the perspective of international governance as a valid analytical focus of this segment of international relations research. However, to correct this imbalance and to move away from the holistic notion of ‘the East–West conflict’ which tends to obscure the diversity of interaction patterns which emerged especially in Europe, it will be suggested that, at least for heuristic if not for substantive reasons, East–West relations need to be looked at as a set of patterned interactions spread across several issue areas and centred on a variety of objects of contention, some of which lend themselves to

An evolving East–West security regime? 93 regulation by institutionalized co-operation whereas others do not, or not very much. Our general assumption therefore is that the perspective of international governance cannot be excluded from research on East–West relations and that the search for international regimes in East–West relations may not be as futile as the ‘Great Contest’ image appears to predict. The concept of international regime, which now lies at the heart of international relations research from the perspective of international governance, has become an important though not easily applied analytical tool.9 Recent ‘stateof-the-art’ surveys10 have amply demonstrated the difficulties involved in arriving at a satisfactory definition which is capable of delimiting and differentiating a domain of scientific inquiry. Following Stephan Haggard and Beth Simmons we are confronted with ‘contending definitions of international regimes, which range from patterned behavior, to convergent norms and expectations, to explicit injunctions’.11 The argument against a broad definition of ‘international regime’ is convincingly stated by the same authors who emphasize that it ‘runs the risk of conflating regularized behaviour with rules, and almost certainly overestimates the level of normative consensus in international politics’.12 Their reluctance to embrace the influential definition proposed by Stephen Krasner13 results from its complexity involving four terms (principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures) several of which are, at times, difficult to distinguish from one another. Moreover, since Krasner’s definition allows for both explicitness and implicitness of normative regulation, he faces practical difficulties in deciding whether more or less stable behaviour patterns result from normative constraints or are to be explained by other factors. A narrow definition of international regime may therefore be desirable to avoid the pitfalls briefly indicated. Again finding much merit in Haggard and Simmons’ approach, regimes are defined as ‘agreements among states which aim to regulate national actions within an issuearea. Regimes define the range of permissible state action by outlining explicit injunctions’.14 Moreover, they argue plausibly that their definition has the advantage of allowing a sharper distinction between the concepts of regime, cooperation, and institution. Regimes are examples of co-operative behavior, and facilitate co-operation, but co-operation can take place in the absence of established regimes. . . . Regimes aid the ‘institutionalization’ of portions of international life by regularizing expectations, but some international institutions such as the balance of power are not bound to explicit rights and rules.15

94 Confidence-building measures International regimes have been said to constitute the core of international governance which, in turn, can be conceived as setting such normative– institutional limits to the realm of international anarchy as have been agreed to by states. However, the interest in international regimes does not exhaust itself by determining their role in the organization of international relations but extends to ascertaining their consequences for the processes and outcomes of international policy making. In other words, do international regimes make a difference for the collective management of international problems or conflicts in both procedural and substantive terms? Since international regimes are defined by referring to a normative consensus about what states are (not) permitted to do in a given issue area, regime participants can be expected to refrain from the use or threat of force while dealing with the issue or conflict, the regulation of which is intended by the regime. Leaving aside the hypothetical possibility of a collective security regime, which would actually stipulate the use of force as the mandated collective response to a collective situation called ‘aggression’, international regimes seem to presuppose and, at the same time, to foster ‘negative peace’; that is, the stable expectation that force is not a usable instrument for achieving one’s objective in an issue area. However, whether or not, or to what extent, international regime and ‘negative peace’ are two sides of the same coin remains an open question not to be answered by definition but through empirical research. While this question pertains, in principle, to international regimes in all kinds of issue areas, it would be the discovery of international security regimes which should provide the most telling insights into this linkage between international regimes and the promotion of ‘negative peace’. The consequences of international regimes for the strengthening of peaceful international relations need not be restricted to ‘negative peace’. One may also ask whether or not, or to what extent, international regimes are linked to reducing ‘structural violence’ or to facilitating ‘just peace’ among nations. This question has been raised, directly or indirectly, in much of the regime literature dealing with North–South issues.16 At first sight, it appears to be of far lesser concern to the analysis of international regimes in East–West relations since the structural feature of asymmetry does not show up here as clear cut across all issue areas as it does in North–South relations. Nevertheless, it may not be entirely misplaced to consider the two main dimensions of ‘just peace’ in the context of analysing East–West regimes; that is, the enhancement of ‘procedural justice’ and of ‘distributive justice’ by institutionalized East–West co-operation for the collective management of problems or conflicts in the fields of security, economy, ideology, ecology, etc.

An evolving East–West security regime? 95 Since questions of this nature have not yet elicited much interest in the international relations literature on East–West issues it must suffice here to state:

1 that East–West regimes could have a direct bearing on the achievement of objectives of procedural justice as expressed, for example, in the role of representativity; and

2 that the concept of justice as fairness in the sense used by John Rawls and Charles Beitz17 might be too demanding a standard for evaluating the consequences of East–West regimes but that criteria such as furthering equal security and equal opportunity in international relations might not. REGIME ANALYSIS AND THE STUDY OF EAST–WEST RELATIONS In a research monograph on international regimes in East–West relations, Manfred Efinger, Volker Rittberger and Michael Zürn18 develop an alternative to the prevailing approach to the study of East–West relations. Instead of viewing ‘the East–West conflict’ as an a priori totality and of trying to explain the course of events in East–West relations exclusively as variously determined by the nature of this conflict totality, these authors seek to explore the fruitfulness of an approach which focuses on the very issues or objects of contention which are contested by ‘East’ and ‘West’. While not denying that differences of power capabilities, political status, and socio-economic systems may be of considerable relevance to the understanding of East–West relations, it is argued that they should not be assumed, individually or in some combination, to be of paramount importance; rather, it is held that, depending on the type of issue or object of contention, the specific mode of managing collectively the issue or conflict may vary considerably. Thus, whereas the macroscopic emphasis on ‘the East–West conflict’ invariably ends up with the starkly polarized discussion about threat perceptions and the ways of countering them, the microscopic approach begins by disaggregating the assumed conflict totality and by distinguishing between conflict (i.e. a positional difference over goals or means of achieving goals) and conflict management (i.e. the variety of ways to deal with such positional differences). Based on a conceptual model of the conflict process and providing a differentiated explication of ‘conflict management’ the microscopic approach introduces the distinction between unregulated conflict management ranging from ad hoc co-operation to the use of force, regulated conflict management including conflict termination, and conflict resolution. It is the area of conflict management

96 Confidence-building measures by regulation where the study of East–West relations can put the concept of international regime to good use. There is nothing novel in the effort to explain the nature and outcome of policy-making processes in terms of issue-area characteristics. Functionalists distinguished long ago between ‘high politics’ and ‘low politics’ and used this distinction to account for sector-specific international integration in ‘technical’ issue areas. In a more generalized version, Theodore Lowi argued that ‘policy determines politics’19 implying that political processes and their outcomes vary across issue areas depending, inter alia, on their characteristic features. It is suggested that, in line with the emphasis on the microscopic conflict analysis of East–West relations, the task of identifying and explaining ‘East–West regimes’ will be facilitated by turning to hypotheses which state that certain qualities of an issue or object of contention induce the actors involved to select one mode of collective issue or conflict management rather than another. In the literature on international regimes this approach has provoked a debate about the opportunities for, and the constraints on, regime formation and maintenance in the issue area of international security. Robert Jervis20 has pointed out the various obstacles to international security regimes and Janice Stein21 has refined this analysis. Efinger et al.22 have tested two issue-area typologies for the hypothesis that security issues are much less likely to elicit collective co-operative responses than do economic or other ‘welfare-related’ issues and found this hypothesis confirmed. However, their finding has to be qualified in two ways. First, security was not dealt with as a comprehensive, indivisible issue area of East–West relations but again disaggregated into identifiable objects of contention. Second, security issues were not found to deny, in toto, their collective management by institutionalized co-operation; rather, some other conditions apparently need to be met for security regimes to emerge, and to be maintained, in East–West relations. We agree with Alexander George et al. that ‘a comprehensive security regime, one that would deal with all or most aspects of the competition and rivalry affecting the security interface of the two superpowers, is not feasible’23 and hold that this proposition is valid for East–West security relations in their entirety. The same applies to what follows: we reject the premise that a security regime is an either–or proposition: that there will either be a comprehensive security regime or none at all, and that viable, useful cooperative security arrangements are not possible unless they

An evolving East–West security regime? 97 are parts of a comprehensive security regime. We believe it is more useful to regard the security dimension of US–Soviet relations as embracing many issues, some of which can be decoupled from each other and become the focus for efforts to contrive mutually acceptable cooperative arrangements.24 For the analysis of the conditions under which the formation of security regimes in East–West relations can be expected to occur both Manfred Efinger, Volker Rittberger and Michael Zürn25 and Alexander George26 have developed a typology of conflicts and of security issues, respectively, from which they derive hypotheses about their varying degrees of ‘regime-conduciveness’. Efinger et al. build their typology on the distinction between ‘dissensual’ and ‘consensual’ conflicts and differentiate these categories further. ‘Dissensual’ conflicts do relate not only to value incompatibilities but also to dissensus about means; ‘consensual’ conflicts can be divided into ‘conflicts about absolutely assessed goods’ and into ‘conflicts about relatively assessed goods’.27 In general, ‘dissensual’ conflicts pose greater difficulties to being managed collectively by co-operation than ‘consensual’ conflicts. However, within both broad categories conflicts about means and conflicts about absolutely assessed goods are more cooperation prone or ‘regime-conducive’ than conflicts about values and conflicts about relatively assessed goods, respectively. Table 5.1 summarizes the relationships just indicated. A preliminary test of the hypotheses derived from this four-fold conflict typology reveals that they seem to hold up against empirical evidence from East–West relations.28 The crucial point here, however, is to ask how this typology may help account for the formation of East–West security regimes. We expect security

Table 5.1 Dissensual and consensual conflicts and regime-conductiveness

Types of conflicts Dissensual

Consensual

{ {

Degree of regime-conduciveness Values ——————————> Very low Means —————————— > Medium Relatively Assessed Goods —————> Low Absolutely Assessed Goods ————— > High

98 Confidence-building measures issues to fall either in the category of conflicts about relatively assessed goods or in the category of conflicts about means. Both the theoretically developed conflict typology and the preliminary test suggest that security issues which take the form of conflicts about means are more ‘regime-conducive’ than other security issues. As a note of caution it should be added that the empirical test of the conflict typology indicates that conflicts about means stand about a 50–50 chance of being managed collectively by co-operation. Alexander George develops his typology of security issues around the two dimensions of ‘tightness’ or ‘looseness’ of mutual dependency/ vulnerability with respect to a given issue; and of the ‘centrality’ or ‘peripheral’ nature of the issue’s importance to the country’s overall security concerns. He hypothesizes that security issues reflecting tightness of mutual dependence and being of central importance to a country’s overall security concerns show the greatest potential for being managed collectively by co-operative arrangement whereas least Table 5.2 Typology of security issues Importance of issue to Country’s overall security concerns Central

Mutual Tight dependence/ vulnerability with respect to issue Loose

Peripheral

1 High potential for co-operative arrangements

2 Intermediate

3 Intermediate

4 Low potential for cooperative arrangements

co-operation should be expected when states cope with security issues where mutual dependence is loose and the importance to a country’s overall security concerns is peripheral. The interrelations posited by George’s theoretical analysis can be represented graphically as seen in table 5.2. Having developed the conceptual and theoretical analysis of international regimes in East–West relations with special reference to the issue area of security and

An evolving East–West security regime? 99 having pinpointed the possibilities of accounting for the formation of East–West security regimes, we may now turn to considering the question whether or not, or to what extent, CSBM in Europe have come to represent an East–West security regime. CSBM – A SECURITY REGIME IN AND FOR EUROPE? Confidence- and security-building measures (CSBM) can be defined as those arrangements having the following characteristics: they deal with the operations of military forces, not with their capabilities; at a minimum they provide a framework for exchanging information about the nature of military operations; they should encourage nations to act during normal times in a way that would serve to eliminate causes of tension and reduce the dangers of misunderstanding or miscalculations; they should promote habits of co-operation among adversaries; preferably, they should serve to reinforce stability or restore equilibrium during periods of intense international confrontation; agreement on such measures is based on the assumption that the nations involved desire to avoid conflict, but since this assumption could change it is important that such a co-operative security regime should contain measures of verification necessary to deter or detect deception.29 The case of CBM of the Helsinki Final Act (1975) and, more importantly, of CSBM as agreed upon at the Stockholm CDE conference (1986) can be said to regulate an admittedly small segment of national action in the area of military security. They contain explicit injunctions which circumscribe the range of permissible state action as regards the movements of military forces in peacetime, the notification of such movements, the invitation of observers, and the admission of on-site inspections to verify a state’s compliance with the provisions of the regime. An overview of the regime’s crucial set of rules including a comparison of Helsinki CBM and Stockholm CSBM is represented in table 5.3.

100 Confidence-building measures Table 5.3 Helsinki and Stockholm C(S)BM Helsinki CBM

Stockholm CSBM

Zone of application

European territory, extending 250 km into the USSR and Turkey

Degree of commitment

On voluntary basis*

Activities covered

Notification thresholds

Confined to manoeuvres (incl. movements at parties’ discretion) 25,000 troops

Prior notification period

At least 21 days, no annual calender

Observation threshold

None specified

Constraining provisions

None

Verification provisions

None

The whole of Europe extending 250 km into Turkey, and the adjoining sea and air space All provisions are politically binding Agreed military activities, incl. exercises, movements of troops from outside the zone Ground forces: 13,000 troops or 300 battle tanks At least 42 days, with annual calendar and 2 year forecast Ground forces: 17,000 troops Amphibious landings: 5,000 troops Parachute assaults: 5,000 troops Time constraints: activities with 40,000 and 70,000 troops not permitted unless they are notified 1 and 2 years in advance, respectively Each state must accept up to three obligatory on-site inspections per year (from different states), from the ground, air or both

* However, in practice it was understood that the provisions for notification of troops above 25,000 amounted to an obligation. Source: SIPRI Yearbook 1987, p. 349

An evolving East–West security regime? 101 At the most elementary level, the CSBM regime seeks to operationalize, in a very limited way, the twin normative principles underlying security policy after the Second World War: the general prohibition of the use or threat of force for settling disputes between states (Art. 2, para. 4 UN Charter) and the lawfulness of military self-defence, either individually or collectively undertaken (Art. 51 UN Charter). It does so by furthering standards of international behaviour relative to the use of military forces in peacetime which enhance convergent expectations of mutual selfrestraint. More specifically, by making peacetime movements of military forces in Europe more transparent and, possibly in the future, by putting (lower) ceilings on the size of those forces as well as by placing geographical restrictions on their movements, CSBM serve to stabilize the security situation in Europe in at least three ways: they decrease the likelihood of conventional surprise attack by one alliance against the other; they raise the obstacles to military intervention particularly by one alliance member against another; and they improve the conditions for achieving crisis stability. It bears repeating that CSBM do not substantively interfere with independent national or alliance defence policy making. Yet, they contain rules about permissible activities of military forces in peacetime which aim at reassuring the states participating in the regime about their ‘defensive’ character and, thus, seek to forestall exaggerated perceptions of military threat which, in turn, if acted upon, may render the security situation more volatile. The CSBM regime is also different from an arms control regime because it takes the level and quality of armaments as well as the size of military forces as given.30 Instead it endeavours to control threat perceptions arising from ‘objective’ comparisons of military capabilities by facilitating interpretations of military postures which also take the declared ‘defensive’ intentions of either side into account. As the compliance with the rules of the CSBM regime stabilizes itself at a high level, its function of restraining threat perceptions and of allowing for less rigid interpretations of each other’s intentions will take a more prominent place. However, one may well be sceptical about the long-range effectiveness of a CSBM regime if it is not accompanied by steps towards conventional arms control; that is, reductions of troop strength and military ‘hardware’ as a sign of corroborating the declaration as well as the attribution of ‘defensive’ intentions. TOWARDS AN EXPLANATION OF THE CSBM REGIME Research on international regimes has always aspired to theory building. At one

102 Confidence-building measures point, it almost appeared as if it had found a master key for unlocking the secrets of regime formation and regime change in the ‘Theory of hegemonic stability’.31 However, it turned out very quickly that the task of accounting for international regimes could not escape theoretical eclecticism. Thus, proceeding from the wellknown distinction between levels of analysis, the following attempt at explaining the CSBM regime draws on three categories of independent variables: issue-area characteristics; systemic or structural constraints; subsystemic variables.32 Returning to the conflict typology outlined above we begin by examining what kinds of conflicts are being dealt with by the CSBM regime. In general, the CSBM regime can be viewed as addressing itself primarily to a conflict about means but also as touching on other dimensions of the conflict typology. More specifically, the CSBM regime is based on the premise that all participating states agree on the value of confidence building as a stepping-stone to improved security; its ‘regulatory function’, however, consists in mediating between widely divergent conceptions of what ‘confidence’ actually is supposed to mean as well as between strongly opposed preferences for ways and means to build confidence. On the Western side, especially among NATO countries, confidence building is identified with removing mistrust and fear which arise from the uncertainty about the intentions of a heavily armed adversary. To reduce this uncertainty and, thus, to build confidence in the ‘defensive’ intentions of the adversary, CSBM are conceived in such a way as to increase the disincentives for using military power for aggression, intervention or hostile pressures. Western countries, therefore, emphasize transparency, ‘concrete’ restraints, and verification. Member states of the Warsaw treaty, particularly the Soviet Union, link confidence building to the halting of the arms race and to disarmament, on the one hand, and to confirming the political–territorial status quo, on the other. Besides expressing strong preferences for declaratory measures, WTO countries have put forward proposals which aim at denying a military posture to NATO which is part and parcel of its strategy of ‘flexible response’ but which WTO countries consider a threat to their security. Despite these differences between NATO and WTO countries (leaving aside the special concerns of the N+N countries)33 a CSBM regime, albeit not yet fully developed, has proved feasible because the dissensus concentrated on means. The CSBM regime would thus seem to corroborate the proposition derived from the above conflict typology that conflicts about means are amenable to regulation by institutionalized co-operation. However, since we could not possibly claim to have presented an exhaustive causal explanation of the CSBM regime, we take up another

An evolving East–West security regime? 103 issue-area-related hypothesis about the likely formation of East–West security regimes.34 According to George’s typology of relevant issue-area characteristics (cf. table 5.1) in the field of security the issue(s) addressed by CSBM would have to be located in cell 4: the expected contribution by CSBM to enhance overall security is generally seen as of peripheral rather than of central importance since they do not affect the military capabilities as such and thus leave intact the instruments for settling disputes by force. As a result, George’s typology would lead one to expect a CSBM regime of limited scope and effectiveness. This analysis of the CSBM regime based on George’s theoretical reasoning about incentives for East–West security co-operation which flow from a certain combination of issue-area characteristics cannot be considered as being fully satisfactory either. As George admits, the discriminatory power of the typology is quite limited, and ‘deviant cases’ may further reduce its explanatory usefulness. Even though issue-area hypotheses do shed some light on the potential for regime formation inherent in one type of issue, or object of contention, and absent in another, it seems prudent to scrutinize the formation of the CSBM regime from theoretical perspectives which operate at the systemic level of analysis. The first set of systemic or structural hypotheses about international regime formation or regime change focuses on the distribution of power (in the sense of control over resources) either in the international system as a whole or in a spatially delineated subsystem (‘overall power structure’) or in an issue area of international politics (‘issue-area structure’). The most prominent expression of this kind of theorizing about international regimes has been the ‘Theory of hegemonic stability’. In its most simplified version this theory holds that the existence of a liberal hegemonic state (‘Great Power’ or ‘World Power’) and its interest in building and maintaining a world order based on contract rather than coercion are a sufficient condition for the formation of stable regimes in one or more issue areas of international politics. Applying this kind of theorizing to the security situation in Europe faces the difficulty of having to allow for the existence not of one but of two ‘hegemonic powers’ (the United States and the Soviet Union), characterized, moreover, by mutually exclusive social systems and ideologies, either one of which has control over a large part of the military resources pertinent to European security. If the CSBM regime is to be explained in terms of ‘power structure’, such an approach would then require that the duopolistic position of the superpowers in Europe and the asymmetric interdependence between them and their allies in the field of security can be identified as giving rise to the CSBM regime.

104 Confidence-building measures Studies of the CSCE process including the CDE conference have pinpointed the gate-keeper role of the superpowers. In the final analysis, they exercise control over what gets in and what comes out. That is not to argue that they monopolize deliberations and negotiations. Moreover, they are indeed sensitive to initiatives, proposals, arguments, etc. of their respective allies as well as, secondarily, of N+N countries and even of the other superpower’s allies. As the follow-up conference in Madrid has shown neither one of the two superpowers would take the risk of having the CSCE process collapse even though each had the power to do so. The reluctance of the two superpowers to decouple themselves from the CSCE process may have been influenced by the ‘bloc-transcending multilateralism’ of the smaller countries and ‘middle powers’ in Europe.35 However, this ‘bloc-transcending multilateralism’ is more clearly discernible in areas of ‘low politics’ than of ‘high politics’. Put differently, the overwhelming ‘issue-area power’ of the two superpowers in the field of European (military) security makes any CSBM regime highly dependent on whether or not it is compatible with the distribution of power in this area. Therefore, we may infer that these ‘structural’ constraints would support a CSBM regime whose rules can be evaluated as stabilizing the prevailing (military) power configuration. The analysis of the CSBM regime in terms of ‘power structure’ again points up more clearly the regime’s limitations than its causes. However, the above reference to ‘bloc-transcending multilateralism’ in the CSCE process suggests that certain institutional factors may have helped militarily more vulnerable countries in Europe than the two superpowers to push CSBM up high on the agenda of the CSCE process and to keep it there even when the superpowers, individually or jointly, did not display much interest in reaching progressive agreement on this subject. From among a variety of such institutional factors suffice it to mention the consensus principle for reaching decisions in the CSCE process. By guaranteeing smaller countries and ‘middle powers’, irrespective of alliance membership or of N+N status, an effective measure of participation in the processes of conference decision making,36 their more immediate concerns about reducing their relatively higher military vulnerability could assert themselves more strongly thus furthering the adoption of mutually binding rules aimed at limiting the opportunities for ‘military unilateralism’. Against this background the ‘Madrid mandate’ of 1983 and its successful implementation through the CDE conference of 1986 are more easily comprehensible. In addition, the timing of both the Stockholm CDE conference and of the next CSCE follow-up meeting in Vienna which was scheduled to begin in November 1986 reinforced the institutional pressures for reaching progressive agreement on CSBM.37

An evolving East–West security regime? 105 As noted above, issue-area-related hypotheses and systemic variables defined in terms of ‘power structure’ or in terms of institutional ‘auto-dynamics’ contribute to our understanding of the scope of the CSBM regime as it has evolved especially since the Madrid followup conference (1980–3) and expanded since the Stockholm CDE (1984–6). There seems to exist a gap, however, in explaining more fully the reaching of an agreement, by the superpowers in particular, on the CSBM regime as the outcome of the CDE conference. The support lent to the establishment of a CSBM regime by the militarily more vulnerable states in Europe has already been mentioned. Yet they could not have achieved this outcome alone even though most of them would have preferred a much stronger CSBM regime.38 For further understanding we must engage variables at the subsystemic level of analysis. The United States modified her approach towards the Stockholm conference on CSBM in the course of 1984.39 Playing down the previously emphasized ‘linkage’ between CSBM and human rights40 the Reagan administration began to show greater interest in reaching at least one or the other modest agreement on East–West security issues to satisfy domestic concerns about a spiralling arms race, which were heightened during the presidential election campaign, and to accommodate those alliance members which had implemented the NATO double-track decision against massive internal opposition.41 Prompted, too, by the concessions which the new Gorbachev leadership offered at the negotiating table the Reagan administration concluded in 1985–6 that NATO countries did not give away much of what constitutes their defence posture in exchange for making Soviet and Warsaw Pact military activities in Europe less secretive. Changes in Soviet policy towards concrete CSBM also contributed heavily to generating the Stockholm accord. A first modification occurred towards the end of the 1970s when the Soviet Union began to move away from a position of indifference to one of developing a programme for CSBM of her own.42 Whereas this revised Soviet approach towards CSBM emphasizing ‘declaratory’ measures could not have been reconciled easily with the proposals for CSBM advocated by NATO and most N+N countries, a second major shift in the Soviet approach towards CSBM in 1985–6 facilitated reaching an agreement. This shift found its most spectacular expression in agreeing to on-site inspections which then Foreign Minister Gromyko had still rejected in 1984. Moreover, the Soviet Union accepted many of the ‘concrete’ measures proposed by the other participants in the CDE conference without insisting on having most of her own proposals for ‘declaratory’ measures incorporated in the Final Document.43 The willingness to compromise and to agree to the formation of a partial security

106 Confidence-building measures regime, such as the CSBM regime, may be interpreted in the broader context of the Gorbachev leadership’s groping for redefining the international role and strategy of the Soviet Union. CSBM are clearly compatible with the ‘new political thinking’ about foreign policy and international relations since they can be seen to operationalize, in a small way, the meaning of ‘common’ or ‘equal’ security and to give expression to the notion of Europe as a ‘common home’. In addition, agreeing to the CSBM regime, in the new Soviet view, made good sense as a means to promote a long-term accommodation with the United States in the field of security. Whether or not this long-term accommodation can be conceived as a consistently pursued goal of the Gorbachev leadership and whether or not it is intimately linked to the Gorbachev leadership’s modernization programme would require a discussion beyond the scope of this study. Summing up this section we conclude that all of the aforementioned variables help shed some light on the conditions of reaching agreement on the Stockholm CSBM. Although none of them can account fully for the establishment of this regime, some variables seem to have greater explanatory power than others. Our analysis indicates that issue-area-related hypotheses and subsystemic explanations contribute most to our understanding of why this CSBM regime came into being. Conversely, systemic variables were of lesser importance except for pinpointing the ‘structural’ constraints on the scope and effectiveness of an East–West security regime. Altogether the causal analysis of the evolving CSBM regime still remains in a stage of infancy and needs to be refined by subsequent work. IMPACT OF THE CSBM REGIME ON THE SECURITY PROBLEMATIQUE IN EUROPE The scholarly literature on CSBM, and the public debate about it, are filled with varying assessments about their consequences for, and effects on, the security problematique in Europe. This security problematique is epitomized by over four decades of war prevention through nuclear deterrence coupled with the awareness that any para bellum strategy of war prevention may ultimately end in catastrophe. It is this ambivalence about (nuclear) deterrence and the quest for less militarized approaches to peacekeeping resulting therefrom which set the framework for studying the impact of CSBM on the security problematique in Europe by paying particular attention to those dimensions which are generally considered crucial to reducing the danger of war: perceptions of military threat and level of armaments. Critics of CSBM44 contend that their relevance to Western concerns about military

An evolving East–West security regime? 107 security is almost nil. They remain unconvinced that CSBM do reduce measurably the danger of surprise attack (on the part of WTO forces). While Sigurd Boysen and Andreas Windel hold that the military options of WTO forces will not be affected significantly by CSBM, Uwe Nerlich sees even the possibility of a counterproductive effect of false confidence. In the peace assessment studies of three West German research institutes it has been argued instead that the expanded range of military activities to which stringent rules of notification, observation and inspection apply is bound to diminish the opportunities of an adversary to launch a conventional surprise attack without much advance warning.45 Michael Zielinski agrees with this view and holds that already the Helsinki CBM have contributed to an improved security climate in Europe.46 Compared with the Helsinki accord’s provisions on CBM the improvement of the Stockholm agreement regarding CSBM can be seen in that they satisfy more strongly the criteria of military significance. More specifically, the CSBM agreed upon in Stockholm appear to approximate more clearly the goal of reducing alarmist threat perceptions and of eliminating tension-generating military behaviour in peacetime. Analysts emphasize that the Stockholm CSBM are more likely to enhance the transparency and calculability of the overall military situation in Europe. Furthermore, the vastly expanded measures of verification and inspection are held to render any effort at concealing preparations for military attack or intervention less likely to succeed. Thus, it is only consistent with the agreement on these CSBM that the Stockholm Final Document (para. 15) contains an unambiguous verdict on intervention even in within-bloc relations which, after Prague 1968, the so-called Brezhnev doctrine sought to justify for the Socialist countries.47 However, it is obvious that the Stockholm agreement on CSBM represents a compromise and that Western – especially NATO – objectives of imposing even stronger operational restraints on WTO forces could not be achieved.48 Still, looking at the CBM/CSBM negotiations as a long-term process it seems difficult to deny their restraining consequences on military planning and behaviour. The evaluation of CSBM by political elites in the fields of foreign and security policy making can be taken as a good indicator of the CSBM regime’s impact on the security problematique in Europe. West German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher greeted the outcome of the CDE conference as follows: They [the CSBM] make available additional information about the military forces of the participants. They improve gauging the overall military situation. Deviations from routine behaviour will be more clearly discernible.49

108 Confidence-building measures In the view of this top foreign policy maker, the Stockholm CSBM contribute to achieving several of the main goals of West German security policy, namely to render the behaviour of states in Europe more calculable in general, to reduce the risk of exposure to surprise attack and to ‘coercive diplomacy’, and to improve the conditions for making progress in arms control.50 In an official assessment of the Stockholm agreement President Ronald Reagan expressed the view that the conscientious implementation of its provisions would contribute to reducing the risk of war in Europe and to improving European security and East–West relations in general.51 Furthermore, President Reagan also pointed out that much of the content of the Final Document was based on Western proposals. He added that it remained to be seen whether further progress could be achieved on all parts of the agenda of the CSCE process, especially in the area of human rights and fundamental freedoms.52 One cannot fail noticing that even in the generally positive evaluations of the Stockholm agreement by the governments of the FRG and of the United States their differences in emphasizing one or the other function of the CSCE process in general and of the CDE in particular stand out. The West German government attempted to promote its CDE policy as part and parcel of a comprehensive East–West dialogue based on a ‘realistic’ notion of détente. In this way it sought to assume the role of a pacesetter for improving East–West relations despite the ongoing local or regional conflicts outside Europe and the decision to deploy the INF systems. The US government, on the other hand, preferred a narrow military–technical approach to the CSBM negotiations, yet ‘politicized’ them at the same time by establishing a ‘linkage’ between security co-operation and Soviet concessions in the field of human rights. Thus, the Reagan administration appeared, at least for a while, more interested in slowing down the reaching of new East–West agreements in Europe than in facilitating the decision making both within the Western alliance and in the CDE negotiations. The Stockholm agreement on ‘militarily significant’, ‘politically binding’ and ‘verifiable’ CSBM has been welcomed by all participating states. Even the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries which for a long time insisted on less concrete and more declaratory measures are very much in favour of this agreement. An appraisal of the results of the Stockholm conference was given in a statement by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, in which he said: The Soviet leadership takes a positive view of the results of the Stockholm Conference on Confidence- and Security-building Measures and Disarmament in

An evolving East–West security regime? 109 Europe . . . Stockholm showed that even in a complex situation it is possible to agree on security questions if there is the necessary political will and desire.53 Nevertheless, to put these assessments of CSBM in perspective it should be noted that NATO considers ‘conventional stability talks’ and the elimination of asymmetries favouring the Warsaw Pact as crucial to denying, to the WTO forces, the option of carrying out a successful invasion of Western Europe. However, despite much recent emphasis on the ‘invasion capability’ of the WTO forces there are clear indications that the CSBM regime, in operation for more than a year and showing no lack of compliance,54 has already left its mark on the military security perceptions of Western political elites. Almost all positive assessments of the Stockholm accord point to the interrelationship between CSBM and (conventional) arms control in and for Europe. To quote again Foreign Minister Genscher: The outcome of Stockholm represents an important stage. It is now imperative to make progress in other arms control fora and to exploit every opportunity for achieving substantive results. And he added: Stockholm proves that the time has become ripe for cooperative solutions to arms control issues.55 In the scholarly literature, too, many authors stress the necessity of establishing linkages between the evolution of the CSBM regime and providing new directions to arms control negotiations.56 However, it does not follow that this linkage will come about quasi-automatically. Rather, one can discover at least two perspectives on what should be given priority during the next stage of policy making for European security. One view holds that the continuing CSCE process and its in-built gradualism offer every incentive to seek further improvements of CSBM with respect to both expanding their scope and sharpening specific regulations. One step in this direction would consist in further lowering the threshold of notification for military exercises, on the one hand, and for establishing quantitative ceilings for troops, battle tanks, amphibious landings and parachute assaults participating in them, on the other. Also, the lead time for notifying certain military activities could be extended. Furthermore, the quota of passive on-site inspections could be raised to strengthen the verification part of the CSBM regime (considering the far-reaching verification measures agreed upon in the INF treaty). Finally, the scope of CSBM could be expanded decisively by closing several loopholes and by mandating information exchange about the deployment of military forces.57 Even though there is undoubtedly much room for a

110 Confidence-building measures more fully developed CSBM regime in Europe, one should not assume an unlimited incrementalism to be at work continually opening up new horizons for CSBM. Another view stresses the complementarity of CSBM and of negotiations about the ‘hardware’ of military confrontation in Europe. The failure of MBFR negotiations during the last 15 years, the experiences gained from the CSCE process, and changes in the positions on conventional arms control by countries as important as France and the Soviet Union seem to justify that a modified framework for negotiations will be established which provides for an institutionalized parallelism between ‘conventional stability talks’ (CST) and efforts to strengthen further the CSBM regime.58 In January 1989 the Vienna CSCE follow-up meeting finally agreed on a mandate for a second phase of the CDE. This mandate will concentrate on sharpening and extending the CSBM agreed to at Stockholm. Pre-negotiations about holding ‘conventional stability talks’ also taking place in Vienna point towards agreement on their format and agenda taking into account the continuation of the CDE negotiations. Thus, CST will focus, first of all, on reducing conventional armaments and ground forces with a view towards establishing common, that is lower, ceilings. Irrespective of the substantive interconnection between conventional and short-range nuclear weapons the latter category will be dealt with, if at all, outside this forum. The question of including naval and air forces represents a complicating factor in finalizing the CST mandate. As the division of labour between CDE and CST is shaping up more clearly so is the range of participants in the two negotiating processes. Whereas CDE will encompass all states which have so far participated in the CSCE process, CST will be confined to alliance-to-alliance negotiations leaving the door open to involving the N+N countries.59 A novel element in both tracks of dealing with the security problematique in Europe could be the inclusion of an item concerning military doctrines. Even if one admits that military doctrines are not susceptible to negotiations (in the traditional diplomatic sense of elaborating a consensual text stipulating rights and obligations of the parties involved), an informed debate about the fundamentals and operative principles of military doctrines in these or other diplomatic settings would be another sign of promoting ‘empathy’ in East-West relations. So far the initiative taken by the Warsaw Pact countries at their meeting in Berlin (East) on 28–29 May 1987,60 that is to hold East–West talks about the defensive (re-)orientation of military doctrines, has not been responded to officially by NATO countries. The NATO summit in Brussels, 2–3 March 1988,61 did not tackle this issue; however, it appears safe to assume that, after lengthy consultations within various NATO

An evolving East–West security regime? 111 bodies, the Western countries will not forego this opportunity of probing Soviet ‘new thinking’ in defence matters. Summing up this brief discussion of how the CSBM regime matters to East– West security in Europe, its impact can be determined as stabilizing the convergent expectations that there is no imminent danger of war and that alarmist perceptions of military threat are not only unjustified but themselves a source of destabilizing influences on the overall security situation. Furthermore, the evolution of the CSBM regime provides a lesson for the usefulness of ‘disjointed incrementalism’ by moving ahead in one track (confidence building) without losing sight of the risks of immobility in the other (arms control). CONCLUSIONS The analysis of international regimes has been a major innovation in the international relations literature during the last decade. However, it has mainly been directed towards studying institutionalized forms of co-operation and conflict management in the relations between the capitalist nations of the West and in ‘North–South’ relations. Moreover, the substantive focus of regime analysis has been on economic and welfare issues. Security issues have been held to be less amenable to international regulation through regime formation. As a result, East–West relations have rarely been considered as a field for ‘regime analysis’. Besides, the study of international regimes has been one-sided in yet another respect. For, although the maintenance and change of international regimes has been discussed in the literature in some detail, the question of how they emerge has been neglected. Against this background the purpose of our study is two-fold. On the one hand, it seeks to explore the applicability of ‘regime analysis’ to the collective management of East–West security relations, especially in Europe. This also includes some consideration of how international regimes come into being. On the other hand, and more specifically, it attempts to determine whether the agreement on, and the implementation of, CSBM can be understood as an evolving security regime in Europe. Our analysis has shown, first of all, that East–West security regimes are possible given a theoretical point of view which substitutes a microscopic approach stressing the issue-area-oriented analysis of objects of contention for the holistic interpretation of the ‘East–West conflict’; moreover, we have pointed out that CSBM do actually work. Second, the thorough discussion of several approaches towards explaining the

112 Confidence-building measures establishment of a CSBM regime in Europe has confirmed the expectation that issuearea-related hypotheses and subsystemic explanations are superior to systemic variables in accounting for the emergence of security regimes in East–West relations. Whether this hypothesis can be regarded as a general explanation of East–West security regimes, however, remains to be examined by further case studies. The special character of CSBM as an international regime does not lie in the creation of a legal framework comparable with national law, but in their provision of a kind of ‘quasi-law’ in the form of mutually agreed-upon ‘rules of the game’ or ‘code of conduct’, which allow for a certain measure of confidence that the rules generally will be complied with, and which contribute to the convergence of actor expectations. CSBM are collective arrangements about the function and use of military power in peacetime. They are designed to confirm non-aggressive intentions of all states and therefore build stable expectations concerning their military activities. However, CSBM do not substantially restrain the sovereignty of states to choose their own national defence policy. Therefore, they can be classified as a pragmatic contribution to peacefully managing the classical ‘security dilemma’ based on both the proscription of the threat or use of force and the right to military self-defence. CSBM provide for some central prerequisites of international security regimes which exceed the norms of a merely declaratory no-use-of-force convention. They are capable of strengthening at least a few aspects of ‘negative peace’; that is, they lessen the likelihood of a conventional surprise attack as well as intra-bloc intervention, and they enhance crisis stability. International regimes are relevant in that they increase the exchange of information between the participants simply because they generate regular interactions. Moreover, they involve the creation of a network used to gather and exchange special information, and build up over time a considerable measure of peace-promoting ‘routine behaviour’ which, in the view of the political élites on both sides, is obviously different from purely unilateral actions. The case of C(S)BM according to the CSCE Final Act (1975) and, in a more sophisticated way, according to the relevant provisions achieved at the CDE at Stockholm (1986) is an important example of the potential peace-conducive effects of international regimes. In the long-range perspective of a true confidence-building security structure in Central Europe based on ‘non-offensive defence’ and conventional stability, CSBM are nothing more than a first, admittedly small, step. The Stockholm agreement, at least, has shown that CSBM are an important item on the agenda of European security policy and that, under certain circumstances, the persistence and expansion of this security regime seems possible and may even facilitate the conventional arms control

An evolving East–West security regime? 113 process; that is, an arrangement constraining offensive military capabilities. In summary, the CSBM regime constitutes a stabilizing element in the still highly militarized security situation in Europe. NOTES 1 George, A., Farley, P. and Dallin, A. (eds) (1988) US–Soviet Security Cooperation. Achievements, Failures, Lessons, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3. 2 Nye, Joseph S., (1987) ‘Nuclear learning and US–Soviet security regimes’, International Organization 41:3 371–402. 3 Before 1981 the term ‘confidence-building measures’ (CBM) was used to refer to the measures agreed to between the superpowers in the 1960s and in the Helsinki Final Act (1975). The term ‘confidence and security-building measures’ (CSBM) was introduced into the CSCE process (especially by Yugoslavia) to describe the qualitative differences between the relevant provisions of the Helsinki Final Act and the measures proposed at the Madrid CSCE follow-up meeting (1980–3). 4 See the fourth section of this chapter. 5 See Ruggie, John G. (1975) ‘International responses to technology. Concepts and trends’, International Organization 29:3 557–84. 6 See Krasner, Stephen D. (ed.) (1983) International Regimes, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, Krasner, Stephen D. (1985) Structural Conflict. The Third World Against Global Liberalism, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, Keohane, Robert O. (1980) ‘The theory of hegemonic stability and changes in international economic regimes’, in Ole R. Holsti, Randolph M. Siverson and Alexander L. George (eds) Change in the International System, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 131–62, and Keohane, Robert O. (1984) After Hegemony. Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 7 Viotti, Paul R. and Murray, Douglas J. (1980) ‘International security regimes: On the applicability of a concept’, Paper delivered at the August 1980 meeting of the American Political Science Association, Caldwell, Dan (1981) American–Soviet Relations. From 1947 to the Nixon–Kissinger Grand Design, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, and Jervis, Robert ‘Security regimes’, in Krasner, International Regimes, op. cit., pp. 173–94have been notable exceptions. 8 This characterization of East–West relations derives from Isaac Deutscher

114 Confidence-building measures quoted in Halliday, Fred (1983) The Making of the Second Cold War, London: Verso, p. 30. 9 In the international relations literature, the concept of international regime was introduced to analyse the institutionalization of policy co-ordination and cooperation among states to manage economic and technological interdependence problems (see Ruggie, ‘International responses to technology’, op. cit.). Typical cases of international regimes in these issue areas have been the international trade regime (see Lipson, Charles ‘The transformation of trade: The sources and effects of regime change’, in Krasner, International Regimes, op. cit. pp. 233–71, Finlayson, Jock A. and Zacher, Mark W. ‘The GATT and the regulation of trade barriers: Regime dynamics and functions’, in Krasner, International Regimes, op. cit., pp. 273–314), the international monetary regime (see Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. (1977) Power and Interdependence. World Politics in Transition, Boston: Little, Brown, and Cohen, Benjamin J. ‘Balance-ofpayments financing: Evolution of a regime’, in Krasner, International Regimes, op. cit. pp. 315–36), and the regime of ocean uses (Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Power and Interdependence, op. cit.). In the area of international security the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons has been a good example of an issue which has been dealt with by establishing an international regime (see Smith, Roger K. (1987) ‘Explaining the non-proliferation regime: Anomalies for contemporary international relations theory’, International Organization 41:2: 253–81). 10 See Haggard, Stephan and Simmons, Beth A. (1987) ‘Theories of international regimes’, International Organization 41:3: 491–517, Kratochwil, Friedrich and Ruggie, John (1986) ‘International organization: A state of the art on an art of the state’, International Organization 40:4: 753–75, and Young, Oran (1986) ‘International regimes: Toward A new theory of institutions,’ World Politics 39:1: 105–22. 11 Haggard and Simmons, ‘Theories of international regimes’, op. cit., p. 492. 12 ibid., p. 493. 13 See Krasner, International Regimes, op. cit., p. 2. 14 Haggard and Simmons, ‘Theories of international regimes’, op. cit., p. 495. Haggard and Simmons’ decision to confine the regime concept to multilateral agreements does not seem to be necessary even though bilateral regimes will probably remain an exception. 15 ibid., pp. 495–6. 16 Cf. Krasner, Structural Conflict, op. cit., and, in a study of international communication issues, Zürn, Michael (1987) Gerechte internationale Regime.

An evolving East–West security regime? 115

17

18

19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26

27

28

Bedingungen und Restriktionen der Entstehung nicht-hegemonialer internationaler Regime untersucht am Beispiel der Weltkommunikationsordnung, Frankfurt/M.: Haag and Herchen. See Rawls, John (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, and Beitz, Charles (1979) Political Theory and International Relations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Efinger, Manfred, Rittberger, Volker and Zürn, Michael, (1988) Internationale Regime in den Ost–West-Beziehungen. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der friedlichen Behandlung internationaler Konflikte, Frankfurt/M.: Haag and Herchen. Lowi, Theodore (1964) ‘American business, public policy, case studies and political theory’, World Politics 15:3: 677–715. Jervis, ‘Security regimes’ op. cit. See Stein, Janice G. (1985) ‘Detection and defection: Security regimes and the management of international conflict, International Journal 11: 599–627. See Efinger et al. Internationale Regime, op. cit., pp. 104–16. George et al. US–Soviet Security Cooperation, op. cit., pp. 13–14. This argument is echoed by Joseph S. Nye, ‘Nuclear learning’, op. cit., pp. 375– 6. He argues that regime analysis runs the risk of vagueness and tautologies if it is applied to the overall American–Soviet or, even more so, to the overall East– West security relationship. Instead, he emphasizes that regimes are a matter of degree; and East–West relations are more usefully considered as ‘a mosaic of subissues in the security area, some characterized by rules and institutions we would call a regime and others not’. Thus, it follows that the analysis of security regimes in East–West relations rests on the understanding that those regimes which do exist represent partial rather than comprehensive and evolving rather than fully developed arrangements. We, therefore, disagree with Robert Jervis, ‘Security regimes’ and Dan Caldwell, American–Soviet Relations, op. cit., who favour a more categorical approach towards using the concept of security regime, that is tying it to the notion of comprehensiveness in particular. See Efinger et al., Internationale Regime, op. cit., pp. 86–116. George, Alexander (1988) ‘Incentives for US–Soviet security cooperation and mutual adjustment’, in George et al., US–Soviet Security Cooperation, op. cit., pp. 641–54. See Aubert, Vilhelm (1963) ‘Competition and dissensus: Two types of conflict and of conflict resolution’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 7:1: 26–42, and Kriesberg, Louis (1983) Social Conflicts, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Efinger et al., Internationale Regime, op. cit., pp. 112–14.

116 Confidence-building measures 29 Goodby, James E. (1988) ‘The Stockholm conference: Negotiating a cooperative security system for Europe’, in George et al., US–Soviet Security Cooperation, op. cit., p. 147. 30 We use here the concept of arms control in a narrow sense in order to keep arms control measures and confidence- and security-building measures conceptually and analytically distinct. If we followed the more general definition of arms control proposed by Schelling, Thomas C. and Halperin, Morton H. (1961) Strategy and Arms Control, New York: Twentieth Century Fund, p. 2, who include ‘all the forms of military cooperation between potential enemies in the interest of reducing the likelihood of war, its scope and violence if it occurs, and the political and economic costs of being prepared for it’, CSBM would lose its status as a diplomatic option for promoting security co-operation circumventing, at least provisionally, the thornier question of force levels and force structures. 31 Cf. the seminal article of Keohane, Robert O. ‘Theory of hegemonic stability’, op. cit., who focused, however, on economic regimes only. 32 See Efinger et al., Internationale Regime, op. cit., p. 138; also Haggard and Simmons, ‘Theories of international regimes’, op. cit. 33 Although the N+N (Neutral and Non-aligned) countries were quite successful in their insistence that some CBM should be included in the Helsinki Final Accord, these same countries lost some of their earlier bargaining power during the Stockholm CDE negotiations about CSBM. This loss resulted from the reluctance of a few of them, notably Switzerland, to endorse the concept of operational restraints on their military forces which they considered to be an unwarranted infringement on their militia-based defence policy. These reservations continued to be expressed in the negotiations on a mandate for the next phase of CDE during the Vienna CSCE follow-up meeting. See Gärtner, Heinz Verification and Smaller States, New York, in press, and Schenk, Blaise (1987) ‘Die KVAE aus der Sicht der neutralen Schweiz. Rückblick auf die Stockholmer Konferenz und Aussichten für die Zukunft’, Europa-Archiv 42:3: 77–84. 34 Cf. George, ‘Incentives for US–Soviet security cooperation’, op. cit., and the third section above. 35 Cf. Meyer, B., Ropers. N., and Schlotter, P. (1987) ‘Der KSZE-Prozeß’, in Gert Krell, Egon Bahr and Klaus von Schubert (eds) Friedensgutachten 1987, (Frankfurt/M.: Hessische Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung), p. 140. 36 The opportunities for participating effectively in the decision-making processes of CDE were certainly much wider than in bloc-to-bloc negotiations such as MBFR, let alone in the bilateral arms control negotiations between the United

An evolving East–West security regime? 117

37 38 39

40 41

42 43 44

45

46 47 48

States and the Soviet Union. Based on this finding we could claim that the CDE decision-making process satisfies criteria of ‘positive peace’ at least on the procedural dimension since both process and outcome of CDE reflect a high degree of representativity (and of compromise) as regards the input provided by the three main groupings of participating states (NATO, WTO and N+N). Cf. Goodby, ‘Stockholm conference’, op. cit., p. 152. See Goodby, ‘Stockholm conference’ and Schenk, ‘KVAE aus der Sicht der neutralen Schweiz’, op. cit. According to Strobe Talbott quoted in Goodby, ‘Stockholm conference’, op. cit., p. 171 the Reagan administration originally regarded the negotiations on CSBM for a long time as ‘arms control junk food’. See Peters, Ingo (1987) Transatlantischer Konsens und Vertrauensbildung in Europa, Baden-Baden: Nomos, p. 224. The decisive turn in the Reagan administration’s view of the CDE came to the fore in President Reagan’s address to the Irish Parliament on 4 June 1984. In this address President Reagan declared: ‘If discussions on reaffirming the principle not to use force, a principle in which we believe so deeply, will bring the Soviet Union to negotiate agreements which will give concrete, new meaning to that principle, we will gladly enter into such discussions.’ (Quoted in Goodby, ‘Stockholm conference’, op. cit., p. 151.) Cf. Boysen, Sigurd (1987) ‘Vertrauensbildende Maßnahmen in der sowjetischen Außenpolitik’, Osteuropa, 37:7: 491–504. See Goodby, ‘Stockholm conference’, op. cit., pp. 155–58. See Boysen, ‘Vertrauensbildende Maßnahmen’, op. cit., Nerlich, Uwe (1982) ‘Stabilisierende Maßnahmen in Europa: Beschränkung sowjetischer Macht oder selbstinduziertes Vertrauen?’, in Uwe Nerlich (ed.) Die Einhegung sowjetischer Macht. Kontrolliertes militärisches Gleichgewicht als Bedingung europäischer Sicherheit, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 263–80, and Windel, Andreas (1986) ‘Zehn Jahre Vertrauensbildende Maßnahmen’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte no. 13–4, pp. 3–12. Meyer et al., ‘KSZE-Prozeß’, op. cit., and Ropers, Norbert and Schlotter, Peter (1988) ‘Der KSZE-Prozeß’, in Klaus von Schubert, Egon Bahr and Gert Krell (eds) Friedensgutachten 1988, Heidelberg, pp. 41–2. Cf. Zielinski, Michael (1985) Vertrauen und Vertrauensbildende Maβnahmen, Frankfurt/M.: Campus. Borawski, John, Weeks, Stan, and Thompson, Charlotte E. (1987) ‘The Stockholm agreement of September 1986’, Orbis 30:4: 658–9. Darilek, Richard E. (1987) ‘The future of conventional arms control in Europe,

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49 50 51

52 53 54

55 56

57

58

59 60 61

a tale of two cities: Stockholm, Vienna’, in SIPRI Yearbook 1987, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 348. Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung (1986) Bulletin no. 118, p. 994 (our translation). ibid., p. 993. US Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs (1986) The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe: Public Statements and Documents, 1954– 1986, Washington, DC, p. 416. ibid. Cited in Rachmaninov, Yuri N. (1986–7) ‘The Stockholm conference’, Disarmament 10:1: 76. See: US Department of State ‘Twenty-second semiannual report: Implementation of Helsinki Final Act, 1 October 1986 – 1 April 1987’, p. 14–5 and the ‘Twenty-third semiannual report: Implementation of Helsinki Final Act, 1 April 1987 – 1 October 1987’, p. 16–8. From a German perspective see Bundesminister des Auswärtigen, Bericht zur Rüstungskontrolle und Abrüstung 1987 und 1988, Bonn. Bulletin, pp. 993, 994. Cf. Barton, David (1984) ‘The Conference on Confidence- and SecurityBuilding Measures and Disarmament in Europe’, SIPRI Yearbook 1984, London: Taylor & Francis, pp. 557–69, Birnbaum, Karl E. (1985) ‘The first year of the Stockholm conference’, SIPRI Yearbook 1985, London: Taylor & Francis, pp. 527–38, and Lodgaard, Sverre (1986) ‘The building of confidence and security at the negotiations in Stockholm and Vienna’, SIPRI Yearbook 1986, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 423–46. See Lodgaard, Sverre (1987) ‘The Stockholm CSBMs and the future of the CDE’, Arms Control 8: 155–68, Borawski et al., ‘Stockholm Agreement’, op. cit., and Schenk, ‘KVAE aus der Sicht der neutralen Schweiz’, op. cit. See Darilek, ‘Future of conventional arms control’, op. cit., and Mahncke, Dieter (1987) Vertrauensbildende Maβnahmen als Instrument der Sicherheitspolitik, Melle: Knoth. See Final Document of the Vienna CSCE Follow-up Meeting in (1989) Bulletin no. 10, pp. 77–103. Cited in (1987) Europa-Archiv 42:14: 392–4. Cited in (1988) NATO Brief 36:2: 32–5.

6 Confidence-building processes – CSCE and MBFR: a review and assessment1 James Macintosh

INTRODUCTION This chapter, written in the spring of 1989, presents a brief and inevitably dated appreciation of the parallel and related CDE and MBFR/CFE arms control processes.2 Although the chapter includes a relatively straightforward history of the two processes (a more recent history of CFE and CDE is covered in Chapter 11), concentrating on their origins, it also includes something more: a particular view of what has been important – and what will continue to be important – in the overall CDE/MBFR/CFE arms control process. This view grows out of a somewhat unorthodox appreciation of what it is that fundamentally animates the CDE and the CFE arms control processes. That particular view revolves around the claim that the two arms control processes possess substantial confidence-building characteristics. Further, this view argues that the success of the two arms control processes and their agreements are to be measured, at least in large part, in terms of their joint confidencebuilding impact.3 This last aspect – the confidence-building character and potential of the CDE and CFE talks – is particularly important. It focuses on the ways in which the two processes and their agreements, singly and in co-operation with each other, can address and help solve some underlying problems with an important psychological dimension that have plagued European and East-West relations for decades. This may be the most important contribution to be made by the two negotiating processes and their agreements, despite a tendency on the part of most analysts to concentrate on the CFE talks’ more obvious arms control reduction character.4 The two processes capacity to successfully address these problems of mistrust and misperception is a direct consequence of the fact that confidence building is a predominantly psychological phenomenon. It is a process that speaks directly to – and attempts to manage – the psychology of perceived threat.

120 Confidence-building measures THE CFE TALKS/CDE RELATIONSHIP A central point made in this chapter is the claim that the Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (both the negotiations themselves and the anticipated agreement) will have a significant confidence-building dimension or character.5 Further, it is suggested that a special relationship based in large part on the inherent confidence-building character of the CFE talks and the CDE links the two arms control processes and enhances their basic natures. Before turning to a brief history of the CFE talks and the CDE, it might prove helpful to explore this point of view in some detail. If found convincing, it clearly will shade any evaluation of the two arms control processes and (especially) their prospects. In particular, if the potentially synergistic6 relationship of the CFE talks and CDE process is not understood by policy makers (or analysts), efforts to construct (or advise on the construction of) a CFE Treaty and a CDE 2 agreement may be undermined or prove counter-productive. At the very least, these efforts will not produce agreements that are as successful as they otherwise might be.7 In this analysis, the CFE and CDE 2 processes (and their expected outcomes) are considered to be examples of arms control. While the CDE, obviously, has been oriented toward ‘confidence-building,’ the MBFR/CFE talks exercise is typically not seen in terms of confidence-building. Instead, reduction exercises such as the MBFR and CFE are normally considered to be ‘arms control’ processes and they are evaluated in terms of their impact first, on relatively mechanistic calculations of force balances (either existing or projected); and second, less frequently, on estimates of stability. It is not usual to stress the confidence-building character of the MBFR/CFE process although some mention is made of the distinctly secondary role played by the confidence-building measures called ‘associated measures’ that have been included in several MBFR proposals. This tendency to treat the two processes in distinctively different ways is largely the result of a too-narrow understanding of what confidencebuilding actually is which leads to an unjustified distinction between arms control and confidence-building. It seems increasingly unproductive to attempt to distinguish between arms control and confidence-building processes and agreements. In as much as arms control is typically understood to entail efforts to reduce the chance of war occurring, or its severity if it should occur, there appears to be no good practical or theoretical reason to exclude confidence-building measures from the broad range of arms control options.8 While apparently trivial, the reluctance to consider confidence-building measures or agreements as examples of arms control tends to (1) improperly restrict what can count as arms control; (2) denigrate the importance of confidence-building; and (3) obscure the grey area where substantive constraint CBMs (for instance, limits

Confidence-building processes 121 on the placement of equipment, the types of permissible exercise, and the size of military activities) clearly imposes more ‘arms control’ on military forces than do modest force reductions.9 It is far more productive to recognise that CBMs encompass a wide range of individual measures (some very modest and ‘soft’, some very demanding and constraining) that properly belong to the broader category of arms control measures. It is true that some CBMs appear ineffectual in terms of substantive ‘bite’ but then so are symbolic force reductions and some other examples of traditional arms control such as test limitations and ‘modernization’ bans. This hardly disqualifies the latter and should not disqualify the former as examples of arms control measures. Thus, the CFE talks and the CDE 2 are best seen as arms control processes that stress different but co-operative approaches to enhancing stability in Europe. This deliberate effort to abolish the false distinction between arms control and confidence-building also facilitates the recognition that both arms control processes – the CFE talks and the CDE 2 – play important confidence-building roles. The claim that the CFE talks have a significant confidence-building character as well as the claim that the CFE talks and the CDE enjoy a potentially synergistic relationship based in part on their confidence-building characteristics clearly cannot be accepted at face value. What is there about the CFE talks that permits us to make these claims? The first point to make involves the definition of confidence-building offered earlier in this chapter. If one is prepared to accept that that definition accurately portrays the functional nature of confidence building, then the CFE negotiations (based on what we currently know about their likely contents) would appear to qualify as an example. According to the definition used here, confidence-building is a variety of arms control that involves state actions that attempt to reduce or eliminate misperceptions of and concerns about potentially threatening military capabilities and activities. This is achieved by first, providing information and advance notification of potentially threatening military activities and/or second, by restricting the opportunities available for the use of military forces and their equipment by adopting verifiable restrictions on the activities and deployments of those forces. The second aspect of this definition certainly seems to accommodate the adjustment of forces in Europe envisioned by current CFE discussions.10 But this is hardly persuasive by itself. Although the definition is based on a thorough analysis of the functional characteristics of many definitions and descriptions of confidencebuilding offered in the literature,11 this does not by itself constitute proof of a convincing sort.12 There is a second and equally important sense in which arms control agreements can be said to have a confidence-building nature. In addition to viewing an arms

122 Confidence-building measures control agreement in terms of its measure types (i.e. advance notification, force reduction or test limitation), the agreement can be seen in terms of the fundamental objectives it fulfils. According to this perspective, some agreements may have an explicit or direct confidence-building objective unambiguously animating them. However, other agreements, typically reduction agreements, may be animated by an implicit or indirect confidence-building objective that is not clearly recognized by the participants, but which is nevertheless inherent in the logic of the negotiation. Thus, some agreements are directly intended to yield confidence-building outcomes while others can indirectly yield the same sort of outcome while seeking to achieve other, more direct objectives. This point was made earlier when it was observed that it is a CFE treaty’s adjustment of force asymmetries that will perform an important confidence-building function. Thus, it is not a matter of force reduction and confidence-building; it is a matter of force reduction yielding confidence-building. This second sense of confidence-building warrants a closer look because it is the more fruitful way of gaining insight and understanding the confidence-building dimension of the CFE talks. A CLOSER LOOK AT CFE–CDE CONNECTIONS CFE and CDE linkages begin with a number of obvious shared elements, including closely related origins and histories, many common participants, virtually identical geographic scope, very similar subject matter (conventional military forces and activities), similar concerns (conventional military surprise attack and the related concern about accidental war arising through misperception) and a common venue – presumably to be enhanced by an administrative arrangement having the CFE report to the CDE. The shared subject matter and concerns are particularly important. The fact that the CFE talks and the CDE 2 both deal with conventional military activities and forces in Europe establishes the central common ground, with the two arms control processes attempting to address security concerns flowing from the effects of those activities and forces. While the two arms control processes employ different basic approaches in their efforts to address these security concerns, it nevertheless can be said that each is attempting to enhance, directly or indirectly, an atmosphere of basic confidence in the fact that all participating states have essentially non-hostile intentions. This, according to the logic of this analysis, is the heart of the confidence-building enterprise. It is the functional essence of confidencebuilding. If an arms control agreement can be seen to work toward this end, then it can be called a confidence-building agreement. This constitutes the central grounds for claiming that the CFE talks are a confidence-building process.

Confidence-building processes 123 ‘Non-hostile’, in the context of these observations, means that the various participating states, i.e. the states that are engaged in negotiations or that have signed an arms control agreement, are not actively considering the aggressive or offensive use of force against each other in order to achieve political ends.13 Thus, while they may retain or develop contingency plans for deterrence purposes and for the defence of their own territories, they do not consider it appropriate to invade or coerce militarily other participating states. The existence of plans and policies for aggressive military use, while not irrelevant, is also not the crucial indicator of ‘non-hostility’. The key criterion is the political unacceptability to central decision-makers of an aggressive military option. It is, of course, difficult to ascertain with reliability whether or not potential adversaries truly view the use of force as unacceptable. This is why some analysts mistakenly resist dealing with intentions and related issues. Nevertheless, these judgements must be, and are, made by political decision-makers all the time. Because key decision-makers’ perceptions of intentions are central to the objectives of the CFE and CDE processes and their eventual outcomes, we must deal analytically with those perceptions and intentions as well. The confidence-building process, which must begin with a modest level of assumed non-hostility on the part of the participating states, is aimed at strengthening the perception of and the belief in the non-hostility of all participating states.14 These observations about intention will likely be regarded as contentious. Critics might argue, for instance, that an arms control process like the CFE talks is concerned only with constraining the capacity of potential adversaries to launch a surprise attack, to wage war more generally or to use military forces coercively. They would contend that there is no interest in these negotiations in creating any ‘warm’ and ‘fuzzy’ feelings or in demonstrating (somehow) the benign intentions of various participating states. That psychological concern, they would claim, is alien to the arms control enterprise and is, in any event, beyond effective control or even reliable demonstration. Superficially, they would be correct in saying these things. The CFE process clearly is not consciously devoted to such tasks, at least according to public statements made by the participants. And it is very difficult to reliably gauge the intentions of states with whom one has been locked in acrimonious competitive relations for decades or longer. It is a mistake, however, to think that the underlying aim of a CFE-type negotiation is so narrowly restricted to impairing or reducing a potential adversary’s capability to use its military forces aggressively. It can be argued persuasively that the real goal of this type of reduction measure is to constrain potentially threatening offensive capabilities so that a wide range of fears and concerns associated with those forces can be minimized and, perhaps, eliminated in the longer run. It is the fears and

124 Confidence-building measures concerns rather than the forces themselves that are the proper object of these arms control processes. The forces themselves matter but the beliefs about intentions and the likelihood of force being used matter at least as much. This is a difficult point. The claim here is that a CFE-type reduction agreement has a superficial as well as a more profound and implicit motivation and objective. Only the former is explicitly identified in our discussions of arms control, but the latter (implicit) objective is equally if not more relevant to the motivations driving key decision-makers to actually negotiate CFE-type agreements. The obvious, superficial objective – reducing force size and capability so that offensive action is more difficult to initiate – is important on its own terms, but it is not the ultimate objective making this type of agreement important and desirable. Beyond the idea of changing the structure of military forces is the notion of controlling and reducing the fears and concerns that flow from the existing structure of forces. This is a more profound objective. This point can be demonstrated by asking whether force reductions and adjustments are undertaken because (1) there is an active fear that another, potentially hostile state with significant military capabilities plans deliberately to attack or (2) there is a fear that conflict might develop, in a stressful environment, by accident or through circumstances other than intentional prior planning, or perhaps just ‘somehow’. Logically, it seems disingenuous to argue that reduction proposals are really intended, or would be allowed by the aggressor, to stop or significantly impair a state intending to initiate an attack. A negotiation would simply divert efforts better directed at the preparation of defences. If the measures are not designed or intended to thwart deliberate near-term aggression, then the purpose must be to deal with something less deliberate, but potentially just as dangerous: either unintended war caused by miscalculation or misperception or some longerterm concern that war might start ‘somehow’.15 Thus, constraining unjustified but nevertheless real fears and concerns about existing force characteristics and balances can be seen to be the underlying motivation for participating in a CFE-type agreement. In order to fully appreciate the confidence-building nature of a CFE-type negotiation, it is helpful to recall that the negotiations, while attempting to constrain the capabilities of potential adversaries, will operate with a common if unacknowledged assumption about every participating state’s military intentions. The participants (almost as a matter of logical necessity) must assume that no other participating state actively plans to attack them even if there is some residual doubt about their intentions.16 After all, it makes no sense to negotiate arms control agreements with adversaries who one fully expects will attack in the near future. Therefore, the major problem addressed by the negotiations is avoiding the possible

Confidence-building processes 125 misperception of essentially non-hostile military activities in an environment where there are generalized fears about unintended war and genuinely uncertain or ambiguous understandings of other states’ intentions.17 Although there is a good deal of ‘fuzzy’ thinking surrounding this issue of intentions, the point is still difficult to escape: a serious arms control process is not initiated and is not sustained if any major participant genuinely believes that other major participants have militarily aggressive intentions.18 Thus, we are really discussing a situation in which suspicion, fear and uncertainty (but not the expectation that force will be used, either now or in the near future) dominate the political and military environment. The purpose of force ‘adjustments’, therefore, is to address those negative aspects of the military environment, to clarify intentions and to progressively disarm fears. Consequently, the language and theory of confidence-building are entirely appropriate to the ultimate objectives of the CFE talks, and the CFE talks properly can be considered to be (at least in part) a confidencebuilding negotiation likely to yield an agreement with distinct confidence-building dimensions. CFE/CDE SYNERGY There is an additional confidence-building related argument to be made about the CDE and CFE processes: they each have special, if partially latent, confidencebuilding potential that will be magnified considerably when – and only when – they are brought together in associated agreements that consciously play on this relationship. This potential synergy has important implications, not least for the verification requirements of the two future agreements. If the CFE talks and the CDE are viewed as two separate arms control processes, then their agreements can be seen to have rather dissimilar verification requirements with the CFE typically demanding much greater verification rigour than a CDE agreement. When the CFE and the CDE are viewed as interrelated confidencebuilding agreements, however, their joint verification requirements are considerably different, favouring a more moderate level of monitoring.19 This point is worth a brief exploration because it demonstrates the importance of the confidence-building oriented perspective employed in this chapter. In particular, it demonstrates why we must understand how various approaches to CFE and CDE agreements can either undermine or extend the agreements’ individual and co-operative potential. The need to accept relatively modest verification and (especially) monitoring20 measures in a CFE agreement flows directly from the need to deliberately maximize the joint confidence-building potential of CFE and CDE agreements. Put in simple

126 Confidence-building measures terms, monitoring measures, as well as the demand for them, can have a positive or negative impact on the confidence-building process. It seems very likely that constant, invasive monitoring (the likely preference of many CFE negotiators) would undermine the natural development by key decision-makers of genuine confidence in the growing reality of non-hostile intent and the absence of proximate threat. Crucial to this argument is the notion that confidence-building efforts are best able to function successfully when formerly hostile states find themselves in a transition phase, moving from an atmosphere of general mistrust to a more positive (although still suspicious) image of each other. The attainment of such a transition phase is an important precursor for successful confidence-building and anything that undermines the development and continued operation of that dynamic process is counterproductive. Too much monitoring21 and too suspicious a verification approach can be just such a counterproductive influence. The concern here is that enforced openness might actually undermine the natural development of confidence in the non-hostile intentions of other participating states, a process that has its own pace, rhythm and logic.22 Somewhat perversely, genuine confidence in the fact that intentions are nonhostile (the main objective of the confidence-building exercise) may best be able to develop in a moderately uncertain environment, one where some doubts about the behaviour and intentions of other participating states can exist without undue concern or anxiety. The key dynamic that contributes to the natural growth of confidence, according to this logic, is the gradual erosion of doubt where the subject of doubt has the option of complying with an agreement’s terms. The demonstration, over time, that the states participating in an agreement are consistently complying with the terms of the agreement is what inspires confidence in their generally co-operative, nonhostile intentions. It is because they want the agreement to succeed that they comply with its measures, not because they are constantly monitored. This is also the of psychological environment that leads to the growth of a security regime.23 The counter-intuitive implications of CFE/CDE synergy for devising appropriate verification and monitoring requirements for the two types of agreement are but one instance of how the two processes interact with each other. The larger point about the potential synergy of the CFE and CDE processes is that each negotiation process and outcome addresses special, and slightly divergent, confidence-building concerns and has special confidence-building requirements that will interact surprisingly well with those of the other negotiation process, if they are grasped and intentionally integrated with each other. The CDE 2 Vienna conference (like its antecedent Stockholm conference) will be concerned primarily with alleviating or removing concerns associated with potentially threatening conventional military force activities. In contrast, the CFE

Confidence-building processes 127 talks will be concerned primarily with alleviating or removing concerns associated with potentially threatening conventional military force capabilities. Although neither agreement is likely to concentrate exclusively on these distinct concerns, they nevertheless reflect the predominant confidence-building foci of each arms control process. The synergy resides in the fact that between them, the two arms control processes will address a surprisingly wide array of dissimilar anxiety-generating concerns associated with the dense and asymmetrical conventional force deployments and offensive-inclined doctrines of NATO and WTO forces in Europe. In particular, the CDE 2 will deal with military activities that might be mistaken for offensive action while the CFE talks will deal with military forces that are configured for offensive action. The associated confidence-building objectives likely to be addressed by the two arms control processes are (1) clarifying the nature of all potentially threatening military activities (the objective of the CDE) and (2) revising the configuration of conventional military forces (the objective of the CFE talks). By addressing these two separate but obviously related dimensions of anxiety- and misperception-inducing conventional military potential – (dynamic) activities and (static) capabilities – the CDE 2 and the CFE talks will together deal with a wider array of interrelated arms control objectives than one massive or even two separate and unrelated agreements could handle. This analytic insight is a product of viewing the two processes as complimentary. That is facilitated by recognizing the inherent confidence-building function underlying both. Understanding this interactive and synergistic potential relationship, and acting deliberately to maximize it, may permit the crafting of CFE and CDE agreements that are substantially more productive and successful than otherwise would be the case24 particularly with respect to their verification and monitoring requirements. Just as important, failing to realize that the two processes have this interactive and synergistic relationship could very well undercut the potential usefulness of each and perhaps even lead to counterproductive agreements. Having examined the rationale underlying the claim that the CFE talks and their eventual outcome are likely to have a significant confidence-building character, it is now appropriate to turn to a discussion of the actual CFE and CDE arms control processes, past and (likely) future. Throughout this examination, it will prove helpful to keep in mind the earlier remarks about the underlying confidence-building motivation driving both arms control processes. OVERVIEW OF THE MBFR AND CSCE PROCESSES The original MBFR and CSCE processes emerged more or less in parallel from

128 Confidence-building measures contending efforts to structure East–West Eurocentric security discussions in the midto late 1960s.25 The contention grew out of contrasting and generally inconsistent Soviet, American and NATO European (and, eventually, NNA European) concerns and objectives. Despite a common interest in reducing the chance of conflict in Europe, the various parties saw enhanced security (particularly their own) being achieved in different and sometimes incompatible ways. However, the Soviet interest in regularizing the post-war boundaries of Europe and Western interest in reducing troop levels and defence expenditures in Europe (primarily, in the American case, because of increasing Vietnam War commitments) constituted the basis in generating two distinct approaches to European security conferences.26 These two offsetting objectives and approaches lead to an obvious compromise. The Soviets agreed to the creation of MBFR which focused on conventional force reductions. In return, the West agreed to create the CSCE process which addressed a number of broader political considerations. This spawned two distinct processes that, together, dealt with the bulk of East, West and NNA concerns. Ironically, the two processes, for so long quite separate, have become closely intertwined in their second incarnations (CDE 2 and the CFE talks) and may achieve, together, more than many thought possible only a few years ago. This is in large part due to the apparent changes in Soviet arms control and national security thinking which have made onceunthinkable propositions the subject of current negotiation. THE MBFR The MBFR’s formal beginnings can be traced to the Harmel Report of 1967 and the NATO Ministerial Declaration of 1968 (the ‘Reykjavik Signal’).27 The Harmel Report concluded that a political accommodation with the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) was vital and that a central feature in the accommodation would have to be a conventional force reduction ‘arrangement’ of some sort. It thus expanded the responsibilities of NATO to formally include the pursuit of stability through arms control, a consequential adjustment in NATO’s mandate. The June 1968 Ministerial Declaration further expanded this responsibility by specifying general reduction principles. The road to the MBFR negotiations, delayed temporarily by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, was further stalled by the subsequent inability to agree on the basic nature of the desired negotiations. However, a combination of diplomatic manoeuvres28 in 1970 and 1971 culminating in the 30 March 1971 speech by Leonid Brezhnev to the 24th Communist Party Congress and a subsequent speech on 14 May 1971 set the MBFR talks on their final course and established the parallel contingent process leading towards the CSCE. These two speeches explicitly

Confidence-building processes 129 indicated, for the first time, a Soviet willingness to discuss conventional force reductions in Europe.29 These alliance-to-alliance talks, which finally began on 30 October 1973 after nine months of preparatory negotiations, have enjoyed no real success in their efforts to negotiate meaningful conventional force reductions within the Central European ‘Reduction Zone’ (Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, and Poland).30 They have foundered primarily on disagreements over basic counts of personnel in the Central European reduction zone and questions about verification adequacy.31 However, it can also be argued that neither side has been particularly interested for some time now in pursuing an accord employing an approach – personnel reductions in the restricted Central European area – that each feels is fundamentally flawed and not in its own interests. Neither may feel that a crude personnel reduction in an arbitrarily limited (if important) region of Europe will solve important security problems that revolve around the types and numbers of military equipment and numbers of personnel in place from the Atlantic to the Urals. This may also explain why both sides are optimistic about the potential of the substantially different Vienna Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Although no substantive MBFR outcome can emerge in Vienna now that the negotiations have been formally closed,32 it is nevertheless informative to note the sorts of proposals that were developed by the two sides. They provide an interesting contrast with initial CFE positions. The most recent general NATO proposal was presented on 5 December 1985. It sought to achieve an eventual ceiling of 900,000 troops for each of NATO and the WTO within the reduction zone with an initial or stage one withdrawal of 5,000 American forces and 11,500 Soviet troops (90 per cent to be withdrawn as identifiable units). Upon completion of the stage one withdrawal, both sides were to submit data bases detailing the nature of WTO and NATO forces (to battalion level) remaining in the zone. This information exchange was to become an annual event and was intended to help circumvent the enduring data problem that had plagued the negotiations for years. The two sides would freeze their force sizes for three years and attempt to devise an approach to further, more substantial reductions. Finally, a consultative commission was to be created to oversee compliance complaints. A number of so-called ‘associated measures’ (many of then similar to Stockholm-type CBMs) were included in the proposal.33 The basic WTO MBFR draft treaty was proposed on 17 February 1983 (with a slightly altered version presented on 23 June 1983). A revised and apparently simplified version of this proposal was tabled on 14 February 1985. A further revision was tabled on 20 February 1986, reflecting a slight shift toward the 1985 NATO proposal.

130 Confidence-building measures The WTO MBFR approach entailed the same eventual ceiling as the NATO proposal and, as of 20 February 1986 proposal, called for an initial withdrawal of 11,500 Soviet forces and 6,500 American troops (90 per cent to be withdrawn as units). The WTO proposal also contained some modest information and prenotification exchange measures, some post-reduction inspection procedures (apparently voluntary) as well as a call for the creation of a consultative commission to deal with compliance concerns. The slight chance of negotiating a meaningful MBFR agreement was severely undercut by the Gorbachev proposal of 18 April 1986 (amplified by the 11 June 1986 Budapest statement). This Soviet proposal called for broader ‘Stability talks’ to replace the increasingly ineffectual MBFR negotiations. The 11 June clarification indicated that the Soviets were interested in achieving initial bloc reductions within Europe (from the ‘Atlantic to the Urals’) of between 100,000 and 150,000 troops and eventual overall reductions of approximately 25 per cent per side. Shorter-range nuclear systems (with ranges less than 1,000 km) were also to be included in the reductions. The proposal also included specific reference to on-site inspections (if necessary), a consultative commission and the use of monitoring posts. This proposal, with its options of attaching the new talks to the CSCE process, continuing with the basic MBFR format or initiating a completely new forum basically redefined the context of MBFR and brought the MBFR/CFE and CSCE/CDE processes into nearalignment. The result of the Gorbachev proposal was also to effectively terminate any lingering interest in the ‘old’ MBFR negotiations. With the acceptance of a CFE mandate, MBFR was brought to a quiet close. NEGOTIATIONS ON CONVENTIONAL ARMED FORCES IN EUROPE The NATO reaction to the Gobachev proposals of 18 April 1986 was to create a High Level Task Force (HLTF) which set about developing a NATO response to the Soviet initiative. The group itself was created on 30 May 1986. A central problem that complicated NATO efforts to produce a response to the Soviet proposals was the difference in thinking between the French and the rest of the Allies. The French wanted to ensure that the new talks were firmly attached to the CSCE process, did not operate on a bloc-to-bloc basis and fully involved the NNA states. The United States, in particular, resisted this idea, preferring to see a clear separation between the CSCE and any MBFR follow-on as well as a clear bloc-to-bloc structure for negotiations. An additional complicating factor has been the concern of the Federal Republic of Germany over short-range nuclear force (SNF) issues, including the status of dual capable systems and (increasingly) SNF modernization. The tendency within the

Confidence-building processes 131 HLTF was to be sensitive to French and German concerns, a tendency reflected in the final outcome of internal NATO negotiations. The HLTF worked from June until December 1986 to devise the NATO position enunciated in the Brussels Declaration on Conventional Arms Control of 12 December 1986. That declaration, in effect, accepted the Soviet offer and proposed that the WTO and NATO begin new negotiations. The ‘Reykjavik Communiqué’ of 12 June 1987 provided additional detail about NATO’s position with respect to the new negotiations. In it, NATO states ‘. . . agreed that the two future security negotiations should take place within the framework of the CSCE process, with the conventional stability negotiations retaining autonomy as regards subject matter, participation and procedures.’34 NATO and WTO negotiators began meeting in the so-called Group 23 sessions (after the number of NATO and WTO participants) on 17 February 1987 in Vienna in order to devise a mandate for the CFE negotiations. These mandate discussions were particularly important because there was a considerable range of opinion amongst the twenty-three would-be participants especially, but not exclusively, based on bloc differences. The mandate talks were, in effect, a pre-negotiation negotiation intended to establish procedural guidelines and basic agreement on subject matter for the CFE talks. During the bulk of 1987 and throughout 1988, the two sides attempted to resolve differences over procedure and the substance the CFE talks were to cover. The Eastern position was outlined in its 22 June 1987 draft mandate which focused on the inclusion of tactical nuclear weapons as well as air forces. It proposed some maritime geographic coverage as well as the possible inclusion of some maritime and air activities. The WTO draft mandate also suggested a close association with the CSCE. The NATO position was outlined in its draft mandate of 27 July. This document focused on reducing asymmetrical disparities ‘prejudicial to stability or security’. It attempted to minimize CFE association with the CSCE and sought to restrict the geographic scope of the CFE talks to the European landmass. The principal points dividing the two sides over the period of Group 23 discussions were: 1 the inclusion of tactical nuclear weapons, either purpose-designed or dual-capable systems; 2 the inclusion of airpower (whether helicopters, strike aircraft or all tactical and/or dual-capable aircraft); 3 the inclusion of regions of Turkey, offsetting Soviet territory in the Caucasus; and the inclusion of offshore Atlantic islands such as the Azores, the Canary Islands and Madeira; and 4 the relationship of the CFE talks to the CSCE (i.e. whether the CFE talks should include reports to or actually be a part of the CSCE process).

132 Confidence-building measures By the end of July 1988, the Group 23 negotiations had achieved close agreement on most mandate issues, with only the language to accommodate dual capable systems, the exact extent of the mandate’s zone, and the precise relationship with the CSCE still undecided. As the summer progressed, new disagreements emerged over distinctions between various types of aircraft to be included or excluded in the talks while the other problems remained largely intractable. By late September, a compromise had been worked out to permit the inclusion in the mandate of dualcapable systems and the Soviet Union had dropped its insistence on excluding fighter aircraft from the talks. Measured progress towards a completed mandate continued throughout the autumn of 1988 although procedural problems regarding the relationship between the CSCE and the CFE talks continued to be troublesome. As 1988 drew to a close, virtually all elements in the mandate were resolved other than the issue of geographic coverage. A last minute controversy over the extent of Turkish territory to be included in the zone (involving the port of Mersin) was overcome in early January and the mandate was initialed on 14 January 1989. A copy of the mandate was attached to the 17 January 1989 Concluding Document of the Vienna CSCE Follow-Up Meeting, reflecting the fact that the negotiations are to ‘take place in the framework of the CSCE process’. The CFE negotiations began on 6 March 1989.35 The mandate for the Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe states that: The objectives of the negotiation shall be to strengthen stability and security in Europe through the establishment of a stable and secure balance of conventional armed forces, which include conventional armaments and equipment, at lower levels; the elimination of disparities prejudicial to stability and security; and the elimination, as a matter of priority, of the capability for launching surprise attack and for initiating large-scale offensive action. . . . These objectives shall be achieved by the application of militarily significant measures such as reductions, limitations, redeployment provisions, equal ceilings, and related measures, among others. In order to achieve the above objectives, measures should be pursued for the whole area of application with provisions, if and where appropriate, for regional differentiation to redress disparities within the area of application and in a way which precludes circumvention. . . . The subject of the negotiation shall be the conventional armed forces, which include conventional armaments and equipment, of the participants based on land within the territory of the participants in Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. The existence of multiple capabilities will not be a criterion for modifying the scope of the negotiation. . . .

Confidence-building processes 133 No conventional armaments or equipment will be excluded from the subject of the negotiation because they may have other capabilities in addition to conventional ones. Such armaments or equipment will not be singled out in a separate category; . . . Nuclear weapons will not be a subject of this negotiation. . . . Naval forces and chemical weapons will not be addressed. . . . Compliance with the provisions of any agreement shall be verified through an effective and strict verification regime which, among other things, will include onsite inspections as a matter of right and exchanges of information.36 The basic NATO CFE position was tabled on 6 March and proposed reductions in selected systems to equal levels set at a figure approximately 5 per cent under the lowest level possessed currently by either side within the mandate area (effectively, 20,000 main battle tanks, 16,500 artillery pieces, and 28,000 armoured troop carriers per alliance group). In addition, NATO has advanced a ‘sufficiency’ approach that would limit any single state to no more than 30 per cent of the total post-reduction or residual holdings of the two sides combined (effectively, 12,000 tanks, 10,000 artillery pieces, and 16,800 armoured troop carriers). A ‘stationed forces’ formula was also advanced requiring that neither alliance group station more than 3,200 tanks 1,700 artillery pieces and 6,000 armoured troopcarriers outside the national territories of the individual alliance states (effectively limiting the forces any state can deploy outside its own borders). In addition, NATO proposed sublimits within various zones for each alliance group. The central zone (Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic and Poland) would be limited to 8,000 tanks, 4,500 artillery pieces and 11,000 armoured troop carriers per alliance group. The next larger zone, including additionally Denmark, France, Italy, The United Kingdom, Hungary, and the Baltic, Byelorussian, and Carpathian military districts of the Soviet Union, would be limited to 10,300 tanks, 7,600 artillery pieces, and 18,000 armoured troop carriers per alliance group. A third zone (adding Spain, Portugal and three more Soviet military districts) would increase these figures to 11,300 tanks, 9,000 artillery pieces, and 20,000 armoured troop carriers. A detailed annual information exchange listing holdings (to battalion level) of tanks, artillery, and armoured troop carriers as well as personnel was also part of the NATO proposal. NATO is expected to present additional detail about a number of specific verification and stabilization measures (essentially CBMs) later in the year.37 The Western position was modified in several key areas with President George Bush’s speech of 29 May 1989. President Bush reversed long-standing alliance policy and proposed including land-based combat aircraft and helicopter cuts in a CFE

134 Confidence-building measures agreement. These forces would be reduced to a level 15 per cent below current NATO figures. He also proposed that the United States and the Soviet Union each reduce their ‘stationed forces’ in Europe to 275,000 personnel, a reduction that would see the Soviets remove approximately 325,000 men compared to the United States’ 30,000. President Bush expressed the hope that the negotiations might be completed within six to twelve months. It is expected that NATO negotiators will present a formal proposal embodying these and other elements in September 1989 when the CFE begins its next session.38 The Soviet/WTO CFE talks position was outlined on 6 March 1989 in Vienna by the then Foreign Minister, Shevardnadze. It called for a three-stage reduction. The first stage, lasting between two and three years, would see a reduction in ‘armed forces and conventional arms – including tactical fighter aircraft, tanks, combat helicopters, armoured personnel carriers, artillery, multiple rocket launchers and mortars – to levels 10 to 15 per cent below the lowest levels currently possessed by either side.’39 A second stage would see the remaining troop and equipment levels reduced by an additional 25 per cent over a 2- to 3-year period. The third stage would involve both sides’ forces being ‘given a strictly defensive character’. It would also involve agreements on ceilings for limiting all other categories of arms. This apparently would include naval forces. By 1997, the two alliances would have equal force levels of 20,000 tanks, 24,000 artillery pieces, 28,000 armoured troop carriers, 1,500 strike aircraft, 1,700 helicopters, and 1,350,000 personnel.40 The WTO position included the creation of ‘lowered-arms-level’ zones (including a Central Europe zone and a larger ‘zone of contact’) each with reduced ceilings of armaments and personnel. The Central Europe zone, for instance, would limit each alliance group to 8,700 tanks, 470 strike aircraft and 570,000 personnel. The proposal also called for extensive data exchanges and on-site inspections. The WTO proposal was fleshed out with several study papers and finally presented in detail on 25 May. The proposal specified ceilings for single countries, foreign deployments within the mandate area as well as for the three zones of reduced armaments. That proposal was then modified on 29 June 1989 with the adoption of an approach calling for regional ceilings on conventional forces that corresponded much more closely to NATO’s suggested limits. The main idea of the revised zonal limits would be to ensure that a reasonable percentage of Soviet forces remained relatively distant from NATO borders. The proposal called for the creation of a large zone including (on the Eastern side) the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Baltic and several Soviet military districts. The two sides would be limited to reduced subtotals of equipment (for instance, 13,000 tanks each) within the central zone.41

Confidence-building processes 135 It is a difficult exercise attempting to envisage the nature of the agreement that will emerge eventually in the CFE talks. The negotiations could prove to be as unproductive and frustrating as was the MBFR experience. Alternatively, they could produce a relatively speedy and consequential agreement featuring a substantial restructuring of the European balance of forces. Making a projection even more difficult, a ‘consequential’ agreement could take one of a number of fundamental forms42 drawing on a vast array of possible measures and limits. Thus, it is no simple task to correctly predict either form or content. At best, one can only attempt to sketch the basic shape of an agreement and provide ‘typical’ illustrative measures. One feature of virtually any plausible CFE agreement’s content is clear, however, and that is the predominate role that countering the appearance as well as the fact of asymmetrical Soviet and WTO strengths will play if the agreement is to be meaningful for NATO. Although it is possible to exaggerate the degree of European conventional force asymmetry favouring the Soviet Union, it is nevertheless the case that the Soviets and their WTO allies will likely need to accept either disproportionate reductions in their ground forces or other offsetting or compensatory measures if any meaningful result is to emerge from the CFE talks.43 Given this fact, the fate of the CFE talks is very much in the hands of General Secretary Gorbachev and his colleagues. While other leaders could impede success, only Gorbachev can ensure it. It is conceivable that the Soviet Union will agree to withdraw and perhaps destroy sizeable numbers of tanks, self-propelled artillery, and armoured troop carriers, but the offsetting NATO trade-off that would be agreeable to both West and East is difficult to imagine. One hint of the sort of arrangement that would appeal to the Soviet Union came in a statement made by Soviet General Chervov in June 1988. He indicated that the Soviet Union would eliminate 20,000 tanks in return for the removal of 1,500 NATO aircraft.44 Although this is consistent with the apparent Soviet interest in trading tanks for NATO aircraft, the dimensions of the trade-off are startling. Nevertheless, it underlines the fact that major adjustments in forces may be possible as well as the fact that major adjustments in Soviet tank numbers will cost NATO something that it values a good deal. NATO responses that fail to accommodate this fact are either disingenuous or dishonest and risk losing the opportunity to negotiate substantial cuts in Soviet forces. An important question to bear in mind when attempting to anticipate the likely nature of a CFE agreement is this: what objectives animate the Soviet Union in these negotiations? If the primary Soviet goal is to quickly establish maximum stability and good will in East–West relations by directly addressing the perceived imbalance of conventional forces in Europe, then agreements that seem one-sided in NATO’s favour are possible.45 The Soviet intention in this case would be to stabilize the

136 Confidence-building measures external environment, even at some cost in relative military strength, in order to facilitate crucial domestic development. If, however, there is a more convoluted and less benign Soviet objective, then a straightforward and rapid conclusion is unlikely. Just as important, the sort of one-sided agreement that Western analysts have been discussing will be far less likely to emerge. One of the more disturbing possibilities is the chance that the Soviets are cynically attempting to keep NATO governments offbalance while the increasing array of seemingly fair and attractive Soviet arms control proposals and NATO’s inability to respond to them quickly undermines public support for NATO, eventually leading to its permanent impairment. Assuming that both groups of states are generally serious about negotiating a stability-enhancing CFE agreement, the most likely outcome will be a moderately serious agreement that is predominantly reduction-oriented with lesser ‘transformation’ and ‘separation’ emphases. Elements of the latter two stability approaches could just as easily be found in a CDE-type negotiation or some third category of negotiation (such as independent doctrine talks), however, so they are played down in this model agreement. The following illustrative model agreement provides a basic idea of how such an agreement might appear: A CFE Model Agreement 1

2

3

4

5

6

Reduction in each alliance group’s main battle tank, artillery, rocket launcher, armoured troop carrier, long-range combat aircraft, and armoured helicopter deployments46 in the mandate area to an equal level 85 per cent that of the lowest current deployment level in each category. No participating state’s deployments allowed to exceed 33 per cent of the overall post-reduction number within the mandate area in each category of tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, armoured personnel carriers, long-range combat aircraft, and armoured helicopters. No participating state allowed to deploy more than 33 per cent of its holdings in tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, armoured troop carriers, long-range combat aircraft, or armoured helicopters outside of its borders, but within the mandate area. The participating states will exchange detailed descriptions of their armed forces stationed in the mandate area, to be revised annually. Statements will be subject to challenge inspection. The participating states will abide by all of the measures of transparency, notification, and constraint as detailed in the Stockholm and Vienna CSBM agreements, recognizing their positive impact on stability. The participating states will adopt a rigorous verification programme calling

Confidence-building processes 137 for observations, monitoring and inspections (including challenge on-site 7

inspections).47 The participating states will create a consultative commission to assist in the resolution of compliance problems.48

The reason for engaging in this speculative exercise is to gain some idea of the character of a politically plausible agreement capable of adjusting the balance of forces in Europe, one that would address NATO concerns about armoured force asymmetries and, to a lesser extent, Soviet concerns about NATO long-range air and dual capable systems. This particular collection of measures is relatively favourable to the Western position, although this might be the result of substantial crossnegotiation trade-offs that could, for instance, see sea and/or air notification confidence-building measures added to a CDE 2 agreement. The immediate objective of this type of CFE agreement is to correct some asymmetries in the NATO/WTO conventional military relationship and to reduce (modestly) the offensive capabilities of both alliances’ forces. However, it is clear looking at even this relatively aggressive, reduction-oriented agreement with its favourable NATO bias that truly transforming the nature of the current military balance will not be easy to accomplish. This model agreement, for instance, would not alter appreciably the offensive and defensive capabilities of the two alliances. Few plausible alternative model agreements would, either. It is difficult to imagine the Soviets and NATO both accepting a substantially more aggressive agreement so this model represents what may be the limit for conventional reductions, at least within the near term.49 The continuing efforts by both alliance groups to create highly mobile, autonomous forces capable of operating effectively in the offensive, counteroffensive or defensive mode underlines the difficulty of enforcing stability through simple force reductions. It is not entirely clear that smaller, better trained and equipped, more sophisticated and more independent forces of equal size would produce an inherently more stable conventional military balance. Thus, the arms control contribution of this sort of agreement may very well be at least as much in the realm of confidence-building as in overt surprise attack or offensive action constraint. An important point to make here is that regardless of any specific hardware adjustments in the conventional force balance, the confidence-building character of even an agreement that strongly favoured NATO could be negative if either too much or too little monitoring was demanded as part of the associated verification regime. As was argued earlier, if too much monitoring rigour is made a feature of a CFE agreement, there is insufficient room for the natural development of genuine confidence in the basically non-hostile intentions of potential adversaries.50 No CFE agreement can be concerned exclusively with the psychological atmosphere

138 Confidence-building measures surrounding it, of course. A CFE agreement must also have a tangible impact on the material causes of concern – conventional force asymmetries, particularly those that foster fears of surprise attack. Needless to say, with too little monitoring rigour a verification regime will be counterproductive. The uncertainty bred by such an approach would allow fears rather than confidence to grow. With a method for detecting compliance problems with relatively good confidence and a method for resolving those compliance problems (i.e. a multilateral consultative commission), the confidence-building character of this type of agreement would be substantial because it would both reduce and impair the forces capable of engaging in a surprise attack while reducing concerns about those forces being used offensively and minimizing chances of benign activities being misperceived. There are limits, however, to what a reduction agreement can accomplish. It is doubtful, for instance, that any plausible agreement would involve asymmetrical reductions of the sort and extent that would completely eliminate the physical source of concern about surprise attack. Sufficient offensive capability would likely remain after any plausible CFE reduction to fuel any suspicious state’s worst fears.51 And it is precisely in this dimension that the confidence-building aspect of the CFE and the parallel CDE can play a role in minimizing those concerns. This is the major area of interaction that can produce a synergistic result. It is the confidence-building aspects of both agreements, each catering to a slightly different dimension of both psychological and material concerns, that firmly join the two processes and yield the synergistic result. THE CSCE/CDE PROCESS The CSCE/CDE process can be traced directly to Soviet efforts in the mid-1960s to persuade the European NATO states to participate in a ‘European Security Conference’ (ESC).52 Such a conference, the Soviets suggested, would ratify the status quo in post-war Europe, explore the eventual dissolution of both NATO and the WTO and attempt to develop a broader European economic community. In fact, the primary Soviet intention was to ratify the boundaries of East European states under Soviet control since the end of the Second World War and to neutralize, to the fullest extent possible, the Federal Republic of Germany as a potential military threat. Given the Soviet success in gaining acceptance of post-war boundaries, it could be argued that addressing German (and, to a lesser extent, NATO) military capabilities was the more important goal. The reduction of American influence in Europe would be a bonus, if this could be managed as well. NATO (and especially American) interest in the Soviet ESC idea was, at best, marginal until the need to reduce NATO (especially American) manpower levels and

Confidence-building processes 139 defence expenditures became a major political problem. The Soviet interest in an essentially political exercise to legitimize East European boundaries then became paired with the American interest in reducing conventional force levels in Europe through MBFR. Unlike the MBFR, the neutral and non-aligned European states (with the exception of Albania) also participated in the CSCE process, making very important contributions. The CSCE process commenced on 3 July 1973 and lead to the Helsinki Final Act of 1 August 1975. Of special relevance for national security concerns was the creation of a very modest collection of confidence-building measures. The so-called Helsinki CBMs are important more for what they lead to (the Stockholm Document) than for any specific accomplishments of their own as the measures were extremely modest. Nevertheless, the Helsinki CBMs established an important conceptual precedent and fostered a modest but enduring (primarily European) interest in developing a much more elaborate collection of second-generation CBMs called confidence- and security-building measures or CSBMs. As a result, the CSCE Madrid Follow-Up Conference eventually yielded a Concluding Document (6 September 1983) that included a formal commitment to initiate a Conference on Confidence- and SecurityBuilding Measures and Disarmament in Europe (CCSBMDE), to begin in January 1984 in Stockholm. The Stockholm Conference managed to survive an inauspicious initial year (with the general breakdown in East–West arms control dialogue) to produce what is now seen by most observers to be a significant agreement - the 21 September 1986 ‘Document of the Stockholm Conference’. This agreement, with its roots in the May 1978 French proposal for a Conference on Disarmament in Europe,53 included: 1 2

3

4 5

Non-Use of Force Re-Affirmation. Prior Notification (42 days advance notification of activities involving: (a) the engagement of a division equivalent (13,000 land forces or 300 tanks) in an exercise activity; (b) 200 fixed-wing aircraft sorties; (c) the engagement of 3,000 troops in a parachute or amphibious exercise; or (d) transfers into or concentrations within Europe of at least a division equivalent). Observation (2 observers per state to be invited to any exercise or transfer involving 17,000 personnel or 5,000 troops involved in a parachute or amphibious exercise). Calendar (specified information about all notifiable activities to be communicated at least one year in advance). Constraint (notifiable activities over 40,000 troops must be forecast two years in advance; none over 75,000 permitted without a two year calendar forecast and none over 40,000 permitted without a one year calendar forecast).

140 Confidence-building measures 6

Inspection (on-site ground and/or air inspection within 36 hours of request using 4 inspectors; no state need accept more than 3 inspections per year).

Superficially, the Stockholm Document does not appear to be a radical agreement. It nevertheless represents a promising method of (1) reducing the chances of unintended or accidental war; (2) constraining surprise attack options; and (3) limiting the opportunities for using military activities in a threatening manner. As a result, it also constitutes an important step forward in the process of improving the underlying character of relations amongst the European states as well as the superpowers. Of considerably greater consequence, the agreement may also represent an even more important step in the positive transformation of East–West (and East–West–Neutral– Non-aligned) relations. In this context, the Stockholm document is very important as a contributor to and a beneficiary of the emergence of what may prove to be a genuine European security regime. The Stockholm Document does not constitute a fully reliable guarantee against surprise attack or less direct military coercion. It would be a mistake to expect it to accomplish this. Nevertheless, the agreement provides mechanisms to help reduce unwarranted concerns about both. Because the Stockholm Document is concerned primarily with revealing the true nature of military activities that might otherwise be mistaken for war preparations, it helps to control potentially dangerous misperceptions about the intentions of other states. Any future variation on the CCSBMDE theme is likely to cater to this very important need, as well. CDE 2 The Vienna CCSBMDE follow-on negotiation, what we have been calling the CDE 2, will take place in order to build upon and expand the results already achieved at the Stockholm Conference with the aim of elaborating and adopting a new set of mutually complementary confidence- and security-building measures designed to reduce the risk of military confrontation in Europe. These negotiations will take place in accordance with the Madrid mandate.54 The Vienna CDE 2 negotiations began on 6 March 1989. It seems relatively clear that the participating states will accept the continued use of the Madrid mandate although the question of associated air and sea activities is uncertain. The Soviet Union and several of the NNAs are interested in developing new CSBMs that will incorporate naval and air activities – a strategy that the West is not interested in seeing effected.

Confidence-building processes 141 The Soviet Union has also indicated that it is interested in discussing military doctrine, an intriguing possibility that could be employed to good confidencebuilding effect.55 The West, on the other hand, is very interested in pursuing increased data exchange and enhanced verification measures. The NATO position was articulated by Canada with the presentation of a proposal (NV.1) on 9 March 1989. It contained twelve measures and a separate call for a ‘seminar on military doctrine’: 1

10 11

Exchange of military information down to at least divisional level (including immediate notification of changes in location of major ground units). Exchange of information on major equipment deployment programmes. Random evaluation system to confirm the accuracy of supplied military information. Enhanced information in existing annual calendar measure. Enhanced information in existing notification measure. Expanded opportunities in existing observer measure (including aerial survey). Lowered observation threshold (to 13,000 personnel or 300 tanks). More rigorous conditions for existing inspection measure including more information and equipment for inspectors, more passive inspections and shorter warning time. Lowered notification threshold for larger-scale military activities (50,000 personnel). Greater freedom of travel and access for accredited CDE personnel. Development of new and speedier means of communication.

12

Equal treatment of media representatives.56

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9

The Eastern proposal (WV.2), presented orally on 9 March as well, also contained a number of concrete measures. These fell within five basic areas and sought to extend the existing Stockholm regime more extensively than did the NATO proposal. These packages included constraining measures that called for an upper limit of 40,000 personnel for any notifiable military activity (including separate simultaneous or proximate activities), a limit of two exercises annually on any state’s territory if they exceed 25,000 personnel each, and a time limit of 15 days for notifiable activities. ‘Measures covering air forces’ sought to require notification of exercises involving 150 combat aircraft or 500 sorties and transfers of more than 70 aircraft as well as a ceiling for exercises of 600 combat aircraft or 1,800 sorties. The ‘measures covering naval forces’ was the most controversial element in the package. It included notification of exercises involving various numbers and types of naval vessels (20 or more combat ships of 1,500 tons displacement or more, 5 or more

142 Confidence-building measures large combat ships – vessels of 5,000 tons displacement or more and equipped with aircraft or cruise missiles – or 80 or more naval aviation aircraft), notification of naval force transfers, limits on the number of vessels engaged in exercises (50 vessels), the prohibition of naval exercises in areas of intensive activity and in ‘straits of international significance’, as well as information and observer measures. Another group of proposed CSBMs dealt with expanded Stockholm measures, more or less paralleling the NATO suggestions. The fourth group of measures dealt with the ‘establishment of confidence and security zones in Europe’. Such a zone, in Central Europe, for instance, would have lowered levels of offensive armaments, military formations with a more purely defensive character, as well as relatively stricter notification limits and activity restrictions. The final group of measures, the ‘glasnost measures’, called for extensive information exchange (down to brigade/ regiment level), the holding of military ‘seminars’, exchanges between military forces, enhanced monitoring for verification, the creation of a consultative commission and the creation of a risk reduction centre.57 It is less difficult (although still risky) to attempt to predict the basic elements likely to appear in a CDE 2 agreement compared with predicting the content of a CFE treaty. Such an agreement is very likely to match quite closely the existing Stockholm Document in many respects. Thus, it is likely to parallel the structure of the earlier agreement with variations on the theme of notification, observation, calendar, constraint, and inspection. Beyond this basic structural similarity, many of the existing measures are likely to be refined and/or made more stringent. Prior notification time periods, for instance, might be increased to sixty days although this did not appear to be an element in the March proposals. The manpower and equipment thresholds of the revised notification measure might also be lowered. One might also see added a requirement for the notification of any short-warning alert activities (not currently notifiable in the Stockholm Document), perhaps seven days prior to the exercise, along with the invitation of a subset of observers to ensure that the alert is conducted as notified. A considerably more controversial new notification measure that could find its way into a CDE 2 agreement – although the NATO countries are opposed to such a measure – would involve the creation of something like a 200 km notification of maritime military activity zone, basically following the coast of Europe from Spain to some point off Norway’s coast. It might require (for instance) 45 day advance notifications of maritime activities involving more than 6 associated major combatants or a vessel capable of launching more than 12 fixed-wing aircraft. To alleviate concerns about lost maritime flexibility (largely addressed already by limiting the extent of the zone), this type of maritime notification measure might not have a matching calendar requirement.

Confidence-building processes 143 A discrete information measure is likely to be added to the new CDE 2, similar to the one proposed by NATO in the original CDE negotiations.58 In addition, calendar and observation measures from the original Stockholm Document could well be refined somewhat for a CDE 2, requiring a greater degree of detail in supplied information. Observation and verification procedures could also be extended and access rules clarified. Most of these possibilities are simple refinements, however, and do not constitute radical new directions. In the case of the CDE 2’s constraint measure, the potential clearly exists for more significant modifications of the existing measure. A new constraint measure, for instance, might include aggressive provisions for limiting the deployment of offensive equipment, or its logistic support, in certain sensitive zones. It is unclear, however, whether such a measure if attempted at all would be best placed in a CFE treaty or a CDE 2 agreement. This type of constraint measure is clearly a type of confidence-building measure, but it might be more comfortably located in a CFE agreement. CONCLUSIONS This chapter has argued that a special but poorly appreciated relationship links the two conventional arms control negotiations unfolding in Europe – the CDE 2 and the CFE talks. The basis of the special relationship is the important but sometimes implicit role played by confidence-building as a fundamental motivation in both arms control processes. Very important in appreciating this connection is understanding that the most basic goal of the CFE talks is to constrain troubling offensive capabilities so that a wide range of fears and concerns associated with those forces can be moderated. It is the fears and concerns rather than the forces themselves that are and will be the ultimate subject of the CFE talks (and the CDE 2). This broader goal is clearly consistent with the basic aims of confidence-building. It therefore appears to be perfectly reasonable and justifiable to observe that both the CDE and the CFE processes have a fundamental confidence-building character. An eventual CDE 2 agreement will almost certainly be concerned with alleviating or removing concerns associated with potentially threatening conventional military force activities. In contrast, a CFE agreement will be concerned primarily with alleviating or removing concerns associated with potentially threatening conventional military force capabilities. These will very likely be the predominant confidence - building foci of each arms control process. Between them, the two arms control processes will address a host of dissimilar anxiety-generating concerns associated with the dense and asymmetrical conventional force deployments and offensive-inclined doctrines of NATO and WTO forces in Central Europe. In

144 Confidence-building measures particular, the CDE 2 will deal with military activities that might be mistaken for offensive action while the CFE talks will deal with military forces that are configured for offensive action. The confidence-building objectives likely to be pursued by the two arms control processes are (1) clarifying the nature of all potentially threatening military activities (the objective of the CDE) and (2) revising the configuration of conventional military forces (the objective of the CFE talks). By addressing these two separate but obviously related dimensions of anxiety- and misperception-inducing conventional military potential, the CDE 2 and CFE talks will together deal with a wider array of interrelated arms control objectives than one massive or even two separate and unrelated agreements could deal with. This is why a claim for the existence of a synergistic relationship dominated by confidence-building concerns and objectives is made. If the synergistic relationship is not understood, there is a good chance that the two arms control processes, pursued separately, will yield less satisfactory results, particularly if their apparently separate verification requirements are allowed to undermine the underlying confidence-building objectives of both arms control processes. Therefore, negotiators in both arms control processes, but especially those at the Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, must be careful to foster the confidence-building characteristics of both agreements. But more, they must make every effort to recognize the ways in which the two agreements interact with each other, undermining or enhancing the purposes of the two negotiations. NOTES 1 Portions of this chapter are based on confidence-building and verification research initially undertaken for Canada’s Department of External Affairs. The views expressed in this chapter, of course, do not necessarily reflect those of the Canadian government. 2 The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) is the parent process to the Stockholm Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe (CCSBMDE). The CCSBMDE is typically referred to by an informal, much shorter and earlier acronym, the CDE, which stands for the Conference on Disarmament in Europe. The follow-on to the Stockholm CCSBMDE conference, according to the concluding document of the Vienna Follow-Up Meeting (FUM), will employ the same (Madrid) mandate and is called the Vienna Negotiations on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures. For convenience sake, it is referred to here as the CDE 2. The acronym MBFR stands for Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions although the formal title of the negotiations is the Vienna Negotiations on the

Confidence-building processes 145 Mutual Reduction of Forces and Armaments and Associated Measures in Central Europe. It is largely unsuccessful precursor process to what has been termed informally the Conventional Stability Talks or CST. The formal title of the new talks is the Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. They go by the acronym of CAFE or CFE talks. CFE is likely to become the more commonly used term. 3 The understanding of confidence-building used in this chapter is drawn, in considerably revised form, from Macintosh, James (1985) Confidence (and Security) Building Measures in the Arms Control Process: A Canadian Perspective Ottawa: Department of External Affairs. The definition presented below is an improvement on most efforts although two components remain uncertain. The possibility of non-state generated CBMs is unresolved as is the status of ‘unilateral’ CBMs. Nevertheless, for our purposes, this is an entirely workable definition stressing the functional characteristics of confidencebuilding. Note that this definition does not explicitly distinguish between (1) a negotiating process; (2) an arms control agreement; or (3) a particular measure (in an arms control agreement). A definition of this sort, however, does not tell us very much about how confidence-building works. That is discussed later in the chapter. (1) Confidence building is a variety (or dimension) of arms control typically entailing (2) state actions (3) that can be (in principle) unilateral but which are typically either bilateral or multilateral (4) that attempt to reduce or eliminate misperceptions of and concerns about potentially threatening military capabilities and activities (5) by providing verifiable information about and advance notification of potentially threatening military activities (6) and/or by providing the opportunity for the prompt explanation of concern-causing military activities (7) and/or by restricting the opportunities available for the use of military forces and their equipment by adopting verifiable restrictions on the activities and deployments of those forces (or crucial components of them), frequently within sensitive areas. 4 This emphasis on the confidence-building dimension of the CFE talks is not intended to imply that the conventional force reductions envisioned in CFE thinking are unimportant or secondary in their own right. Instead, the point is that there are a number of methods of addressing ‘stability problems’ and that some have a substantial direct or indirect confidence-building dimension to them. In the CFE talks case, it is the thoughtful adjustment of force asymmetries that will perform an important confidence-building function. Thus, it is not a matter of force reduction and confidence-building; it is a matter of force reduction yielding confidence-building. It is difficult to see this relationship unless the traditional

146 Confidence-building measures understandings of arms control and confidence-building are adjusted to more accurately reflect their real relationship. 5 Although an effort is made in this chapter to distinguish between a negotiating process and its eventual outcome, common usage generally fails to reflect such a distinction. The failure to distinguish very carefully between the two leads to considerable imprecision because a negotiating process can show evidence of confidence-building characteristics that do not emerge in a final treaty (and vice versa). It is not possible to explore this interesting point at any length in this chapter. Nevertheless, it is worth stressing here that the CFE negotiating process, for example, can have a substantial and unique confidence-building impact compared with a CFE Treaty in the sense that it helps to clarify uncertainty about intentions and demonstrates arms control seriousness. This will become more obvious as the nature of confidence-building is explored in greater detail in the chapter. The basic point to bear in mind is that participating in a negotiating process can yield substantial but unique confidence-building results that can differ from those produced by the eventual implemented agreement. Our usage ought to reflect this distinction, but rarely does. Our usage is also sometimes careless in distinguishing between individual confidence-building measures (such as the MBFR’s ‘associated measures’) and an overall arms control agreement that may not have so pronounced a confidence-building character. 6 Synergy means a combined effect exceeding the sum of the individual, constituent parts. The overall result is greater because of the interaction of the various parts. The key aspect of this notion is the magnification of results due to the interaction of the constituent parts. There is no additional, specialist meaning intended here. 7 It is important to understand that the CFE and CDE 2 processes enjoy an inherently close relationship because of, amongst other things, their common participants, common geography, closely-related subject matter and common concerns. The additional underlying linkage operating on the basis of shared confidence-building functions magnifies this already complex relationship. This inherent relationship exists whether or not the relationship is recognized explicitly by analysts and policy-makers. Thus, the failure to apprehend the existence of the relationship between the two processes will not prevent whatever negative confidence-building (‘confidence-degrading’) effects result from implicit or inadvertent trade-offs between the directions imposed separately on the two arms control processes by unaware policy-makers. This is a particularly important point. It might seem unnecessary to emphasize this point about causal independence, but there is a tendency to treat efforts to uncover and analyse these sorts of relationships as if they caused the relationships to exist. Needless to say,

Confidence-building processes 147 that is not usually true although, with a subject as psychologically-oriented as confidence-building, there is a sense in which saying something exists can help to make it so (and, conversely, not saying it can keep it from being so). This is a dimension of confidence-building that warrants extended study. 8 Most definitions of arms control appear to support this view. For example, Hedley Bull’s widely used definition states that arms control is ‘restraint internationally exercised upon armaments policy, whether in respect of the level of armaments, their character, deployment or use’. Confidence-building clearly deals with ‘deployment’ and ‘use’ issues. [Quoted in Booth, Ken (1987) ‘Disarmament and arms control’ in John Baylis, Ken Booth, John Garnett and Phil Williams (eds) Contemporary Strategy I, 2nd revised edn, New York: Holmes & Meier.] Robert Bowie, in an early work, defines arms control as including ‘any agreement among several powers to regulate some aspects of their military capability or potential. The arrangement may apply to the location, amount, readiness, or types of military forces, weapons or facilities.’ [Bowie, R. (1970) ‘Basic requirements of arms control’ in John Garnett (ed.) Theories of Peace and Security – A Reader in Contemporary Strategic Thought, London: Macmillan, p. 163.] A thoughtful contemporary definition by Patrick Morgan also reflects a broad view that can easily accommodate confidence-building: ‘arms control consists of measures, directly related to military forces, adopted by governments to contain the costs and harmful consequences of the continued existence of arms (their own and others), within the overall objective of enhancing their security in international politics.’ [Morgan, P. (1986) ‘Elements of a general theory of arms control’ in Paul R. Viotti (ed.), Conflict and Arms Control – An Uncertain Agenda, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, p. 285.] 9 For a discussion of CBM categories, see Macintosh, J. ‘Confidence (and Security) – Building Measures in the Arms Control Process: a Canadian Perspective’, op. cit. 10 Virtually no understanding of confidence-building openly embraces instances of actual force reduction – the elimination of existing units and equipment – as legitimate examples of confidence-building measures. This is too obvious an instance of what every analyst recognizes as ‘arms control’. The argument being explored in this chapter challenges this tendency on two fronts. First, it questions the traditional distinction between arms control and confidence-building. There is no compelling reason for this distinction on the basis of a functional understanding of what arms control seeks to do. Second, the argument in this chapter suggests that we shift our attention to the purposes being served by an agreement and the motivations driving those who participate in its negotiation. If we do so, we can see confidence-building as being an attribute of (1) many

148 Confidence-building measures

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negotiating processes; (2) at least some arms control agreements; and (3) certain types of arms control measures. Thus, the fact that a CFE treaty is likely to include some provisions that call for the elimination of personnel units and certain types of equipment ought not to be seen as proof that it has no confidence-building dimensions. See Macintosh, J. op. cit., especially Chapter 6. Jonathan Alford is well known for advancing ‘equipment constraint’ CBM ideas. See Alford’s ‘ConfidenceBuilding Measures in Europe: The Military Aspects,’ in Alford J., (1979) ‘The future of arms control: Part III – confidence-building measures’, London: IISS Adelphi Paper 149, 1979. Indeed, this approach opens up the difficult possibility that virtually all types of conventionally-defined arms control can count as examples of confidencebuilding. It also hints at the possibility that confidence-building is the more expansive category of action with conventionally-defined arms control constituting a distinct subset of reduction-type activities. Non-hostile, of course, ought not to be confused with non-competitive. Many of the CSCE states have competitive relationships with each other. The key distinction is the intention to use force first, or at all, to achieve political ends. This is a very important observation about the basic purpose and the underlying logic of the confidence-building process. According to this logic, the confidencebuilding process is primarily concerned with facilitating the positive transformation of beliefs about the inherent hostility and willingness of potential adversaries to use force. The process involves changes of degree at first, but ultimately seeks to work a fundamental change in beliefs. There can be (and probably needs to be) precursor negotiations or discussions that might be termed confidence-establishing (in contrast to confidence-building) processes. The former are concerned with creating the initial atmosphere capable of supporting the development of confidence-building. This is a difficult issue. It could be argued that the concern about deliberate war being initiated in a more distant future – say, for the sake of argument, in 5 year’s time – undercuts the claim that the primary focus of CFE-type arms control is on addressing unjustified fears about offensive or aggressive military action (i.e. cases where war is not deliberately planned, but begins for other reasons). However, the same argument holds true for the extended case as it does for the concern about near-term war as a motivator for arms control efforts. If negotiators and decision-makers actually believe that a negotiating partner plans to use force against them, whether now or in 5 years time, it is unlikely that they will, or ought to, engage in serious reductions. This is a high-risk strategy with little likely payoff. Reductions as well as constraints on force deployments and activities are

Confidence-building processes 149 unlikely to strengthen one’s own relative position defensively under many imaginable circumstances. A dedicated attacker is not likely to be so cooperative as to handicap his own forces sufficiently to remove a defender’s concerns. A state that does not intend to attack might do so. On logical grounds, it seems entirely justifiable to argue that no arms control efforts are undertaken when genuine fears of attack, now or later, are held by key decision-makers. It is the concern about misperception and other accidental processes flowing from the nature of forces in being that animate arms control agreements. Residing in this view is the pre-eminence of stability as a criterion in evaluating military force relationships. Although examined at some length in the literature, especially in the strategic nuclear context, it is a notion that requires much closer scrutiny. 16 It might be more accurate to say that a significant majority of key political decision-makers in each of the participating states must be reasonably sure (although perhaps not certain) that the key decision-makers in the other participating states are not seriously contemplating the aggressive use of military force. It is never in doubt that contingency plans exist for military action in the event of a wide range of threatening events. This is, however, distinct from a situation where a state intends to attack another, sooner or later, and is simply waiting for the opportune time. Also important is the fact that some officials are more likely to think in bellicose terms because of their institutional and bureaucratic position (typically civilians in defence ministries). Overall, the collective state of mind of a leadership group will not be coloured too drastically by these inclinations if there is a widespread belief in the non-belligerent nature of negotiating partners. 17 Note that there is a significant difference between (1) being uncertain about (or having an ambiguous understanding of) a potential adversary’s intentions, but nevertheless believing that those intentions are very likely non-hostile and (2) assuming that those intentions are unknowable in any meaningful way but believing, nevertheless, that they are prone to be hostile. In both cases there is uncertainty and probably ambiguity surrounding other parties’ intentions. However, in the former the tendency is to assume non-hostility while in the latter the tendency is to assume latent or even overt hostility. It is probably no coincidence that those people who feel more comfortable with the latter understanding (the ‘presumption of latent hostility’) will tend to reject the argument developed here about the CFE having a significant confidencebuilding function. Indeed, analysts and policy-makers who are prone to this latter understanding are unlikely to find much virtue in confidence-building and to be suspicious of all arms control efforts.

150 Confidence-building measures 18 At the risk of introducing additional confusion into this discussion, it is worth pointing out that because participating states assume and believe that no other state intends to use its military forces aggressively, the assumption itself may be incorrect. It is always possible that some states engage in negotiations in order to maximize their military advantages and deceive their soon-to-be victims. Their intentions are in fact hostile, but concealed. All states must be on guard against this. The point here is that no state is likely to participate if it strongly suspects that another plans to misuse the process. There must be an assumption of nonhostile (if not necessarily benign) intent. Obviously, for the process to succeed, the assumption must also be correct. 19 This point is pursued at some length in Macintosh, James (1988) ‘Future verification requirements: conventional arms control in Europe,’ a paper presented at the Fifth Symposium on Arms Control and Verification at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) on 23–26 March. A substantially revised version of this paper is published in Brian Mandell (ed.), 1989, Back to the Future: Lessons From Experience For Verification and Regional Arms Control, Carleton International Proceedings, Carleton University: Ottawa. 20 The concepts of monitoring and verification are often used without much precision. ‘Verification’ is frequently used when ‘monitoring’ is actually meant and they are sometimes used interchangeably which is even more misleading. Stephen Meyer’s characterization is particularly helpful because it emphasizes the important difference between looking and judging which distinguishes monitoring from verification. Meyer defines monitoring as ‘efforts to detect, identify, and “measure” developments and activities of interest. . . . The objective of monitoring is to observe and record as many “signals” and traces of [relevant activity] as possible. Monitoring, therefore, is a technical process in that it merely attempts to see what is occurring.’ Verification is ‘a process through which judgments are made as to whether to “certify” . . . compliance with arms control treaty provisions. It is a continuing process that produces one of a number of outcomes [ranging between judgments of compliance through questionable or ambiguous compliance to apparent cheating]. Verification is inherently subjective and judgmental. The “hard” technical data obtained from monitoring are but a few – and often not the most important – of the inputs into the verification process.’ Perhaps the most important point to make about verification is the fact that it is an intrinsically restricted, judgmental process very closely tied to specific arms control provisions. Anything that can be sensed can, in principle, be monitored, but only observable compliance with specific, existing arms control measures can be

Confidence-building processes 151 verified. See Meyer, Stephen (1984) ‘Verification and risk in arms control,’ International Security, 8:4 (Spring) 21 It is not self-evident what would constitute ‘too much’ monitoring. Constant monitoring using several different technologies, yielding resolutions of detail that exceed by appreciable margins those necessary for ‘adequate’ (i.e. politically acceptable although perhaps not certain) verification of compliance might constitute ‘too much’. The point is to avoid monitoring that which demands access to too broad a range of ‘things’ on too frequent a basis and employs too fine a resolution in the process. Some verification approaches that combine relatively fine-resolution inspections with a random or selective basis of choosing sites for inspection help to address this problem by making the monitoring process far less pervasive. This idea is explored on current research by the author dealing with the MBFR, its ‘lessons’ and the CFE. That research concentrates on the possible use of multilateral satellites or aircraft for arms control monitoring purposes. The role of multilateral or international verification for arms control is also examined in the study by Morris, Ellis International verification organizations undertaken for the Canadian Department of External Affairs. See especially the introduction by Ellis Morris and the chapter by Macintosh, J. ‘International verification organizations: the case of conventional arms control’. 22 There is a peculiar obverse side to these notions of enforced openness and ‘too much’ verification, one that emphasizes the suspicion-generating potential of expansive verification regimes. In the face of the rapid shifts in Soviet verification policy with its ever more permissive positions on intrusive monitoring, for example, there is the occasional suspicion voiced that the Soviets ‘must be up to something’. There is also a better-founded concern that the Soviet Union is more able than Western countries to take advantage of the opportunities offered by a very permissive verification regime. These two examples illustrate a second dimension of the problems associated with ‘too much’ verification, a dimension that might be called ‘exaggerated openness’ rather than enforced openness. Too much verification in either instance can be counterproductive to the natural development of a confidence-building regime. 23 A regime is a coherent collection of both explicit and implicit (but readily inferable) ‘rules of the road’ that define co-operative moderating behaviour in a specific substantive area prone to damaging competition – in this case, international security. There is a substantial psychological component to this concept crudely equivalent to the psychological environment in which states operate when dealing with a particular variety of international behaviour. Robert Jervis defines a security regime as ‘those principles, rules, and norms that permit

152 Confidence-building measures nations to be restrained in their [security] behaviour in the belief that others will reciprocate. This concept implies not only norms and expectations that facilitate co-operation, but a form of co-operation that is more than the following of [immediate, narrow] short-run self-interest.’ [Jervis, R. (1982) ‘Security regimes’, International Organization, 36:2(Spring): 357. This special issue is devoted to the regime concept. An excellent appreciation of the more general regime literature can be found in Haggard Stephan, and Simmons Beth A., (1987) ‘Theories of international regimes’ International Organization, 41:3(Summer) and Young Oran R., (1986) ‘International regimes: toward a new theory’, World Politics, XXXIX: 1(October). 24 The idea of success is not entirely self-evident. We can say that the negotiations are successful if they produce agreements that significantly enhance the national security of the participating states (both objectively and subjectively) by making a conventional war in Europe, whether started by design, miscalculation or misperception, substantially less likely to occur. Broadly speaking, they will achieve this objective in one of two basic ways: (1) They will reduce the chance of war occurring by increasing the chances of detecting the preparations for, and limiting the capability to initiate, a surprise attack (or other forms of deliberate hostilities). It is assumed that the resulting greater visibility and associated chance of premature discovery of such preparations will in most instances dissuade potential adversaries from even considering surprise attack plans. This should also contribute to the general tendency to view the use of force as inappropriate and unacceptable; and (2) They will reduce the chance of war occurring as a result of misperceiving, as hostile and threatening, activities that are not actually hostile. They will accomplish this by increasing the reliable information available to all decision-makers about all significant military activities occurring in participating states, thus reducing the chance of accidental war. This notion of arms control success encompasses a concern to constrain the opportunities for a successful surprise attack and a sensitivity to avoiding the misperception of ambiguous but actually non-hostile activities. In the first case, the aim is to actually constrain genuine opportunities in the unlikely event that attack is considered as well as to reduce concerns about this admittedly unlikely but nevertheless still feasible contingency. As was suggested earlier, it is unlikely that any state will engage in arms control negotiations if its leadership truly believes another participant is likely to attack. Thus, measures aimed at constraining deliberate attack are for peace of mind, ‘just in case’ the unlikely is contemplated, more than they are high confidence devices to limit the chances of attack.

Confidence-building processes 153 There is no assumption in this understanding of negotiating success that conventional war is more likely to begin by accident or design, simply that both are possibilities that should be minimized. There is also no assumption that a successful agreement can ‘prevent’ a war, particularly an intentional one – only that it can make surprise more difficult to achieve and misperception easier to avoid. Finally, it is assumed that states won’t engage in these types of arms control negotiations if they actually believe that other participants are likely to use force. 25 Although it is a somewhat arbitrary exercise to identify important historical ‘turning points’, it is nevertheless reasonable to say that the road to both the MBFR and the CSCE/CDE probably began with the emergence of the Brezhnev/ Kosygin leadership in the Soviet Union in 1964. The new Soviet leadership undertook to improve the basic tone of East–West relations in order to achieve a number of domestic and foreign policy objectives (including increased access to Western technology and diminished American influence in NATO – and Europe, more broadly). The latter, in particular, could be achieved by reducing the appearance of threat from the Soviet Union. In keeping with this shift, the WTO’s Political Consultative Committee proposed conferences in 1964, 1965, 1966 and again in 1967 to discuss European collective security. This more conciliatory tone in Moscow (combined perhaps with a growing realization within Germany that reunification was not going to occur in the foreseeable future) prompted the Federal Republic of Germany to develop proposals of its own, beginning in 1966, for conferences dealing with European security issues. The largely unilateral German opening (begun under the government of Chancellor Erhard and pursued vigorously by Chancellor Brandt) prepared the way for broader Western efforts and the eventual CSCE/CDE and MBFR/CFE process. 26 This introduction oversimplifies the origins of the two processes. In particular, it does not make any reference to important shifts in Soviet military thinking that almost certainly made conventional arms control talks possible where before they were not. This point is explored in some detail in Macintosh James, ‘Verification in the MBFR talks: review and assessment’, in Morris E., International Verification Organizations, op. cit. a study undertaken for the Canadian Department of External Affairs. See MccGuire Michael, (1987) Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy (Washington: The Brookings Institution). 27 For a useful background on the MBFR negotiations, see: Dean, Jonathan (1987) Watershed in Europe – Dismantling the East–West Military Confrontation, Lexington and Toronto: Lexington Books; Keliher, John G. (1980) The Negotiations on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions: The Search for Arms

154 Confidence-building measures Control in Central Europe, New York: Pergamon; and Ruehl, Lothar (1982) MBFR: Lessons and Problems, London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies. More specific details on the negotiations since 1983 can also be found in the excellent The Arms Control Reporter – A Chronicle of Treaties, Negotiations, Proposals, Weapons and Policy, Brookline, ME: Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, annual, 1983 to the present. A broader and interesting perspective on MBFR and related arms control problems and issues can be found in Nerlich, Uwe, and Thomson, James A. (eds) (1988) Conventional Arms Control and the Security of Europe, Boulder, CO: Westview Press/RAND. Also see Blackwill, Robert D. (1988) ‘Conceptual problems of conventional arms control’, International Security, 12:4(Spring). 28 Many of these diplomatic manoeuvres were undertaken bilaterally by the Federal Republic of Germany as part of Ostpolitik. These and alliance-to-alliance efforts helped to resolve a number of outstanding problems troubling the movement toward the different security conferences that the two sides desired. For instance, they (1) established the virtual certainty that post-war European boundaries would be recognized; (2) secured the participation of the United States and Canada in Eurocentric multilateral security discussions (what would become the CSCE); and (3) more or less assured the Soviets that there would be a CSCE-type conference to deal with broad political issues if an MBFR-type negotiation was also accepted. This ‘twinning’ of the MBFR and CSCE was tentatively accepted in May 1972 during the Nixon–Brezhnev SALT summit. A useful overview of these developments can be found in Garthoff, Raymond (1986) Détente and Confrontation – American–Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, especially Chapters 4 and 14. For more detailed discussion, see Griffith, William (1978) The Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic of Germany, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. 29 Dean and Garthoff (amongst others) have argued that the Soviets deliberately acted in 1971 to forestall the unilateral withdrawal of American forces from Germany by, in effect, indicating that they would negotiate troop reductions with the West. The timing of the Brezhnev speeches (particularly the 14 May Tiflis speech) undercut the effort of Senator Mike Mansfield in early 1971 to engineer the unilateral withdrawal of US forces from Europe, a legislative effort that otherwise was likely to have been successful that year (after many failed earlier attempts). The logic of the Soviet action (according to these arguments) revolved around a fear that the precipitous withdrawal of US forces from Germany would accelerate the emergence of a more powerful German military – possibly one with its own nuclear weapons. The continued presence of at least a modest number of US forces in Germany in combination with negotiations to reduce all

Confidence-building processes 155 forces, including German, must have seemed to the Soviets to be the best way of stabilizing European relations while minimizing American influence and maximizing Soviet influence. It is not entirely clear that this was the actual Soviet reasoning, but the circumstantial evidence and the basic logic of the position are very suggestive. See Dean (1987) Watershed in Europe, op. cit., pp. 103–5and Garthoff (1986) Détente and Confrontation, op. cit., pp. 115–16. 30 Notably absent from this list of direct participants is France. The French refused to participate in MBFR for a number of reasons: (1) a refusal to have their highlyprized autonomy undercut (particularly vis-à-vis the United States) in an alliance-to-alliance negotiating format – the French have consistently preferred multilateral negotiating arrangements; (2) an unwillingness to surrender flexibility in deploying French forces in Germany (which participation in MBFR would entail); (3) the concern that a ‘successful’ agreement would ‘singularize’ the Federal Republic, possibly creating eventual instability in Germany; and (4) the fear that a ‘successful’ agreement would create a neutral central European zone that would diminish French security by reducing NATO’s relative strength. 31 The inability to agree on base-line personnel counts can be seen to be an artefact of a deeper problem – the Soviet unwillingness to seriously consider what would be for them asymmetrical force reductions. This view, however, tends to underplay the somewhat more complicated nature of the Soviet problem in agreeing to Western personnel counts. A significant part of this problem, according to this view, has been the Soviet desire to ‘discount’ forces in Eastern Europe that effectively serve a ‘counter-weight’ if not outright garrison role. By Soviet reckoning, these troops simply cannot be used in any but the most restrictive defensive actions. Thus, they don’t really count as forces free for flexible military action. NATO has never been willing to formally acknowledge this problem and the Soviets have never really been willing to identify it as a justification for personnel asymmetries. Differences in the use of civilian and military support personnel and varying support practices by various Eastern and Western armies also make objective comparisons of force sizes difficult. In this context, there is some suspicion that the Soviets may have tended to ‘discount’ their overall force size in official statements of personnel numbers to compensate for these differences, as well. In effect, they have subtracted personnel from the overall total that, in their eyes, don’t count. Compounding an already difficult situation has been the traditional Soviet unwillingness to be forthcoming on sensitive military matters. The latter phenomenon has also frustrated Western efforts to develop verification approaches deemed necessary by NATO, but excessively intrusive and/or unnecessary by the Soviets. This last phenomenon has faded sharply in light of recent shifts in Soviet verification policy.

156 Confidence-building measures 32 The MBFR negotiations were concluded on 2 February 1989. The final communiqué stated: In view of the decision to open talks on conventional armaments in Europe in March 1989, the states that participated in [MBFR] have decided to conclude these talks. . . . . . . The participants accumulated valuable experience and received a clearer notion of what will be needed in order to achieve mutually acceptable and verifiable cuts and restrictions of armed forces and armaments in Europe. The Arms Control Reporter – A Chronicle of Treaties, Negotiations, Proposals, Weapons & Policy 1989 (1989) (Brookline, ME: Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies, p. 401.B.205. 33 The details of the various MBFR proposals can be found in The Arms Control Reporter. 34 The text is contained in NATO Review (1987) 3(June): 30–1. 35 The text of the CFE mandate as well as the entire CSCE Vienna FUM concluding document appears in the US government publication, CSCE – A Framework for Europe’s Future (1989), Washington: US Information Agency. 36 ibid. 37 See The Arms Control Reporter for details about the NATO proposal as well as the overall CFE talks. For an exceptionally good analysis of the two CFE proposals and related issues, also see Karber, Philip A. (1989) ‘Strategic significance of the Western conventional arms control proposal: in the context of the Gorbachev unilateral reductions and the CFE negotiations in Vienna’ (Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 6 April). 38 Apple Jr, R.W. (1989) ‘Bush wins backing for his arms plan from most allies’, New York Times, 30 May. One element in the Bush proposals that has received very little attention thus far, and far less than it deserves, is his resurrection of the ‘open skies’ concept made famous by President Eisenhower over 30 years earlier. In the Mainz speech of 31 May 1989, President Bush stated: ‘I renew my proposal that the Soviet Union and its allies open their skies to reciprocal, unarmed aerial surveillance flights, conducted on short notice, to watch military activities.’ ‘Proposals for a Free and Peaceful Europe’, United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Current Policy no. 1179. This notion could emerge later as an important element in ensuring the verification of what is sure to be a very demanding CFE Treaty. It could be particularly important, as well, in the context of providing a multilateral verification organization with appropriate monitoring means. As a matter of related interest, the Canadian government was actively involved in the Bush administration’s consideration of the ‘open skies’ idea. Beginning in

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late April 1989, Canadian officials consulted with their American counterparts about ‘open skies’-type approaches and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney wrote to President Bush on 2 May to familiarize the President with Canadian thinking on the subject. It would appear that United States officials had begun thinking about the ‘open skies’ policy by March 1989, and perhaps earlier. On 11 May, President Bush telephoned the Canadian Prime Minister, informing him that the United States planned to pursue the ‘open skies’ concept. This monitoring approach is being pursued by Canadian researchers, as well. See, in particular, Macintosh, James (ed), (1991) ‘International verification organizations: the case of conventional arms control’ in Ellis, Morris (ed.) International Verification Organizations, op. cit. Friedman, Thomas (1989) ‘Soviets propose three-stage cuts in European arms’, New York Times, 7 March. See Friedman, Thomas L. (1989) ‘Gorbachev hands a surprised Baker an arms proposals’, New York Times, 12 May. As a practical matter, the specifics of the WTO proposal emerged over the course of the first two CFE sessions with the circulation of a number of study papers and informal discussions. Gordon Michael R., (1989) ‘Conventional-force curbs are proposed by Moscow’, New York Times, 30 June. Several basic CFE agreement types are imaginable if not necessarily equally likely. While recognizing that provisions identified with each of these types can appear together in a mixed final result, it is nevertheless true that an agreement is likely to exhibit an overall character that corresponds most closely to one of these basic agreement types. On initial examination, there appear to be three basic types of possible CFE agreement (in terms of the predominant method employed to encourage stability). A transformation agreement would seek to enhance stability and increase confidence by encouraging the unambiguous transformation of military forces (in terms of equipment and/or training) from an offensive to a demonstrably defensive character. An overly simple illustration would be the reduction by half of tank numbers in all deployed divisions. A reduction agreement would seek to enhance stability and increase confidence by reducing the number of key elements in military forces (personnel and certain types of ‘offensive’ equipment), either across-the-board or according to formulae that compensate for existing real or perceived asymmetries. Here, a simple illustration would entail the reduction by half of the divisions (including their tanks) stationed in the CSCE area. A separation agreement would seek to enhance stability and increase confidence by ensuring that substantially increased physical distances separated potential adversary military forces or key components of those forces. Rear-basing of bridging equipment, ammunition

158 Confidence-building measures stocks and attack aircraft are examples of this approach. Here, our simple illustration would require that all armoured and mechanized divisions be deployed at least 200 km from the inter-German border. Although there is, quite reasonably, a tendency to think that a CFE agreement will be of the reduction type, this is not necessarily the case and an eventual agreement may very well combine features of all three approaches. Transformation and separation measures are usually considered to be ‘confidence-building’ devices. Reduction measures, on the other hand, are commonly thought of as ‘arms control’ devices. This is a good illustration of why the traditional distinction between arms control and confidence-building is, at best, artificial if not outright misleading. It is more useful to regard them as three of arms control approach with varying confidence-building potential. 43 No effort is undertaken in this chapter to evaluate the actual balance of conventional forces in Europe. Instead, it is assumed that there is a moderate asymmetry favouring the Soviet Union and the WTO in several important areas. It is also assumed that the asymmetry is perceived to be somewhat more pronounced than objective analysis warrants. The asymmetry is probably not sufficient to support an easy WTO conventional military victory, but this is not certain and legitimate grounds for concern do exist. Several useful recent discussions of the conventional military balance in Europe and how to measure it include: Biddle, Stephen (1988) ‘The European conventional balance: a reinterpretation of the debate’, Survival, 30:2, (March/April); Chalmers, Malcolm and Unterseher, Lutz (1988) ‘Is there a tank gap? Comparing NATO and Warsaw Pact tank fleets’, International Security, 13:1(Summer); Cohen, Eliot, (1988) ‘Toward better net assessment: rethinking the European conventional balance’, International Security, 13:1(Summer); Epstein, Joshua (1988) ‘Dynamic analysis and the conventional balance in Europe’, International Security, 12:4(Spring) Epstein, J. (1989) ‘The 3:1 rule, the adaptive dynamic model, and the future of security studies’, International Security, 13:4(Spring); Flanagan, Stephen and Hamilton, Andrew (1988) ‘Arms control and stability in Europe: reductions are not enough’, Survival, XXX:5(September/October); Holmes, Kim (1988) ‘Measuring the conventional balance in Europe’, International Security, 12:4(Spring); Mearsheimer, John (1989) ‘Assessing the conventional balance: the 3:1 rule and its critics’, International Security, 13:4(Spring); Mearsheimer (1988) ‘Numbers, strategy, and the European balance’, International Security, 12:4(Spring); and Posen, Barry. (1988) ‘Is NATO decisively outnumbered?’, International Security, 12:4(Spring). Also see the extensive correspondence in International Security (1989) 13:4(Spring).

Confidence-building processes 159 44 The Arms Control Reporter 1988, p. 407.B.43. 45 This is, in fact, the assumption guiding this chapter’s analysis. The need for the Soviet leadership to concentrate its efforts on domestic economic reconstruction is so compelling – and is recognized as being so by a firmly-in-control Gorbachev – that excessively clever foreign policy gambits with a malign twist are not considered very likely. The only troubling dimension to this outlook is the possible transformation of the Soviet military as the Soviet economy gradually improves. There are reasons for thinking that the Soviet military is willing to endure the current shifts in spending and reductions as a result of arms control in order to achieve a comparatively better position relative to the West in the future. 46 Amongst the many issues to be decided would be whether or not ‘deployed’ included various categories of ‘stored’. To be equitable, these ceilings would probably have to include pre-positioned and stored equipment unless it was seriously disabled according to specified rules. 47 A memorandum of understanding could be attached to this treaty calling for the creation and use of a multilateral verification organization to operate in addition to national technical means of verification. 48 No attempt has been made here to anticipate the full level of complexity that one could expect in a genuine CFE treaty. Numerous provisions are likely to be added to define various terms (such as what counts as a ‘tank’ and what ‘deployed’ means) and to specify procedures. The point to be made is that an agreement (1) is likely to revolve around significant, asymmetrical reductions in specified types of ‘offensive equipment’; (2) will be very complicated and expansive; and (3) will require rather detailed verification if all participants are to be sure that the terms of the agreement are being abided by fully. 49 The dominant constraint on a more radical agreement with appreciably deeper cuts is likely to be NATO’s reluctance to sacrifice too much of its capacity to resist concentrated, short-warning attacks or attacks following massive, lengthy mobilizations. It could even be argued that cuts beyond approximately 10 per cent of existing NATO forces, unless they are compensated for by significant corrective within-alliance redeployments, would make it very difficult to provide an adequate forward defence across the entire area of NATO responsibility. The NATO forces would simply be spread too thin. Major further reductions would have to be accomplished in association with the reliable elimination of (1) the capacity of the WTO to generate rapid, armour-led offensive thrusts and (2) the asymmetric mobilization potential inherent in the Soviet Union’s proximity to central Europe. These points also suggest that the time may be approaching to reconsider the wisdom of forward defence as a fundamental NATO precept.

160 Confidence-building measures 50 This view assumes a relatively straightforward, linear and progressive natural ‘growth of confidence’. This is an unexplored phenomenon, however, and the linear assumption might be incorrect. Changes in the fundamental perceptions of decision-makers could also occur in sudden, big steps, representing major cognitive transformations. This is a subject that ought to be explored in considerable depth, perhaps as part of a larger examination of the psychology of confidence-building. 51 It may never be possible to restructure, in order to eliminate offensive capabilities, conventional military forces of the sort currently deployed, or likely to be deployed in the next 20 or more years, in Europe. Too many systems like tanks have both defensive and offensive utility. This frustrates efforts to isolate ‘bad’ offensive systems. Further, no purely defensive doctrine and deployment may ever offer sufficient reliability to permit the total abandonment of the current force mix and basic doctrinal approach. The best that we may be able to achieve is the assurance that no radical asymmetries exist in the East–West balance and that surprise is relatively difficult to achieve. This realization underlines the important role to be played by the confidence-building dimension of a CFE agreement. It can help to address concerns that no simple reduction and adjustment of forces can assuage. This is particularly important if no participating state has genuinely hostile intentions. In that circumstance, the main concern is countering misperception, not achieving early warning or tank reductions. 52 For a useful history of the CCSBMDE and the emergence of the Stockholm document, see Borawski, John (1988) From the Atlantic to the Urals – Negotiating Arms Control at the Stockholm Conference, London and New York: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense Publishers. Also see Dean, Jonathan Watershed in Europe, op. cit., and Borawski, John, Weeks, Stan and Thompson, Charlotte E. (1987) ‘The Stockholm agreement of September 1986’, ORBIS 30:4(Winter). 53 The original French proposal was generally accepted by the other NATO states but the United States, in particular, insisted that the CDE be firmly attached to the CSCE process, a position that the French were initially unwilling to accept. Once the CDE was brought into the CSCE process and the scope limited somewhat (i.e. only CSBMs were to be the subject of discussion and the association with followon disarmament negotiations was muted), NATO agreement on its basic approach did not appear to encounter any major internal disagreements. See Borawski, John, Weeks, Stan and Thompson, Charlotte E. (1987) ‘The Stockholm agreement of September 1986’, ORBIS, 30:4(Winter) for a good if brief discussion of the Stockholm agreement and its history.

Confidence-building processes 161 54 From the Vienna FUM Concluding Document, as reported in CSCE A Framework for Europe’s Future (US Information Agency), op. cit. p. 15. 55 Although it is always possible to exaggerate the importance of arms control developments, it is nevertheless worth emphasizing how important ‘doctrine talks’ could be. Such talks, which would clearly count as an example of a confidence-building negotiation in their own right, would presumably seek to develop guidelines for the adoption of new ‘non-offensive defence’ policies. They could occur under the aegis of either a CFE or a CDE 2 negotiation or they could just as reasonably occur as separate talks, perhaps associated with the CSCE/CDE through a reporting requirement similar to that used by the CFE talks. In an important sense, the fact that doctrine talks could be part of either process illustrates the point that this chapter has been attempting to make. Each arms control process has an important confidence-building dimension and joint doctrinal revision actually speaks to both. In the CDE context, such a revision would be manifested in altered activities (i.e. an exercise) having a less offensive character. In the CFE context, such a revision would be manifested in altered deployments of capabilities in certain locations. The negotiated adoption of less offensive doctrines would have substantial confidence-building impact and could draw on elements of both negotiations. See Macintosh, James (1989) ‘Non-offensive defence and European arms control’, The International Spectator, The Italian Institute of International Affairs, January/March. 56 The attached call for a seminar on military doctrine included the following: ‘to discuss, in a seminar setting, military doctrine in relation to the posture and structure of conventional forces in the zone, including, inter alia: Ÿ exchanging information on their annual military spending; Ÿ exchanging information on the training of their armed forces, including references to military manuals; Ÿ seeking clarification of developments giving rise to uncertainty, such as changes in the number and pattern of notified military activities.’ As reported in The Arms Control Reporter 1989, pp. 402. D.64–402.D66. 57 ibid., pp. 402.D.61–402.D.64. As in the case of the CFE talks, there apparently have been numerous clarifications, elaborations and study papers circulated in the Vienna CSBM negotiations. They have likely expanded the content of both the Western and Eastern proposals. Sweden also presented a package of CSBMs during the opening week. 58 For details on the various CCSBMDE proposals and various related documents, see Berg, Rolf and Rotfeld, Adam-Daniel (1986) Building Security in Europe – Confidence-Building Measures and the CSCE Allen Lynch (ed.) New York: Institute for East-West Security Studies.

Part IV Public opinion, domestic policies and arms control

7 The INF agreement and public opinion in West Germany

Hans Rattinger

INTRODUCTION: ALL-PARTISAN POPULAR SUPPORT FOR AN INF AGREEMENT Public opinion on national security and arms control in the Federal Republic of Germany became severely polarized along partisan lines in the 1980s, especially so over the deployment of new American INF. 1 To a considerable extent this was a consequence of strong disagreement among the political parties on these issues. 2 Before the INF agreement was signed in Washington in December 1987, its prospect was widely hailed in West Germany, but many reservations about first the zero-option, and later the double-zerooption, were also voiced at home and abroad by German politicians and security experts, notably by conservative circles of the governing Christian Democrats (CDU–CSU). 3 This opposition did not, however, lead to a partisan polarization of mass public opinion comparable with that over the two tracks of NATO’s dual-track decision of 1979 for two reasons. First, this opposition reflected a split within the major governing party, and not a confrontation of government versus opposition parties. Second, this scepticism was directed against accomplishments of arms control, even disarmament, and the experience of this decade has shown that overwhelming majorities of the public at large favour arms control measures over considerations of military security when confronted with such choices. 4 It is therefore not at all surprising that the zero-option and the double zerooption have enjoyed, and still enjoy, wide and all-partisan support in West German public opinion. On a great variety of national security issues popular attitudes continue to be strongly polarized along partisan sympathies, CDU– CSU voters differing from adherents of the Greens by 50, 60 or more percentage points on questions like military spending, the presence of US troops, or

166 Public opinion, domestic policies Table 7.1 The zero option FGW: It has been proposed that the United States and the Soviet Union jointly abolish their INF (Mittelstreckenraketen). Are you in favour of this so-called zero-option, or are you opposed? USIA: Do you strongly favour, somewhat favour, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose an agreement eliminating all American and Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe?

USIA

FGW May 1987

Total

In favour Opposed DK, NA

91 8 1

CDU–CSU 87 12 1

SPD

FDP

Green

Total

Strongly

94 6 0

97 1 2

99 1 0

89 9 2

72 2 26

FGW:

Forschungsgruppe Wahlen Mannheim, Politbarometer-Series; original German question wording translated by the author USIA: United States Information Agency, Research Memorandum, 20 May 1987 DK, NA: Don’t know, no answer

German membership in NATO.5 Vis-à-vis the INF agreement such polarization is virtually non-existent. In May 1987, when the contours of the accord had become visible, about 90 per cent of West Germans were in favour of the zero-option, most of these (80 per cent) even said they were ‘strongly’ in favour (table 7.1). Dissent between voters of different parties only ranged from 87 per cent for the zero-option among CDU–CSU voters to 99 per cent among Green voters. At the same time, all-partisan endorsement of the double-zero-option was almost identical with that of the simple zero-option (table 7.2). United States Information Agency (USIA) data from the same month might create the impression that the double-zero-option was significantly less popular than the simple version including only INF with ranges over 1000 km, but this conclusion is clearly unwarranted. The question asked for USIA is awkward, because by talking about Soviet superiority in INF with ranges below 1000 km and about ‘retaining the right to close the gap’ it addressed at least two separate issues, and thus might have pushed some respondents into rejecting the second zero-option. That this question is confusing (especially in a telephone survey) is evident from the percentage of refusals. With the straightforward questions of USIA on the simple zero-option and of Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (FGW) on both versions of the zero-option virtually nobody had such problems in responding.

Public opinion in West Germany 167 Table 7.2 The double-zero-option FGW: It has further been proposed that both superpowers also abolish their missiles with shorter ranges. Are you in favour of this so-called double-zero option, or are you opposed? USIA: As you may know, even after the elimination of all American and Soviet SS4, SS-20, Pershing II, and Cruise missiles in Europe, the Soviet Union will have hundreds of short-range nuclear missiles, and NATO will have none. Would you prefer that the United States and the Soviet Union agree to ban all shorter-range nuclear missiles, or that NATO retain the right to build some shorter-range nuclear missiles to close the gap with the Soviet Union? FGW May 1987 In favour Opposed DK, NA

USIA

Total

CDU–CSU

SPD

FDP

Green

Total

90 9 1

84 15 1

95 5 0

95 4 1

99 1 0

73 12 15

Because of their strength, partisan discrepancies in German mass attitudes on national security have repeatedly been analysed over the past decade.6 With respect to the INF agreement this is not exactly thrilling. Because very large portions of the population favour arms control and disarmament as general concepts this treaty is exceedingly popular across party lines. We will therefore now turn to some important clusters of public attitudes that surround this all-partisan support; that is, to perceptions of the general national security environment, to the allocation of praise and credit for the agreement, and to judgements about its consequences and about possible future courses of action for the West. Here we will quickly discover that the effects of earlier partisan disagreements on public opinion have not been suddenly and completely wiped out by this near-universal consensus about the INF treaty itself. PERCEPTIONS OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY ENVIRONMENT In this section we will briefly look at perceptions of the East–West military balance, of a Soviet threat, and of the stability of peace in Europe. As to the first perception, it has been shown that the major change of attitudes in West Germany has occurred between the 1960s and the 1970s.7 Whereas up to 1970 more people believed the West,rather than the East, to be superior in military terms, since then this has been

168 Public opinion, domestic policies reversed, reflecting the large-scale build-up of military forces by the Soviet Union and its ascent to rough nuclear parity. Up to the mid-1980s surveys produced rather stable results, about 40 per cent responding that both sides were equally strong, somewhat over 10 per cent continuing to believe in Western superiority, and almost one-half of samples perceiving Eastern superiority. These judgements appear to have changed in more recent years. While the (low) share of those who see Western superiority has remained the same, perceptions of Eastern superiority have gone down, and those of equal military strength have gone up (table 7.3). For about 15 years the most frequent view always had been one of Eastern superiority; now it is one of parity. Partisan convictions continue to have a strong impact on such judgements: across the political spectrum from CDU–CSU to Green voters, the percentage still perceiving Eastern superiority drops from 41 to 13 per cent. If one asks only for the conventional balance, one again gets almost the ‘old’ responses prevalent for the overall correlation of forces from 1970 into the early 1980s; that is, most people perceiving Eastern superiority, and about 40 per cent parity (table 7.4). The results for May 1987 show that the discrepancies between evaluations of the overall and of the conventional balance alone are roughly the same across all partisan groups, about 10 per cent less perceiving conventional than overall parity, and about 10 per cent more seeing Eastern conventional than overall superiority. This implies that at least 10 per cent of total samples primarily have nuclear weapons in mind when they are asked to evaluate the military balance in general. It should further be noted that the stable minority of about one-tenth, which still sees Western military superiority, does so almost regardless of whether total or only conventional forces are to be evaluated, and that this view is especially frequent among Green voters (20 to 25 per cent). Table 7.3 The military balance FGW: Who do you believe is stronger in military terms: the West, the East, or do you think that both sides are equally strong? Total

May 1987

May 1983 April 1985 May 1987 West East Equal DK, NA

11 47 42 0

14 40 45 1

11 35 53 1

CDU–CSU SPD FDP 9 41 49 1

12 33 54 1

9 39 52 0

Green 5 13 60 2

Public opinion in West Germany 169 Table 7.4 The conventional military balance FGW: And if you leave out nuclear weapons, that is if you only consider conventional armaments, who is stronger: the West, the East, or do you think that both sides are equally strong? May 1987 West East Equal DK, NA

Total

CDU–CSU

SPD

FDP

12 45 42 1

9 51 39 1

13 43 42 2

6 51 41 2

Green 20 21 59 0

Not only has the military balance come to be seen more favourably in recent years, but the same is true for perceptions of a Soviet threat in the Federal Republic. Historically, the major decline here has been from the 1950s to the 1960s, but until 1985 usually somewhat more than half of the samples have replied that there is such a threat.8 According to USIA data this view has become a minority view in the past 2 years (table 7.5). If undecided respondents are excluded, the share of those registering a Soviet threat has fallen to about 40 per cent. This shift is about the same order of magnitude as the reorientation from perceptions of Eastern military superiority towards those of parity. In the absence of pertinent data one can only speculate about the causes of these changes, but the hypothesis that they have something to do with the image presented by the new Soviet leadership commands high plausibility.9 We will turn to this image later. Popular evaluations in West Germany of the stability of peace in Europe have exhibited even more pronounced short-term fluctuations over the past several years (table 7.6). Comparing 1982 (when concerns were highest due to imminent deployment of INF) with 1987 shows changes that can only be described as dramatic. In 1982 virtually nobody believed that peace had become more secure over the previous year, 39 per cent said there had been no change, but almost 60 per cent said the situation had deteriorated. In 1987 only 16 per cent had this gloomy view, while over 60 per cent replied that there had been no changes, and almost onequarter of respondents even saw improvements. This evaporation of pessimism in the aggregate was strongest from 1982 to 1984, and then continued at a slower pace. It did not occur simultaneously for all partisan groups, however. CDU–CSU

170 Public opinion, domestic policies Table 7.5 Threat perception USIA: Some people say that the Soviet Union is a threat to the long-term security of Western Europe. Others say that the Soviet Union is not a threat to the long-term security of Western Europe. Which view is closer to your own?

USSR is a threat USSR is not a threat DK, NA

October 1986

May 1987

39 53 8

32 50 18

voters were the first to reassess the international situation. Apart from Green sympathizers, they were the most pessimistic group in 1982. But the change in government boosted their confidence instantaneously. Within one year, from May 1982 to May 1983, an excess of pessimistic judgements of 16 percentage points turned into a surplus of optimistic evaluations of 46 percentage points, which thereafter still continued to climb steadily. Liberal voters followed soon, realizing that the change in government had not led to major shifts in foreign and security policy. Adherents of the opposition Social Democrats Party (SPD) took longer to adjust their images of the international climate, the major improvement coinciding with the revitalization of arms control talks in 1986 and 1987. Green voters most stubbornly held on to the doom and gloom views of the early 1980s about the stability of peace, but even in this group positive or neutral evaluations began to outnumber pessimistic ones in 1986. Evaluations of the stability of peace are influenced not only by the general climate of international relations and by partisan affiliations, but also quite strongly by single spectacular events that receive wide media attention. A survey from December 1987 (table 7.6) shows that 43 per cent of respondents in the Federal Republic believed that the INF treaty had made peace in Europe more secure, only 6 per cent thought the opposite, and one-half of the sample said the treaty had no effect. There was virtually no partisan disagreement on this issue. Similar, but less pronounced results have been reported for the first Reagan–Gorbachev summit in November 1985. The main difference in the public opinion response to both events is that positive effects of this summit on the stability of peace were seen, not surprisingly, by fewer people, and that partisan disagreement over these effects still was quite strong. In fact, voters for the government parties then saw this summit as equally conducive to peace as the later INF accord, but SPD adherents were somewhat sceptical, and Green voters much

Public opinion in West Germany 171 Table 7.6 Perceptions of the stability of peace in Europe FGW: Has peace in Europe become more secure over the last year, less secure, or has nothing changed? FGW December 1985: In November Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva. What do you think: has peace in Europe become secure thereby, less secure, or has nothing changed? FGW December 1987: Has peace in Europe become more secure due to the INF agreement, less secure, or has nothing changed?

May 1982

more secure no change less secure optimism index May 1983 more secure no change less secure optimism index March 1984 more secure no change less secure optimism index December 1985 more secure no change less secure optimism index November 1986 more secure no change less secure optimism index May 1987 more secure no change less secure optimism index December 1987 more secure no change less secure optimism index

Total

CDU–CSU

SPD

3 39 58 –16 6 56 38 24 9 64 27 46 31 62 7 86 14 66 20 60 23 61 16 68 43 51 6 88

3 39 58 –16 10 63 27 46 16 71 13 74 41 54 5 90 17 69 14 72 31 60 9 82 44 51 5 90

4 43 53 –6 3 52 45 10 5 60 35 30 27 64 9 82 10 68 21 58 17 64 19 62 45 50 5 90

FDP Green 2 44 54 –8 2 56 42 16 9 67 23 54 43 57 0 100 14 76 10 80 19 68 13 74 44 56 0 100

3 20 77 –54 0 27 73 –46 1 36 63 –26 12 79 8 84 5 54 41 18 20 44 36 28 43 49 8 84

Optimism index: defined as ‘more secure’ plus ‘no change’ percentages minus ‘less secure’ percentage.

172 Public opinion, domestic policies more so. In summary then, public opinion in the Federal Republic on its post-INF national security environment is characterized by a significantly lower recognition of Eastern military superiority and of a Soviet threat, and by increased optimism about the chances to preserve peace in Europe. CREDIT FOR THE INF AGREEMENT AND IMAGES OF THE SUPERPOWERS Logically, the two questions of which side has made bigger concessions in the INF treaty, and which side has done more to achieve it and deserves more credit, appear to be very similar. But public opinion (not only in the Federal Republic) has a certain tendency not to abide by logical rules. In December 1987 more than 60 per cent of West Germans said that they saw no difference in the concessions both superpowers had made in the treaty, the rest were almost equally divided: 19 per cent saw bigger Soviet, and 17 per cent bigger American, concessions (table 7.7). Whereas the share of those who saw equal concessions was almost the same across all partisan groups, those who recognized unequal concessions from Table 7.7 Who made more concessions in INF agreement? FGW: The United States and the Soviet Union have agreed to eliminate all INF (Mittelstreckenwaffen). Who has made more concessions in military terms: the United States, the Soviet Union, or do you see no difference? December 1987 United States Soviet Union No difference DK, NA

Total

CDU–CSU

SPD

FDP

Green

17 19 63 1

22 15 62 1

13 22 64 1

19 23 58 0

7 34 59 0

both superpowers were distributed in a characteristic fashion. As one travels across the political spectrum from ‘right’ to ‘left’, the Soviet Union was increasingly regarded as having made more concessions. Only among CDU– CSU voters did more people believe that the United States, rather than the Soviet Union, had made the more significant concessions. At the other end, almost five times as many Green voters saw greater Soviet concessions as saw bigger American concessions. This is not the place to argue who is correct. In view of the fact that the Soviet Union has agreed to reduce a far higher

Public opinion in West Germany 173 Table 7.8 Credit for INF agreement FGW: Who has worked more for the disarmament agreement: Reagan, Gorbachev, or both equally? USIA: Who would you say deserves more credit for the recent progress in the arms control negotiations: President Reagan or Soviet leader Gorbachev? FGW December 1987

Reagan Gorbachev Equally DK, NA

Total

CDU–CSU

SPD

14 28 58 0

19 17 64 0

10 38 52 0

USIA May 1987

FDP Green 11 29 60 0

12 43 45 0

Total 9 72 NO 19

NO: not offered.

number of INF systems and warheads, whereas the United States has consented to give up completely the option of being able to hit the Soviet Union with land-based missiles from Europe, both views can be argued. What matters here, however, is that the judgement on ‘concessions’ in West German public opinion is quite ‘fair’, with almost two-thirds perceiving an equal contribution, and the rest about evenly split in the aggregate. As soon as one asks not about ‘concessions’ but about the contribution of key actors to the outcome, this ‘balanced’ judgement of public opinion does not survive (even in the same survey, see table 7.8). Almost 60 per cent said that Reagan and Gorbachev had contributed equally to the agreement, but of those who picked one of these two to deserve more credit, twice as many chose Gorbachev than chose Reagan. Partisan disagreements on this issue were considerable. From CDU–CSU voters to Green voters the view that both deserved equal credit declined from 64 to 45 per cent, Reagan was said to deserve more credit by 19 per cent of CDU–CSU voters, but only by about 10 per cent of all others, and nominations of Gorbachev dropped from 43 per cent among Green sympathizers to 17 per cent among followers of the CDU–CSU. That comparable USIA data from May 1987 appears to convey a dramatically different message of an overwhelming lead by Gorbachev in the popular allocation of credit for progress on arms control can be explained fairly easily. First, the USIA question did not offer the response that both Reagan and Gorbachev deserved equal

174 Public opinion, domestic policies credit, which produced a high share of undecided responses, and, second, at that time the success of arms control negotiations was not yetassured, so the previous tendency to blame Reagan’s uncompromising policies for the lack of progress in arms control still prevailed. It is more important to recognize fully the incompatibility between tables 7.7 and 7.8. Since the question in table 7.8 was asked immediately preceding the one in table 7.7, one should expect some kind of transfer effect. The later question yielded results that were more ‘balanced’ between the superpowers and less polarized along partisan lines. This suggests that the question about which superpower leader deserves more credit for the INF agreement has evoked to a considerable extent a personal ‘beauty contest’, rather than judgements about the issue itself, where both criticism of Reagan and ‘Gorbimania’ vary quite strongly across the political spectrum. We will return to this ‘beauty contest’ shortly. The conclusion of the INF treaty has significantly changed popular perceptions in West Germany of the superpowers’ seriousness about arms control. In 1985 still more people believed in American claims that the United States was striving for arms control than accepted similar Soviet claims (table 7.9). But since 1986 this has been reversed. Green voters and sympathizers of the SPD tended to attribute a high willingness to engage in arms control to the Soviet Union, but were more or less sceptical about American intentions. Even among voters of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP, the smaller partner in the coalition that has been in power since 1982) this pattern started to prevail, while only adherents of the CDU–CSU continued to trust the United States more than the Soviet Union in this respect. And even in this group the credibility of the Soviet Union increased sharply, from 27 per cent trusting the Soviet commitment to arms control in April 1985 to 53 per cent in March 1987. The events from the summit in Reykjavik to the signing of the INF agreement have affected public opinion in the Federal Republic on the superpowers’ position vis-àvis arms control in two important respects. First, overall trust in their seriousness has gone up by almost 20 percentage points from November 1986 to December 1987. Second, partisan polarization on this issue has been reduced. Over this year, the percentage of CDU–CSU voters trusting Soviet arms control efforts has grown by 27 points, that of SPD-voters believing in American seriousness has gone up by 23 points, and even among Green sympathizers this latter proportion has risen by 31 percentage points. When the INF treaty was finally signed, majorities of almost all partisan groups believed in the seriousness of both superpowers about further arms control. The shares of those believing in the American commitment among Green (45 per cent) and SPD voters (49 per cent) no longer fell far short of the 50 per cent

Public opinion in West Germany 175 Table 7.9 Seriousness of United States and Soviet Union about disarmament FGW April 1985 and October 1985: In Geneva the United States and the Soviet Union are negotiating about disarmament. Both superpowers stress again and again that they want to disarm. Do you believe that the United States wants to disarm, or don’t you believe that? Do you believe that the Soviet Union wants to disarm, or don’t you believe that? FGW November 1986: The United States and the Soviet Union have been negotiating about disarmament for some time now. Both superpowers stress again and again that they want to disarm . . . FGW March 1987: The United States and the Soviet Union have recently made new disarmament proposals. Both superpowers stress again and again that they want to disarm . . . FGW December 1987: Meanwhile there is talk about further disarmament proposals. Do you believe that the United States wants to continue to disarm, or don’t you believe that? Do you believe that the Soviet Union wants to continue to disarm, or don’t you believe that? Total

CDU–CSU

SPD

FDP

Green

April 1985 USA wants disarmament USSR wants disarmament USA–USSR

35 26 9

49 27 22

26 27 –1

47 40 7

19 23 –4

October 1985 USSR wants disarmament USA wants disarmament USA–USSR

25 31 6

23 40 17

23 22 –1

26 51 25

40 29 –11

November 1986 USA wants disarmament USSR wants disarmament USA–USSR

35 40 –5

47 36 11

26 58 –32

32 57 –25

14 43 –29

March 1987 USA wants disarmament USSR wants disarmament USA–USSR

45 52 –7

60 53 7

37 53 –16

58 69 –11

15 60 –45

December 1987 USA wants disarmament USSR wants disarmament USA–USSR

53 59 –6

63 63 0

49 61 –12

57 53 4

45 72 –27

April 1985 Both want disarmament USA alone wants it USSR alone wants it Both don’t want it

21 13 5 59

25 24 2 49

19 8 9 64

32 15 8 45

17 3 6 73

176 Public opinion, domestic policies October 1985 Both want disarmament USA alone wants it USSR alone wants it Both don’t want it November 1986 Both want disarmament USA alone wants it USSR alone wants it Both don’t want it March 1987 Both want disarmament USA alone wants it USSR alone wants it Both don’t want it December 1987 Both want disarmament USA alone wants it USSR alone wants it Both don’t want it

19 11 5 64

22 18 2 58

16 6 7 71

26 24 0 49

23 6 17 54

24 10 16 49

30 17 6 46

21 5 21 52

20 12 23 45

14 0 43 43

37 8 15 39

46 14 6 33

33 4 20 43

51 7 17 24

15 0 45 40

46 7 13 34

53 10 10 27

45 4 16 35

46 11 7 36

39 5 33 23

mark. In contrast, in 1985 no majority of any partisan constituency had trusted the earnestness of either superpower. Then the majority view, held by about 60 per cent of samples, still was that both did not seriously desire arms control. Even about onehalf of the voters of the government parties shared this opinion. Now the opinion that both superpowers are serious has become the most frequent one in all partisan groups. Partisan polarization still lingers on, however, in the extent to which this view is dominant (only 39 per cent among Green, but 53 per cent among CDU–CSU voters), and in the direction of trust if only one superpower is accepted as being serious. Even though the image of the United States among Green voters has improved dramatically, one-third of them still think that the Soviet Union alone can be trusted in its pledges for future arms control. That scepticism about the arms control policies of the United States has not completely been wiped out by the INF accord is also evident when one considers how widespread the notion was that in the INF negotiations the United States did not take European interests into account, a view that was held by over 70 per cent in late 1986, and still by about 50 per cent in May 1987 (see table 7.10). Returning now to the ‘beauty contest’ referred to earlier, we see that not only was the praise given to the superpowers for the accomplishment of the INF treaty influenced by evaluations of their respective leaders, but the popular images of these leaders have themselves been affected by this agreement. President Reagan has

Public opinion in West Germany 177 Table 7.10 West European interests in INF negotiations USIA: How much do you think the United States is protecting European interests during its current negotiations with the Soviet Union on eliminating intermediaterange nuclear missiles in Europe: a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all? Great deal Fair amount Not very None at all much November 1986 May 1987

3 9

13 25

44 40

32 9

DK, NA 8 18

clearly benefited most (table 7.11). Gorbachev’s image as ‘a man one can trust’ improved, too, due to the INF treaty (especially so among CDU–CSU voters), so that in December 1987 he was evaluated much the same by adherents of all parties. But Reagan, who in spring 1987 still clearly had trailed behind Gorbachev in being regarded as a trustworthy person, almost closed this gap by the end of that year. He rose in esteem across the board, among voters of government and opposition parties alike. Even almost one-third of Green voters now thought that he could be trusted, compared with less than 10 per cent just a few months before. Nevertheless attitudes towards Reagan continued to be more polarized along partisan lines than those towards Gorbachev. Whereas evaluations of the latter as trustworthy just ranged from 60 to 68 per cent (FDP voters vs Green voters), Reagan received this label from about three-quarters of government voters, somewhat less than half of SPD voters, and 31 per cent of Green voters. One has to recall, however, that this range of judgements on Reagan used to be even Table 7.11 Trustworthiness of Reagan and Gorbachev FGW: What do you think: Is Ronald Reagan a man one can trust? Is Mikhail Gorbachev a man one can trust? Total CDU–CSU March 1987

Reagan Gorbachev May 1987 Reagan Gorbachev December 1987 Reagan Gorbachev

45 60 44 52 60 63

61 58 63 50 78 65

SPD

FDP

Green

35 67 35 58 48 67

52 67 50 46 70 60

9 60 6 60 31 68

178 Public opinion, domestic policies much wider some years, or in fact only some months, earlier. Even though this hardly can have been a motivating factor, President Reagan’s quest to make in into the history books as the ‘President of peace’ has paid off in terms of the ‘beauty contest’ against Gorbachev in West German public opinion. There can be little doubt that President Reagan entered this contest as a ‘lame duck’, and that Gorbachev enjoyed a clear head start. This is not only evident from the data in tables 7.8 and 7.11, but also if one considers the rather optimistic expectations in West Germany about the future course of Soviet–German relations associated with Gorbachev’s ascent to office (see table 7.12). Considering his initial disadvantage, the extent to which Reagan caught up is quite remarkable. ATTITUDES ON CONSEQUENCES OF THE INF TREATY We already have described several consequences of the INF treaty for West German public opinion. Peace in Europe has come to be seen as more secure, trust in the superpowers’ seriousness about arms control has increased, President Reagan’s image has improved, and partisan polarization of these attitudes has gone down. We will now turn to analysing some attitudes on the immediate impact of this agreement on the security of the West and of the Federal Republic. First we have to recognize, however, that the level of pertinent information and knowledge that respondents command is a crucial issue in assessing public opinion on national security and arms control matters. Unfortunately there are not many results available on what and how much the mass public in the Federal Republic knows about the various versions of the zero-option and their military implications. The one question that has been asked does demonstrate, however, that there are indeed good reasons why, for questions about the consequences of Table 7.12 Relations with the Soviet Union under Gorbachev FGW: What do you believe: will relations between the Federal Republic and the Soviet Union improve under Gorbachev, will they deteriorate, or will there be no change? May 1986

Total

Improve No change Deteriorate DK, NA

36 56 7 1

CDU–CSU 34 60 6 0

SPD

FDP

Green

39 54 7 0

35 50 15 0

51 39 8 2

Public opinion in West Germany 179 the zero-option many respondents will wind up saying that nothing would change, and why answers about what it will do to the military balance, to the stability of peace in Europe, to Western security, or to American commitments, etc., are not always congruent, but will appear to be affected by the ‘flavour’ of the questions. In May 1987, USIA asked whether, after the elimination of all American INF, the United States would still have other nuclear weapons left in Europe (table 7.13). To this question exactly one-half of respondents replied that they did not know, 13 per cent said that after the double-zero-option there would be no such weapons left. Only 37 per cent gave the correct answer; that is, almost two-thirds revealed their judgements about the implications of the INF agreement on the military balance, on Western security and the NATO alliance without being aware of American nuclear artillery, nuclear gravity bombs, and missiles with ranges below 500 km still deployed in Europe, an arsenal well in excess of 4,000 warheads. It is evident that against this background of information the military consequences of the zero-option are really very hard to assess, so that many people simply have to avoid committing themselves (i.e. have to give in-between answers), or can be easily influenced by question wording and the information supplied to them during the interview. Two more points deserve to be mentioned in this context. First, if one should be tempted to regard 37 per cent awareness of residual American nuclear weapons in Europe as quite remarkably high (as one could in light of available evidence about even lower levels of knowledge10), one should realize that random guessing among those who do not simply say that they don’t know would already be expected to produce a result of 25 per cent ‘awareness’. The actual finding is only 12 percentage points higher. Second, the 90 per cent support for the double-zero-option can by no means be interpreted as a sweeping endorsement of the ‘denuclearization’ of Europe, because only 13 per cent believe that this would be the consequence. The Table 7.13 Remaining American nuclear weapons in Europe USIA: So far as you know, if all American intermediate-range missiles in Europe are eliminated, will the United States have any other nuclear weapons stationed in Western Europe with which to defend its allies?

May 1987

Yes

No

DK, NA

37

13

50

180 Public opinion, domestic policies overwhelming majority either cannot describe its impact on the nuclear balance in Europe or claims to be aware of the residual Western nuclear systems on the continent. Bearing these reservations in mind, comparing table 7.14 with table 7.3 reveals a somewhat surprising pattern of beliefs about the effects of the double-zerooption. Since under the terms of the treaty the Soviet Union will dismantle about four times as many nuclear warheads in Europe as will the United States, one could expect perceptions of Eastern military superiority to decline and those of Western superiority to increase, but this is not the case. In the aggregate, about as many people said that the East would be superior after the double-zero-option as had said it before, somewhat fewer respondents than before felt that the West would be superior, and the proportion of those believing that both sides would be equally strong was somewhat higher. Hence, the overall expectation was that as a consequence of the double-zero-option the military balance would shift somewhat in favour of the East. Whereas these changes were only marginal for adherents of all the ‘established’ parties, the most significant shifts in opinion occurred among Green voters. In May 1987, 25 per cent of them thought the West to be superior, and in December 1987 only 10 per cent said that it would be stronger after the double-zero-option; over the same time those perceiving Eastern superiority increased from 13 to 23 per cent, and those perceiving equal military strength from 60 to 67 per cent. Perceptions of implications of the INF agreement for the military balance thus were strongest among Green voters, among whom it has served to dispel illusions about alleged Western superiority. As a consequence, Green voters have become more similar to the rest of samples than they were before. They still are more prone to detect parity than others, and less likely to regard the East as stronger, but previous notions about Western superiority have dissolved to a significant degree. Green voters also clearly set themselves apart from the rest of the electorate in terms of whether or not they regard the military balance resulting from the double-zero-option as threatening. There was a strong all-partisan consensus among those who thought that parity would prevail after the double-zero-option and that this would not be threatening; about 80 per cent of those predicting parity believed this. Green voters were characteristically different from others if they expected either Western or Eastern superiority to result from the INF treaty. Among adherents of the ‘established’ parties, most of those who predicted Western superiority did not think that this would constitute a threat: 90 per cent of FDP voters and over 80 per cent of voters for the major two parties

Public opinion in West Germany 181 Table 7.14 The military balance after elimination of INF FGW: After the INF have been eliminated, who is stronger then in military terms: the West, the East, or do you think that both sides are equally strong then? And do you feel threatened by this? December 1987 West East Equal Threatened Not threatened West, threatened West, not threatened East, threatened East, not threatened Equal, threatened Equal, not threatened

Total

CDU–CSU

SPD

FDP

Green

6 37 57 28 72 1(22) 5(78) 14(39) 22(61) 12(21) 45(79)

6 41 53 23 77 1(17) 5(83) 15(37) 26(63) 7(13) 46(87)

8 33 59 28 72 2(18) 7(82) 13(39) 20(61) 14(23) 45(77)

1 39 60 19 81 0(10) 1(90) 7(19) 32(81) 12(20) 47(80)

10 23 67 32 68 7(66) 3(34) 15(67) 7(33) 10(15) 57(85)

Figures in parentheses in the lower part of this table are percentages of those who feel threatened or not, given their evaluation of the military balance. For example, 6 per cent of all respondents believed the West to be superior after elimination of INF, and 22 per cent of these said this would be threatening (i.e. 1 per cent of the total sample), while 78 per cent of these (i.e. 5 per cent of the total sample) said this would not be threatening.

shared this view. Out of the Green voters who expected Western superiority, twothirds said this would constitute a threat. Adherents of the ‘established’ parties again were quite optimistic, even if they expected Eastern superiority: 81 per cent of FDP voters and almost two-thirds of voters for the CDU–CSU and SPD believed that this would not constitute a threat. However, two-thirds of the Green voters who saw the INF treaty leading to Eastern superiority called this threatening, the same share as did so for Western superiority. This is probably due to the fact that Green sympathizers generally have the lowest confidence in the effectiveness of deterrence, and are most strongly opposed to any side acquiring military superiority. In summary, data collected with the prospect of the doublezero-option in people’s minds shows that Green voters have become much more ready to perceive considering any remaining imbalances as threatening, regardless of whose favour they are in. In view of the sometimes low numbers of cases these results should be interpreted with some caution, however. The data in table 7.14 seems to indicate a certain insecurity on the part of the mass public about how to evaluate the military and strategic consequences of the INF agreement. Such insecurity is even more evident when one examines opinions on which side would benefit more in military terms from the elimination of INF on both

182 Public opinion, domestic policies Table 7.15 Who benefits from elimination of INF? USIA: Who do you think benefits the most in a military sense from the elimination of American and Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe? Would you say the Western alliance gets the most military benefit, or the Soviet Union and its allies benefit the most?

May 1987

Western alliance

Soviet Union and allies

Both

DK, NA

16

29

40

15

‘Both’ not offered, but volunteered by respondents.

sides, a question which is similar to the one about the resulting military balance, but not quite identical (table 7.15). People might see very unequal benefits, but still retain their judgement about the military balance, even if this judgement might be that the side which benefits more continues to be inferior. Fifteen per cent of respondents in May 1987 could not say which side would have greater advantages from the elimination of INF, and fully 40 per cent volunteered the option that the military benefits to both sides were equal, a most unusual indication of insecurity. Only 45 per cent recorded an opinion, of which somewhat over one-third said the West would benefit more. There are at least two explanations why in spite of the highly publicized unequal numbers of INF to be eliminated almost two-thirds believed the Soviet Union would benefit more. First, this could reflect exposure to the arguments of the opponents of the zero-option about the loss of an important military option for the West, about decoupling and singularization of the threat to the Federal Republic. Second, it could have something to do with a lack of pertinent information required to make this judgement. We have already seen that the second explanation has to be taken very seriously. Table 7.16 Effect of the elimination of INF on Western security USIA: If the United States and the Soviet Union eventually agree to eliminate all of their intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe so that Western countries rely more on non-nuclear conventional forces, do you think the security of Western Europe will be enhanced, remain about the same, or will it be diminished? Enhance security Remain same Diminish security May 1987

25

43

22

DK, NA 10

Public opinion in West Germany 183 Table 7.17 Effect of the elimination of INF on the American commitment FGW: Assuming the double-zero-option will go into effect, will this reduce or increase the willingness of the United States to defend Europe in case of emergency (im Ernstfall), or will their be no change? USIA: Some people say that the elimination of US intermediate-range missiles now in Western Europe will mean that the United States is less committed to the defence of Western Europe. Others say that the United States will be just as committed to the defence of Western Europe. Which view is closer to your own, or haven’t you heard enough to say? FGW May 1985 Reduce Increase No change DK, NA

Total CDU–CSU 26 9 64 1

27 11 61 1

USIA

SPD

FDP

Green

Total

26 8 65 1

22 10 67 1

20 9 70 1

10 NO 65 25

NO: not offered.

Similar insecurity about the military implications of the INF treaty can be observed regarding its effects on Western security. In table 7.6 a sizeable allpartisan consensus observed that it would make peace in Europe more stable. But if people are explicitly reminded that it could imply increased Western reliance on conventional armaments, these judgements become less optimistic (table 7.16). The percentages of those who were undecided or thought that nothing would change are roughly the same in both tables (about 50 per cent). But whereas 43 per cent thought that the agreement would increase the stability of peace, and only 6 per cent believed it would be diminished, only 25 per cent said that Western security Table 7.18 Necessity of nuclear weapons USIA: Would you say that nuclear weapons are necessary in order to defend the Federal Republic adequately or should we rely on conventional – that is non-nuclear – forces for the defence of our country (Germany)?

June 1986 January 1987 May 1987

Nuclear weapons necessary

Rely on conventional

DK, NA

30 28 24

51 58 55

19 14 22

184 Public opinion, domestic policies would be enhanced, and 22 per cent claimed the opposite, if they were reminded of the growing need to rely on conventional forces. Both a high popularity of in-between responses and greater scepticism about the military consequences of the double-zerooption also were discernible when people were asked to evaluate the future American commitment to the defence of Western Europe (table 7.17). Such questions yielded virtually no partisan disagreements at all. About two-thirds of respondents said the American commitment would remain unchanged, 10 per cent believed it would be enhanced, but one out of four respondents claimed that it would be reduced due to the double-zero-option. Two major items put on the NATO agenda by the double-zero-option are improvements of its conventional posture and modernization and/or numerical increase of the residual INF, that is, with ranges below 500 km. Available public opinion data shows that there is very little enthusiasm in the Federal Republic about any attempts to redress the effects of the INF treaty by military means, conventional or nuclear. In a very superficial view one could be tempted to conclude that the rejection of nuclear weapons should have led to growing acceptance of a conventional-emphasis defence for NATO. It is true that the share of those who believe that nuclear weapons are necessary for the defence of the Federal Republic had declined somewhat, and that the percentage of those who think one should rely on conventional forces alone has grown. In the spring of 1987, 24 per cent held the first view, 55 per cent the second, with 22 per cent undecided (table 7.18). However, this question is about defence and not about deterrence. This distribution of opinions, therefore, does not reflect a widespread unwillingness to accept nuclear weapons as a keystone of deterrence, but it reiterates the well-known fact that support for having nuclear weapons in a deterrent role goes down substantially if their usability for Western defence is stressed. The more than 50 per cent who said that one should rely on conventional forces for the defence of the Federal Republic therefore should not be confused with adherents of ‘conventional deterrence’; they just do not want to see nuclear weapons used in the defence of West Germany, one of the major reasons being that some of these weapons (or those of the other side) would be used ‘at home’. Moreover, only one out of four of those who would want to rely on conventional weapons for defence would be willing to accept significant increases of the defence budget of the Federal Republic in order to make this reliance feasible (table 7.19). A conventional-emphasis defence with all its implications thusreceived very little support, only 14 per cent being willing to rely on conventional forces for the defence of the Federal Republic and to spend more for that goal. Trying to justify increased defence spending and/or upgrading of conventional

Public opinion in West Germany 185 forces by the need to remedy some aspects of the double-zero-option will not meet with majority popular approval in West Germany. Table 7.19 Attitudes towards spending on conventional weapons USIA: Some people say that it would cost a great deal more to deter an attack by conventional weapons than by relying on nuclear weapons. Would you support or oppose a significant increase in the defence budget of the Federal Republic if that would allow us to do without nuclear weapons?

May 1987

Support

Oppose

DK, NA

26(14)

57(31)

17(10)

Only asked of those who in table 7.18 opted for reliance on conventional weapons. Numbers in parentheses are percentages of the total sample.

The public opinion response to the proposed expansion and modernization of SRINF is equally predictable. Still in the context of the simple zero-option, in May 1987 USIA asked whether respondents would, after the ban on LRINF, oppose or support deployment of new Western INF below the 1000 km range threshold to offset the Soviet superiority existing there (table 7.20). Seventeen per cent were undecided, 60 per cent opposed, and only 23 per cent were ready to accept such a new round of Nachruestung, even though they had explicitly been reminded of Western inferiority in these weapon systems. Even without recent pertinent data it is safe to say that now, after the ratification of the INF treaty containing the double-zero-option, popular opposition to installing new SRINF with ranges below 500 km is even significantly stronger. The attempts by the West German government to avoid any binding commitment of NATO to SRINF modernization before the 1990 federal elections indicate that it is well aware of this public mood and takes it very seriously. Two final results on the aftermath of the INF agreement relate to compliance and verification. Even though this accord has brought sizeable numbers of West Germans to accept the sincerity of the superpowers’ commitment to arms control, doubts about their willingness to abide by its provisions still are widespread. In May 1987, about 40 per cent said about either superpower that they believed it would observe such an agreement, while about half of those interviewed

186 Public opinion, domestic policies Table 7.20 Attitudes on new SRINF USIA: If NATO retains the right to match the number of Soviet shorter-range nuclear missiles, would you support or oppose the deployment by NATO of some shorterrange nuclear missiles?

May 1987

Support

Oppose

DK, NA

23

60

17

expressed scepticism over both sides’ compliance, and 10 per cent did not have an opinion (table 7.21). At the same time, readiness to accept on-site inspection of US bases in the Federal Republic as part of an INF verification regime was very high, three out of four respondents supporting such measures, and 13 per cent each opposed or undecided (table 7.22). CONCLUSIONS The INF treaty has been quite an experience for allied national security decision makers and experts, but also for Western publics. Five major conclusions can be drawn from the reflections of this agreement in West German public opinion. First, and most trivially, this recent accomplishment of arms control not surprisingly has modified many people’s perceptions of the country’s national security environment towards more confident and optimistic evaluations of the military balance, the menace from the East, and the solidity of peace in Europe. Second, very broad segments of the public, even after the events from December 1979 to December 1987 and all the media attention and reporting they received, still feel uncomfortable and ill at ease with these issues and Table 7.21 Beliefs about compliance with INF agreement USIA: How much confidence do you have that the Soviet Union (United States) would observe an agreement eliminating all of its intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe: a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?

May 1987 Soviet Union United States

Great deal 13 7

Fair Not amount very much 28 32

27 45

None at all 12 8

DK, NA 10 8

Public opinion in West Germany 187 Table 7.22 Acceptance of on-site inspection in the Federal Republic of Germany USIA: During the negotiations, the United States and the Soviet Union have been talking about the need for verifying that the intermediate-range nuclear missiles have in fact been removed or destroyed. Would you support on-site inspection even if that meant Soviet inspectors would be allowed into US military bases in the Federal Republic? or would you oppose on-site inspection?

May 1987

Support

Oppose

DK, NA

74

13

13

lack even elementary pertinent knowledge. Third, popular evaluations of the superpowers do not follow irreversible trends. In the early 1980s, many observers were worried about an alleged growth of antiAmericanism in West Germany, and about images of the Soviet Union becoming more positive than those of the United States. The spread of ‘Gorbimania’, though not restricted to within the Federal Republic, has exacerbated such concerns. After the INF agreement we have to recognize that evaluations of the United States, and even of President Reagan, greatly recovered, once it credibly demonstrated that arms control was still on its agenda. Much of the deterioration of the public’s judgements about the United States and its policies in the earlier 1980s can now be seen even more clearly as a direct consequence of the way American national security policy was ‘marketed’ in those years, mainly for internal consumption. The reversal of rhetoric, if not of policy, has been rewarded by a reversal in the trend of West German public opinion towards its most important ally.11 The fourth observation we can make is that the polarization of public opinion on national security and arms control along party lines decreased in the context of the INF treaty, probably for three reasons. Arms control enjoys so widespread mass sympathies that it does not serve as an object of partisan strife. Even those who were opposed to some aspects of the accord had good reasons to speak softly, in order not to be openly identified as hostile to this achievement. Furthermore, disagreements mainly occurred not between but within parties, notably the CDU–CSU, and even there strange conversions took place, which prevented opposition from crystallizing. With many exponents of the CDU in favour of the zero-option from the outset – and even the late Franz-Josef Strauss turned full swing from the view that it would undermine the basicrationale of NATO to his pronouncement of trust in the Soviet commitment to arms control – smaller parts of the public than before could simply and

188 Public opinion, domestic policies conventionally toe the party line. Party lines had become a lot less well-defined and confrontational with the prospect of this treaty. Also, most partisan national security and arms control experts and spokesmen from all political camps had been proven completely wrong anyway over these years. Those who wanted to strike an INF deal at every slightest sign of Eastern ‘concessions’ were wrong; those who suspected that the United States would never be ready to negotiate INF away in order to be able to restrict nuclear war to Europe were wrong; those who held that these weapons were indispensable for strategic ‘coupling’ found that the primary ally came to think otherwise; those who wanted zero-option proposals only to serve as a pacifier for the peace movement had to witness both superpowers agreeing upon them; and those who believed arms control could only be negotiated with the Soviet Union from a position of strength had to realize that the other side had become willing to give up its superiority in INF, and that this had at least as much to do with its internal political development as with Western staunchness.12 Finally, fifth, and most importantly, the INF experience confirmed what students of public opinion on national security issues have been reiterating for quite some time. There is no basic incompatibility between preparations for military defence and national security concerns on the one side, and democratic public opinion on the other, but one of the constraints imposed by public opinion in West Germany is that it takes the two pillars defined in the Harmel Report of 1967 equally seriously: détente and a sufficient capacity for deterrence and defence.13 A national security policy that neglects the détente and arms control components will in these days invariably be confronted with public indifference, scepticism, or even antagonism. The INF treaty was so widely welcomed by an all-partisan public opinion consensus in the Federal Republic because it proved that this second pillar is viable, and is actively and with a will to compromise being pursued by the West. This recognition is extremely important for legitimizing the other pillar, and with it the Western alliance, which could not for ever enjoy its presently still high levels of support if it restricted itself exclusively to providing military security. The INF treaty thus has provided the public in West Germany with some reassurance about NATO policies and the common defence though large portions of this reassurance have been missing for a long time. The surest way to erode it again very rapidly would be to devise and implement military countermeasures which attemptto revoke unilaterally the concessions the West has made in this agreement,14 rather than to continue with and broaden the scope of serious attempts to press on with East–West arms control, both conventional and nuclear.

Public opinion in West Germany 189

NOTES 1 See Rattinger, Hans (1985) ‘The Federal Republic of Germany: Much ado about (almost) nothing’, in Gregory Flynn and Hans Rattinger (eds) The Public and Atlantic Defense, Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, pp. 101–74; Rattinger, Hans and Heinlein, Petra (1986) Sicherheitspolitik in der oeffentlichen Meinung: Umfrageergebnisse fuer die Bundesrepublik Deutschland bis zum ‘Heissen Herbst’ 1983, Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Autoren-Verlag, ch. 4, 5. 2 See Rattinger, Hans (1987) ‘Change versus continuity in West German public attitudes on national security and nuclear weapons in the early 1980s’, Public Opinion Quarterly 51: 495–521; Rattinger, Hans (1989) ‘The Bundeswehr and public opinion’, in Stephen S. Szabo (ed.) The Bundeswehr and Western Security, London: Macmillan. 3 For brief summaries of these positions in the German debate see, for example, Charles, Daniel (1987) NATO looks for arms controls loopholes’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 43: 7–12; Dean, Jonathan (1987) ‘The INF agreement: Pluses and minuses for Western security’, Arms Control Today 17: 3–10; Gordon, Michael R. (1987) ‘INF: A hollow victory’, Foreign Policy 68: 159–79; see also the chapter by Thomas Risse-Kappen in this volume. 4 Even though the number of studies of public attitudes on security issues in West Germany has grown considerably over the last decade (besides the author’s own work cited in other notes see especially Stephen F. Szabo’s copious writings, e.g. ‘The Federal Republic of Germany: Public opinion and Defense’, in Catherine M. Kelleher and Gale A. Mattox (eds) Evolving European Defense Policies, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 185–202; or ‘West German public attitudes on arms control’, in Cathleen Fisher and B. Blechman (eds) The Silent Partner: West Germany and Arms Control, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, pp. 195– 230), there still is no comprehensive assessment of the impact of such attitudes on national security decision making and policy in the Federal Republic. One of the few attempts to evaluate the role of public opinion on policy making in this field is Schweigler, Gebhard (1983) West German Foreign Policy: the Domestic Consensus, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. 5 See Rattinger, Hans (1988) ‘Development and structure of West German public opinion on security issues in the 1980s’, paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association, Rosslyn, Virginia, 3–5 November. 6 See the literature cited in notes 2 and 4. 7 See Rattinger and Heinlein op. cit., Table 4.

190 Public opinion, domestic policies 8 See Rattinger and Heinlein op. cit., Table 6. 9 For some evidence see Rattinger, ‘Development and structure of West German public opinion’, op. cit. 10 See Rattinger, ‘Change versus continuity, op. cit., Table 3. 11 See Joffee, Josef (1987) ‘Peace and populism: Why the European anti-nuclear movement failed’, International Security 11: 3–40. 12 See the chapter by Thomas Risse-Kappen in this volume. 13 See Flynn, Gregory and Rattinger, Hans ‘The public and Atlantic defense’ in Flynn and Rattinger, op. cit., 365–88. 14 For a discussion of NATO’s arms control options against the background of European politics see De Santis, Hugh (1988) ‘Europe after INF: The political– military landscape of Europe’, Washington Quarterly 11: 29–44.

8 Towards an anti-nuclear consensus? West Germany, INF and the future of nuclear arms control in Europe Thomas Risse-Kappen

INTRODUCTION Five years ago, when the first Pershing II missiles arrived in West Germany, almost nobody would have forecast that in August 1988 Soviet inspectors would visit the operating bases for intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Western Europe in order to verify the data base of the INF treaty. Least of all would one have predicted that this agreement would result in the complete elimination of all SS-20, Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles, as well as in the global disarmament of all land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 1000 km (‘double zero’). Finally, who would have suggested by 1983, when nuclear weapons were among the most divisive issues in the domestic political debate, that 5 years later a new (anti-)nuclear consensus would apparently emerge which would put West Germany in the unique position of opposing the modernization of NATO’s short-range nuclear arsenals while her most important allies support it? In retrospect, five factors seem to have been crucial in bringing about the INF treaty.1 First, INF became an alliance issue and, later on, found its way on to the agenda of superpower relations largely because of West European concerns about the impact which the American SALT policy might have on allied security (the ‘coupling’ issue) and about the Soviet SS-20 build-up. Second, NATO’s dualtrack decision in 1979 combined modernization of long-range INF with an offer to negotiate. Third, without the mass opposition against the deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles by peace movements and large factions of the social democratic and labour parties in Western Europe, neither NATO nor the United States would have adopted the zero option as their official negotiating position in 1981. Fourth, the deployment of Western INF in late 1983 indicated to the Soviet Union that its intransigence had provoked a Western response and, moreover, that the security policy of the Brezhnev era was a complete disaster for Soviet

192 Public opinion,domestic policies interests. Finally, Mikhail Gorbachev’s politics of perestroika resulted in a turnaround in Soviet security policy and let the USSR accept the zero option. West Germany was critically involved in the history of the INF treaty from the beginning. In fact, four out of these five factors were at least partly the result of Bonn’s input into alliance affairs. Not only did former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt bring up the issue on NATO’s agenda in late October 1977 when he delivered his famous speech at the London International Institute for Strategic Studies,2 but he and his party, the Social Democrats (SPD), also worked hard to make sure that the 1979 decision contained an arms control track. Two years later, when Schmidt came under extreme pressure by critics in the SPD and the peace movements, an ‘unholy coalition’ between Schmidt and the Pentagon hard-liner Richard Perle, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, brought about the zero option as the Western negotiating proposal.3 Finally, in 1983 Schmidt’s successor as Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, accepted Pershing II deployment despite widespread mass protest. Not only did West Germany play a crucial role in shaping Western INF policy, but the issue also had tremendous ramifications for the domestic security debate in the country itself. As a result of the Pershing II and cruise missile deployments the nuclear consensus collapsed. Denuclearization of Western defence became one of the main objectives of the leading opposition party’s (the SPD’s) security policy. In this respect, the INF treaty had an extraordinarily reassuring impact on the public. Public opinion overwhelmingly endorsed the agreement,4 once again proving that concerns of ‘decoupling’ are essentially limited to the conservative part of the national security elite who supported the INF deployment not so much to counter the SS-20 threat but to fulfil certain requirements of extended deterrence.5 Moreover, the INF treaty has taken much of the heat out of the domestic debate. The most recent developments in West Germany regarding short-range nuclear weapons and arms control are not understandable without taking into account the history of the INF treaty and the impact it had in shaping the domestic debate. While not attempting to document the origins of the INF agreement comprehensively, this chapter will analyse them in two aspects. First, the Western decision-making process is to be described as a result of transatlantic coalitionbuilding between national security elites on both sides of the Atlantic. Second, I try to show how the treaty affected the domestic security debate in the Federal Republic in order to be able to interpret most recent events. The concluding section is then devoted to finding a viable way out of the nuclear dilemmas in

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 193 Europe which would also be acceptable for most of the groupings in the West German security debate, and elsewhere in Western Europe. TRANSATLANTIC COALITION BUILDING: INF AND WEST GERMANAMERICAN RELATIONS Those who observed the reactions of many West Europeans to the Reykjavik summit meeting in 1986, and followed the disputes in West Germany over the double-zero option, could momentarily forget that they were not in the 1970s. In the context of the SALT process, many West Europeans feared that parity between the superpowers would neutralize the strategic arsenals on both sides so that American intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) would no longer be available for the purposes of ‘extended deterrence’. Even worse, instead of bearing in mind West European concerns, the Carter Administration seemed to be eager to negotiate away the very (cruise) missiles which could serve the security needs of Western Europe. At the same time, the Soviet SS-20 build-up increased the INF threat to NATO, thereby worsening NATO’s position still further. Ten years later, the double-zero solution was interpreted by the conservative part of the West German security elite as another American attempt to reduce the risks involved in ‘extended deterrence’.6 Withdrawal of visible land-based American INF, able to threaten the Soviet homeland from Western Europe, would signal to the Soviets, members of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU/CSU) argued, that the United States was reducing its commitment to NATO defence. Worse still, a US president whose reputation at home had severly suffered (Iran/Contragate) seemed to rush into a treaty with the Soviets without taking into account the concerns of his allies. Thus, while ‘decoupling’ fears seemed to dominate Western European reactions to American–Soviet relations in the 1970s as well as in the late 1980s, the Americans heard just the opposite demands during the early 1980s. Following the Afghanistan crisis and the subsequent worsening in the superpower relationship, many West Europeans became worried about the future of arms control and détente. At that time, they urged the United States to resume the INF negotiations as soon as possible and to search for an arms control compromise. In 1986-7, however, once the talks produced concrete results, the West Europeans still seemed not to be satisfied. This, at least, must have been the impression in Washington. One can attempt to explain the varying West European demands and American reactions to them by means of a cyclic pattern.7 The demands of NATO members

194 Public opinion,domestic policies concerning US arms control policy oscillated between the fear of being let down by the Americans and the concern of being drawn into an American–Soviet confrontation. The ‘abandonment–entrapment’ cycle sounds plausible since it is related to the structural conditions within alliances and is not characterized by abstract calculations of deterrence theory (‘decoupling’) which rest on questionable premises. But the concept treats both the United States and its allies as unified actors, and disregards the diversity among West European countries as well as the domestic environment of security policy on both sides of the Atlantic. It is impossible, however, to explain the history of the INF treaty in the context of alliance relations without these factors. First, as far as West Germany is concerned there was no uniform fear of American–Soviet arms control in the 1970s, not even at the governmental level. Leaving aside all criticism of SALT, strategic arms control was supported in principle by a broad coalition which encompassed the SPD and the FDP (at that time the governing parties), but also the mainstream Christian Democrats including the party chairman Helmut Kohl. SALT was considered an imperative requirement to provide favourable conditions for West European Ostpolitik. Initially, ‘decoupling’ fears were almost exclusively raised by minorities based in the above-mentioned conservative security and military establishments and among those parts of the CDU/CSU who regard deterrence as the top priority in security policy.8 This group had excellent transatlantic connections, especially to the anti-SALT coalition in the United States. Domestically, however, criticism of US arms control policy and demands for a military compensation for the alleged loss of ‘extended deterrence’ due to strategic parity did not gain support until the USSR began its SS-20 build-up – a move which was perceived as a new threat even by firm supporters of détente like Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. The security elites of the CDU, the FDP and part of the SPD, for whom deterrence and arms control are, in the sense of NATO’s ‘Harmel Report’ of 1967,9 complementary objectives of Western security policy (from Helmut Schmidt to Hans-Dietrich Genscher to Helmut Kohl), realized that the West must respond to this new challenge. The deployment component of NATO’s 1979 double-track decision can therefore be traced back to a domestic coalition of arms control critics and supporters of the ‘Harmel concept’. Second, the arms control component goes back in West Germany to a domestic alliance between the aforementioned group of ‘Harmel supporters’ and the ardent advocates of détente and arms reductions in the SPD who did not accept the military logic of Western INF deployment, but tolerated it in light of the Soviet

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 195 arms build-up. Thus, both modernization of NATO’s INF posture and arms control stemmed from West European demands, not least of all West German ones. For this reason, it is necessary to modify the argument that ‘decoupling’ fears dominated the debate in the late 1970s. Decision-makers like Helmut Schmidt wanted neither to be abandoned by the United States with respect to their security interests nor to be entrapped into an unrestricted INF arms race. The domestic constellation in the Federal Republic faced changes in the American domestic setting.10 Towards the end of the 1970s the anti-SALT coalition began increasingly to dominate the security debate. Modernization of NATO’s INF posture fitted well into their list of demands. The Carter Administration initially responded with caution in order not to jeopardize the conclusion of SALT II. Not until the débâcle over the neutron bomb in 1978 did it increase efforts to speed up the INF decision-making process in NATO, wishing above all to preserve alliance cohesion. Thus, West German supporters of the double-track approach like Helmut Schmidt faced a dilemma. They had entered into an alliance with opponents of SALT in the United States in order to bring about INF modernization. In doing so, they simultaneously helped to undermine the domestic basis for arms control in the United States – a prerequisite for the success of the second component in NATO’s decision. The consequences became apparent in the early 1980s. It would be equally inappropriate to speak of a volte face by the West Europeans at the beginning of the 1980s. In view of the deterioration of American–Soviet relations after Afghanistan and a US government which came into power by rejecting the SALT process, it was now of utmost importance to implement the arms control part of the double-track decision. In West Germany the domestic coalition between ‘Harmel supporters’ and those who gave top priority to arms reductions remained intact. The position of the conservative opponents of détente and arms control was considerably weakened by the emergence of the peace movements, whose influence even extended into the CDU/CSU.11 In the face of opposition from conservative deployment supporters – Franz Joseph Strauß, at the time the Prime Minister of Bavaria, had been opposed to the zero proposal as early as 198012– this option was finally pushed through as the Western negotiating position. It came about through an unholy transatlantic alliance between West European adherents of détente, like Helmut Schmidt, and unilateralist opponents of arms control in the United States, like Richard Perle, who did not believe in the military rationale of NATO’s INF deployment. This coalition was, however, only of short duration.

196 Public opinion,domestic policies Then, in 1983, the deployment coalition of 1979 between the arms control opponents and the ‘Harmel supporters’ was revived again in West Germany. This was due to the intransigence of Soviet policy, despite the peace movements and the legitimacy crisis of nuclear deterrence. There was little modification of Bonn’s INF policy following the change in government from the Social–Liberal to the CDU/CSU-FDP coalition, even though critics of détente and arms control as practised in the 1970s now formed part of the government.13 On the American side, it was clear that deployment would have to take place in almost any circumstance in order to demonstrate strength to the Soviets. It was Gorbachev who succeeded in splitting the ‘deployment coalition’ in West Germany and ensured that the ambiguities underlying the NATO doubletrack decision were cleared in favour of arms control. Here, too, it would be wrong to ascribe the West European reactions to the outcome of the Reykjavik summit solely to ‘decoupling’ fears. Above all, it is necessary to distinguish between zero INF and the proposal made in Reykjavik to scrap all (ballistic) nuclear missiles. While this elimination proposal was subject to wide-ranging criticism, those who rejected a zero option for INF were unable to gather domestic support. They did succeed in causing a great stir on both sides of the Atlantic and in delaying NATO’s decision-making process with respect to zero short-range INF in spring 1987 for about 6 weeks.14 But on the whole the transatlantic ‘zerooption coalition’ of 1981 stood the test, and now included in its ranks the US State Department on one hand and ardent supporters of disarmament from the SPD to the Greens and the peace movements in West Germany on the other. In the end, the combined forces of Alfred Dregger (chairman of the Christian Democrats’ Bundestag faction), Franz Joseph Strauß, the Defence Ministry, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (the leading centre–right newspaper) could do little against an alliance comprising Ronald Reagan and Richard Perle as well as Oskar Lafontaine (left-wing deputy chairman of the SPD) and Petra Kelly (the Greens). It is therefore an exaggeration to claim that the United States had to wear down much opposition in West Germany in order to push through the INF treaty. In fact, the conservative critics of arms control had already lost considerable domestic support. One can therefore say that alliance structure only determines the framework of transatlantic relations. The way in which US security policies are perceived in Western Europe, though, depends on the domestic correlation of forces in each of the West European countries. In the Federal Republic, for example, there exists today, compared with the situation in the 1970s, a firm domestic consensus in

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 197 favour of détente and arms control, comprising the CDU/CSU majority15 as well as the Green party. This explains why ‘decoupling’ fears of the traditional nature are voiced solely by a minority. Moreover, over the course of the past 15 years the role of West Germany in NATO has changed to some extent. The very fact of the Federal Republic’s nonnuclear status, together with its geostrategic position at the East–West borderline, makes the country vulnerable in security matters, leading in turn to dependence on the American guarantee and on American–Soviet relations. West Germany’s INF policy was the attempt of a medium-size power to keep her dependence on the superpowers within acceptable limits. NATO’s dual-track decision can be described as ‘US nuclear policy shaped under European influence’.16 For the first time in the history of the Nuclear Planning Group, the West Europeans were directly involved in an American nuclear decision affecting Europe. The deployment decision was the result of West European participation in the American decision-making process which far exceeded consultation. Thus a precedent was set which will have an influence on future American decisions concerning its nuclear forces in Europe. Another innovation is that, for the first time, forms of co-operation within NATO have been established not only for armament decisions, but also for US arms control policy with an impact on Western Europe. This development is again attributable to, among others, the West German government, which initiated the creation of the Special Consultative Group (SCG) for arms control in NATO. The West Europeans gradually succeeded in increasing their influence on US nuclear arms control policy affecting Europe. During the INF talks, the European allies were consulted – with two important exceptions – before every change in the US negotiating position. The two exceptions were the rejection of the ‘walk-in-the-woods’ compromise in 1982 and the tentative agreements reached at the Reykjavik summit in 1986. American unwillingness to inform its allies of the Nitze–Kvitsinsky formula before the decision to reject it had been taken in Washington represented a serious breach of her obligations. Worse still, those in the Reagan Administration who withheld information from the allies did so in the clear knowledge that at least the West German government of the day (Helmut Schmidt was still in office) would most probably have supported the ‘walk-in-the-woods’ compromise. The lack of consultation in connection with the Reykjavik summit may have been significant with regard to Reagan’s offer to eliminate all ballistic nuclear missiles (but even important parts of the American government were not informed either, for

198 Public opinion,domestic policies example the Joint Chiefs of Staff). In the case of INF, however, non-consultation represented a less serious offence, since the zero option lay entirely within the framework of what had been discussed in NATO for years. INF saw the West German government pursue, for the first time, an active nuclear arms control policy within the limits set by its non-nuclear status. As mentioned, this is true for the dual-track decision itself as well as for the origins of the zero option. Following the Reykjavik summit meeting, Bonn, in particular the Foreign Ministry, worked with the State Department behind the scenes to secure NATO support for the American position. The infighting in Bonn in spring 1987 on a second zero option for SRINF was an important exception. The disruptive efforts of the conservative wing of the CDU/CSU which, at this time, was backed by leading ‘Harmel supporters’ of the party (e.g. Volker Rühe), delayed the NATO decision for roughly six weeks and drove the West German government into isolation within the Alliance. The decision to give up the Pershing IA by Chancellor Kohl in late August signalled Bonn’s return to an active arms control policy. The history of INF shows not only the extent of West European influence on American–Soviet relations, but also very clearly its limitations. Though the superpower relationship is of direct importance for West European security, the allies can do little to influence these relations profoundly. Prior to 1979, neither Helmut Schmidt nor British Prime Minister James Callaghan succeeded in convincing the Soviet Union to adopt a softer stance in its INF policy. During the first INF talks the West Germans were just as powerless to move both superpowers towards an arms control agreement. Bonn’s influence on the improved American–Soviet relations after 1985 was also limited. In this case, though, the West Europeans could be said to have paved the way, since the European East-West détente had more or less survived the phase of American– Soviet confrontation.While the contents of the INF treaty were largely determined by West European influence, the timing lay by and large out of their reach. MISJUDGEMENTS ON ALL SIDES: INF AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY DEBATE IN WEST GERMANY In recent years, no other security policy topic has moved the West German public quite like the INF deployment. On the surface, the debate seemed to revolve around the Pershing II and the SS-20 missiles. However, the real issues at stake were the general orientation of West German foreign and security policy, the

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 199 relationship between deterrence and détente, and the role which nuclear weapons should or should not play in NATO’s defence strategy. In the course of the debate, misjudgements were made on nearly all sides, with the result that in 1986–7 a number of central arguments which were made in 1981–3 changed side, thus leading to the formation of highly unusual transatlantic coalitions. It has been mentioned already that hardly anyone in West Germany seriously considered that the zero option could be achieved. The policies and interests of both superpowers were grossly misinterpreted by most security policy groupings. This applies to the Soviet Union whose turnaround in INF could hardly have been anticipated. Advocates of NATO’s INF deployment on the CDU/CSU’s right wing now face the problem of abandoning their preconceptions of the opponent and of adjusting to the fact that a drastic improvement in East–West relations could be possible under Gorbachev. One of the topics underlying the stormy debate on double zero in spring 1987 was which Western response the change in Soviet politics required. Those who spoke of Brezhnev’s security policy in mostly negative terms had to accept that this evaluation showed Gorbachev in a much better light. This in turn had the effect of making arguments about the Soviet threat less credible, arguments which have long served to justify the Western arms build-up domestically. Several CDU/CSU politicians and officials of the Defence Ministry, therefore, tried to play down the importance of double zero.17 Paradoxically, this only led the threat posed by the SS-20s – a threat which had been particularly emphasized in previous years – to fade into insignificance. Therefore, the critics of détente in the CDU/CSU faced the dilemma that it was impossible to continue portraying the SS-20 as a serious threat against Western Europe and, at the same time, to describe the Soviet willingness to eliminate this weapon as only a small concession. Social Democrats, members of the Green Party, and the peace movements faced the opposite problem. It was easiest for those who had ignored the Soviet arms build-up entirely and had concentrated mostly on opposing Western defence policy, to demand unilateral disarmament. These groups welcomed the turnaround in Soviet politics, since it underscored the rationale of their own demands. On the other hand, those who criticized the Western INF deployment as an overreaction to what was admittedly regarded as an unfair move by the Soviets had believed that non-deployment would lead the USSR to reduce her own arsenals. In order to make their point, this group, during the deployment debate of 1981–3, tended to hail every softening in the Soviet position as a substantial concession. In particular, the majority of the SPD now has to face the fact that Gorbachev was

200 Public opinion,domestic policies overturning positions which the Social Democrats themselves had supported in the debate as legitimate Soviet demands (e.g. the inclusion of third-country forces in American–Soviet agreement). Those on the West German left, who today sing Gorbachev’s praises, must be asked how critical they were of Brezhnev. The problem the SPD has with Gorbachev and ‘double zero’ is more complex, however. Many Social Democrats had believed that the rejection of INF deployment adopted at the party congress in Cologne in 1983 and the reorientation of the SPD’s security policy during the subsequent congresses (in Essen in 1984 and in Nuremberg in 1986) signalled the end of the ‘Schmidt era’.18 They were tempted to disassociate themselves from the period 1979–82, when the SPD was in power and had tolerated the dual-track decision. The history of the SPD’s security policy under Schmidt has caught up with the party once again. While it is impossible to prove that Gorbachev’s acceptance of the zero option came about solely as a result of Western INF deployment, it is even more difficult to argue convincingly that non-deployment in 1983 – which, in opposition to Schmidt, the SPD favoured at that time – would have led to something similar to the double-zero agreement. To put it the other way round: it is Gorbachev who forced the SPD to reassess Helmut Schmidt’s security policy, a policy which they would have preferred to forget once and for all. The second fundamental misjudgement in West Germany’s security debate concerns the evaluation of American politics. In the course of the domestic confrontation, deployment of the Pershing II and cruise missiles assumed a symbolic status for the German–American relationship which grew out of all proportion to the military significance of these weapons. Conservative advocates of INF deployment, the defence caucus of the Christian Democrats in particular, considered them a symbol of alliance cohesion and the visible strengthening of the American nuclear guarantee in an era of strategic parity. However, it is hard to determine whether the Pershing II had a ‘coupling’ or a ‘decoupling’ effect (both arguments were made in the debate). No matter how many American nuclear weapons are deployed in Western Europe, they cannot provide the certainty that a US president would use them for the defence of Western Europe, thus jeopardizing the survival of the American population. Indeed, this certainty is not necessary for deterrence purposes. It is sufficient that the Soviet Union cannot rule out the possibility that these weapons might be used. The ‘decoupling’ fears obviously stem from reasons which do not lie in considerations of ‘extended deterrence’ alone. First, deep-seated feelings of being threatened by the Soviet Union consequently lead to an increase in the

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 201 requirements of deterrence. Second, there seems to be an equally strong feeling of mistrust towards the United States. It was already apparent during first Chancellor Adenauer’s term, came up again in the debate between the Christian Democratic ‘Gaullists’ and the ‘Atlanticists’ in the 1960s19 and is possibly rooted in the traditional cultural anti-Americanism of German national-conservatives. This mistrust has been strengthened by President Reagan’s renunciation of the Pershing II, which the right wing of the CDU/CSU saw as a proof of his being first and foremost an American and only then their ideological partner. Some Christian Democrats even argued that the INF treaty reduces the nuclear risk for the United States, thereby increasing the danger for the Federal Republic.20 They pointed to the remaining Soviet short-range missiles – the Scud, Frog, and SS-21 – and called this the ‘singularization of the threat.’ The dangerous aspect of these arguments is that they accurately reflect emotions which were expressed by those on the opposite end of the political spectrum in West Germany in 1981–3. What the conservative critics of the INF treaty today term ‘singularization of the threat’ was referred to by the peace movements as ‘battlefield of the superpowers’. The pattern of thinking was similar: Germany as the innocent victim of the superpowers’ hegemony, then of the confrontation between Washington and Moscow, now of the new AmericanSoviet bilateralism. The following sentence could have been uttered during the controversy over the double-zero option: ‘If there is war in Europe, the superpowers will fight out to the end the World War which was interrupted in 1945, and that would mean the end of Europe.’21 An analogy is drawn here between the liberation of Germany from Hitler in 1945 by the four allies and a third world war between East and West. Alfred Mechtersheimer, former member of the Bavarian CSU and now Green Member of Parliament in Bonn, wrote this in 1982, and thus linked the revitalization of the National Socialist regime to the INF deployment. In the autumn of 1987, it was CSU chairman Franz Joseph Strauß who made a similar comparison between the Historikerdebatte (the ‘debate of the historians’ in the uniqueness of the Nazi crimes) and the criticism of the zero solution.22 Thus, in the aftermath of the INF treaty the peace movements and the West German left find themselves obliged to rethink their image of the United States and their perceptions of American politics, too. They viewed the Pershing II as a symbol of US arms build-up. If there was (aside from the general agreement to oppose deployment) any minimal consensus within the peace movements, this consensus focused on holding American policy responsible for the INF arms

202 Public opinion,domestic policies build-up. Some argued it was part of a first-strike and decapitating strategy of the United States against the Soviet Union, aimed at engaging in and winning a protracted nuclear war.23 Others did not accept the first-strike explanation but interpreted INF deployment as an attempt to confine the nuclear risk to Europe (just as the opponents of the zero option now criticize the elimination of the Pershings in the context of the ‘singularization’ concept). Western INF deployment was declared by large sections of the peace movements to be a crucial component of American nuclear strategy. To quote Mechtersheimer again: Thus this missile [Pershing II] together with the cruise missiles forms the most important instrument of the change in the American deterrence strategy, in which global deterrence is to be replaced by a greater number of regional deterrence systems.24 There is no question that the new US INF fitted into American nuclear strategy and its counterforce orientation aimed at flexible and selective options. Yet, it was grotesque to regard this as the cornerstone of the American deterrent, thereby ignoring the background of NATO’s dual-track decision. And now the most conservative president the United States has seen in years is willing to forego ‘the most important instrument’ of its nuclear strategy! The main opponents of the double-zero solution were to be found in Western Europe to which – as the ‘victim of American–Soviet confrontation’ – parts of the West German left had granted absolution from any responsibility for the nuclear arms race. To conclude, the INF treaty hopefully will be a healthy experience for all West Germans involved in the security debate. In the long run, it could result in a more rational evaluation of Soviet as well as American foreign policies. Double zero might force conservatives to re-evaluate their ‘decoupling’ anxieties, while the left should reconsider its image of the United States in light of the new situation.25

GESAMTKONZEPT OR INTEGRATING NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AND ARMS CONTROL IN POST-INF EUROPE The INF treaty has inevitably led to a re-evaluation of the role which nuclear weapons could or should play in the future NATO posture. The Bonn government, therefore, requested the alliance in summer 1987 to work out a ‘comprehensive concept’ (Gesamtkonzept) integrating arms control and deterrence requirements in

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 203 post-INF Europe. While the Gesamtkonzept originally served to postpone pending alliance decisions on the modernization of its short-range missiles, it soon gained momentum of its own, and rightly so. A comprehensive concept incorporating both nuclear deterrence and arms control is indeed badly needed to allow NATO to respond to the challenges posed by both Mikhail Gorbachev and the domestic changes in Western Europe. However, there is no West German consensus so far about the long-term role of nuclear weapons in Europe: 1 Conservative members of the strategy community and defence ministry officials still advocate the need for a ‘continuous spectrum of nuclear escalation’ in the sense of the traditional interpretation of the flexible response doctrine. This group, however, is less and less capable of commanding support for its position.26 2 The same group, supported by the defence caucus of the Christian Democratic Bundestag faction, also demands American nuclear weapons in Europe as the visible demonstration of the American security guarantee (‘coupling’). While it regarded the Pershings as a symbol of alliance cohesion, it now supports airbased or sea-launched cruise missiles capable of reaching Soviet targets as a second-best solution.27 3 The CDU/CSU, a majority of the FDP, and a minority group in the SPD continue to support nuclear weapons in Europe as the best means of war prevention in terms of ‘general deterrence’. While their requirements on numbers and types might change over time and vary according to the conventional situation, they maintain that a minimum of nuclear forces in Europe is required as weapons of last resort, no matter how far reaching conventional arms agreements are28. 4 The majority of the SPD and its security policy experts support the deployment of a – preferably sea-based – residual capability of nuclear weapons in Europe, unless arms control talks have stabilized the conventional situation. This position can be labelled ‘conditional denuclearization’. Once ‘structural nonoffensiveness’ on both sides is within reach, nuclear weapons in Europe would become obsolete.29 5 Finally, the Greens, the peace movements, and the SPD’s left wing continue to favour the ‘unconditional denuclearization’ of Europe. The SPD’s current party platform on security policy adopted at the party’s Münster 1988 congress can

204 Public opinion,domestic policies be read as a compromise between the unilateralists and those favouring conditional denuclearization.30 On the one hand, it is noteworthy that one-half of the political spectrum in West Germany today would support the – albeit conditional – denuclearization of Europe. On the other hand, as contradictory as the above-mentioned positions might be, only part of them are mutually exclusive. Others might be incompatible in the long run, while allowing for policy compromises for the time being (‘conditional denuclearization’ and ‘general deterrence’, for example). In fact, when American, British and French defence officials began to press for a NATO decision on the modernization of short-range missiles in 1987, they met with almost unanimous West German opposition. It marked the first time that Alfred Dregger, the conservative chairman of the CDU/CSU Bundestag faction, agreed on a security policy issue with the left-wing deputy chairman of the SPD, Oskar Lafontaine, and with Petra Kelly of the Greens. The shorter the ranges, the deader the Germans’ was a dictum quickly adopted by all political groups.31 Along with the above-mentioned notion of the ‘singularization of the threat’ it expressed a general sense of West Germany’s vulnerability to nuclear weapons and of the nation’s specific defence dilemma. However, the surprisingly unanimous West German consensus against new short-range missiles stems from different, even contradictory, motives. The defence caucus of the CDU/CSU, to begin with, did not change their minds about nuclear weapons and become nuclear pacifist during the debate. Rather, the opposition to modernization of short-range weapons stems from their ‘decoupling’ fears; these Christian Democrats do not want to pay what they see as the price of ‘double zero’. The replacement of the Pershing II missiles with modernized battlefield weapons confirm their worst assumptions about US policies and motives: the United States first removes the intermediate-range forces from Western Europe and then deploys new battlefield weapons in order to decouple itself from the nuclear risk in Central Europe. And West Germany, as always the ‘victim of the superpowers’, would have to pay the price. The Social Democrats – to say nothing of the Greens and the peace movements, who oppose nuclear weapons anyway – support triple zero. While there is no intra-party consensus on the future role of nuclear weapons in Europe, even Social Democrats who favour a ‘minimum extended deterrence’ see little deterrent value in battlefield and short-range missiles. The most recent SPD party congress in Münster in September 1988 firmly rejected Lance modernization.32

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 205 Chancellor Kohl and the mainstream Christian Democrats share the critical attitude of their party’s defence experts, but their motives are not the same. Along with Foreign Minister Genscher and the FDP, they prefer an arms control solution to the problem of both NATO and Soviet short-range missiles. Kohl’s problem is, however, that he does not want ‘triple zero’ either, which could ultimately lead to the total denuclearization of Europe. (In this sense, he shares the opposition of the French and the British governments against further ‘zero solutions’.) Genscher’s ideal solution would be to conduct follow-up talks on the short-range missiles not covered by the INF treaty in parallel with the ongoing negotiations on conventional and chemical weapons. These negotiations could then establish a common ceiling ‘at the lowest possible level’.33 Only in this context are Genscher and the FDP prepared to tolerate a modest modernization of NATO’s short-range missiles. Genscher’s position was finally accepted by the Federal government. On 10 February 1989, Chancellor Kohl went publicly on record to declare that Bonn prefers to postpone the decision on the modernization of the Lance missile until 1991–2. His argument was that deployment of a new short-range system could not take place before 1995 anyway. Why then take decisions now which might well become obsolete if the coming arms control negotiations show results?34 Because of Bonn’s resistance it is highly unlikely that NATO will take a firm decision on the deployment of new short-range systems before 1990. While the precise outcome of the NATO debate is not yet clear, a new Gesamtkonzept on deterrence and arms control could well contain the following elements. A first indication was given by the carefully worded communiqué of the NATO summit meeting in Brussels in March 1988. It emphasized the continuing validity of the Harmel two-pillar approach and accentuated the coupling role of both conventional and nuclear US forces in Europe. The communiqué also stated that NATO’s deterrence strategy is ‘based upon an appropriate mix of adequate and effective nuclear and conventional forces which will continue to be kept up to date where necessary’.35 A minimum nuclear force consisting of American, British and French systems would continue to hold a small set of targets in the Soviet Union at risk. The American contribution would probably consist of air-launched cruise missiles on medium-range aircraft based in Great Britain. As far as short-range nuclear systems are concerned, NATO seems to be prepared to withdraw unilaterally a significant number of nuclear artillery warheads following earlier cuts of 1,000 in 1979 and 1,400 in 1983 (Montebello decision).36 These cuts were originally proposed by the West Germans.37 They would not be made contingent upon progress in conventional arms control.

206 Public opinion,domestic policies Finally, a NATO consensus has still to be worked out concerning the future role of nuclear arms control in Europe. However, the notion of a ‘firewall’ between the INF treaty and negotiations on the remaining short-range missiles, which had been introduced by the British government during NATO’s consideration of the double-zero agreement, already belongs to the past. On the other hand, there is no allied consensus so far on how to proceed with nuclear arms control in Europe. While the March 1988 Brussels communiqué restated that there should be follow-on talks on short-range nuclear missiles in conjunction with the negotiations on conventional and chemical weapons,38 it has to be clarified what this vague formula means. The Bonn government would prefer negotiations on short-range missiles with ranges below 500 km, in parallel to the Conventional Stability Talks, but not dependent on their results. Provided that arms control would stop short of introducing new zero options, such a course of action could indeed be acceptable for the other Alliance partners. It is hardly conceivable that a ‘Montebello II’ decision which would try to ‘sell’ the modernization of short-range weapons by unilateral reductions in nuclear artillery would be accepted domestically without an arms control track. Such an approach would most probably cause public turmoil in the Federal Republic comparable with that of the early 1980s. Most people on the left and on the centre of the political debate argue that the United States and the Soviet Union should engage in arms control talks on short-range missiles before deployment decisions on new systems are taken, especially in the post-INF environment. CONCLUSIONS Future NATO decisions on nuclear weapons in Europe have to be aware of profound changes in the domestic as well as in the international environment of West European security policy, changes which have taken place over the last 10 years. First, there is the turnaround of Soviet foreign policy under Mikhail Gorbachev. Regarding nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union may be still aiming at the complete denuclearization of Europe as part of a shift towards conventional emphasis in its military doctrine.39 But, unlike Brezhnev, Gorbachev seems to be willing to pay a price for this, and, for the first time, the Soviet Union seems to take West European security interests seriously. As a consequence, NATO’s nuclear policy can no longer be justified by simply referring to a never-changing Soviet threat– be it the SS-20, Warsaw Pact tanks, or whatever. While Soviet intransigence helped NATO to carry out its INF deployment in 1983 despite peace

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 207 movement opposition and mass protests, Gorbachev’s flexibility has now to be taken into account when it comes to new decisions. Second, the domestic debates in Western Europe, especially in West Germany, set the following framework for future nuclear decisions which must be taken into account if public turmoil is to be prevented. Nuclear weapons are only acceptable in terms of general deterrence. Any significant military role of nuclear forces in the defence of Western Europe will continue to meet harsh opposition by large segments of the public as well as the national security elites. Thus, an interpretation of the ‘flexible response’ doctrine, emphasizing nuclear flexibility, selectivity and a ‘continuous spectrum of escalation’, cannot provide a basis to gather sufficient support any longer. Efforts to compensate for the loss of nuclear flexibility in the aftermath of the INF treaty will, on the contrary, almost inevitably lead to the same domestic controversies which NATO had to face during the early 1980s. The general as well as the organized public and the overwhelming majorities of the national security elites in West Germany take NATO’s ‘Harmel approach’ seriously. Future modernizations of NATO’s nuclear arsenals will therefore only be acceptable if complemented by an arms control policy. Efforts to establish ‘firewalls’ are the best means to revive the peace movements and, in the absence of Soviet intransigence, to guarantee the failure of future NATO decisions on nuclear forces. On the other hand, there is still no consensus on the long-term role of nuclear weapons. The West German left – the SPD, the Greens and the peace movements – favour the denuclearization of Europe, at least in the long run, the internal division being between those who support unilateral disarmament and those who would like to see conventional stability first. Most of the Christian Democrats continue to support the deployment of nuclear forces in Western Europe as a means of general deterrence, even if conventional stability were achieved. While this controversy might be important in the long run, it is almost negligible in the short term when it comes to the next steps. The controversy surrounding the modernization of NATO’s short-range arsenals has led so far to an, albeit superficial, almost unanimous West German consensus against any decision prior to 1990. If there is one lesson to be learned from the INF history by NATO governments, it is that the times when deterrence decisions could be made without seriously considering arms control solutions are definitely over: If the Alliance is so much concerned about the effects Gorbachev’s arms control proposals might

208 Public opinion,domestic policies have on Western publics, it should respond with credible counter-proposals. Public relations campaigns will not help. NOTES 1 For details see Risse-Kappen, Thomas (1988) The Zero Option, INF, West Germany, and Arms Control, Boulder CO: Westview Press. 2

Schmidt, Helmut (1978) ‘Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture’, Survival 20:1: 2-10.

3 For details on the American decision-making process see Talbott, Strobe (1984) Deadly Gambits, New York: Knopf, part 1. 4 For details see Hans Rattinger’s article in this volume. 5 For a sophisticated version of this argument see Nerlich, Uwe (1980) ‘Theater nuclear forces in Europe: Is NATO running out of options?’, Washington Quarterly 3:1: 100–25. 6 The most outspoken criticism came from the Bavarian CSU and its chairman at the time, Franz Joseph Strauß. See, for example, ‘Die Null-Lösung II ist falsch’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2 September 1987. For an account of the debate see Risse-Kappen, op. cit. note 1, pp. 124–43. 7 For the following see Sharp, Jane M.O. (1987) ‘After Reykjavik: Arms control and the allies’, International Affairs 63:2: 239–57. Her argument is based on a theoretical model of alliance relations presented by Snyder, Glenn (1984) ‘The security dilemma in alliance politics’, World Politics 36:4: 461– 95. 8 The overall approach of this group to security policy can be labelled ‘peace through strength’, since détente and arms control play only a minor role in its deliberations. For details see Risse-Kappen, Thomas (1988) Die Krise der Sicherheitspolitik.

Neuorientierungen

und

Entscheidungsprozesse

im

politischen System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1977–84, Mainz– München: Grünewald-Kaiser, pp. 90–7. 9 ‘Military security and a policy of détente are not contradictory but complementary’, The Future Tasks of the Alliance, Report of the North Atlantic Council, December 1967. 10 See Kubbig, Bernd W. (1983) Gleichgewicht oder Uberlegenheit. Amerikanische Rüstungskontrollpolitik und das Scheitern von SALT II, Frankfurt/M.:

Campus;

Meier,

Ernst-Christoph

(1986)

Deutsch–

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 209 amerikanische Sicherheitsbeziehungen und der NATO-Doppelbeschluss, 2 vols, Rheinfelden: Schäuble-Verlag. 11 For details see Risse-Kappen, Krise der Sicherheitspolitik, op. cit., pp. 123– 43. 12 See, for example, his speech at the CSU party congress in Munich, 20–21 June 1980, Bayernkurier 28 June 1980. 13 Manfred Wörner, for example, Kohl’s first defence minister (currently NATO’s secretary general), can be counted among those who firmly believe in the ‘peace through strength’ concept. 14 For details see Risse-Kappen, Zero Option, op. cit., pp. 124–43. 15 For a balanced account of the developments within the CDU/CSU see Clemens, Clay (1988) ‘The CDU/CSU and arms control’, in Barry Blechman and Cathleen Fisher (eds) The Silent Partner. West Germany and Arms Control, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, pp. 61–127. 16 Meier, Deutsch–amerikanische Sicherheitsbeziehungen, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 444; see also Haftendorn, Helga (1985) ‘Das doppelte Mißerständnis. Zur Vorgeschichte des NATO-Doppelbeschlusses’, Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte no. 2, pp. 244–87. 17 An interesting example is Lothar Ruehl, at the time undersecretary of defence in Bonn. While he portrayed the SS-20 as an entirely new threat in his book on INF which came out in 1987, he argued during the debate on double zero that the USSR could easily give up the SS-20, because it now had the SS-24 and SS-25 missiles available. See Ruehl, Lothar (1987) Mittelstreckenwaffen in Europa, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 115–32, and ‘Wohlberechnete Züge im Raketenschach’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 23 June 1987. 18 For details see Risse-Kappen, Krise der Sicherheitspolitik, op. cit., pp. 152– 71, 261–76. 19 For an excellent review of this debate see Grabbe, Hans Jörg (1983) Unionsparteien, Sozialdemokratie und Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika 1945– 1966, Düsseldorf: Droste. 20 See, for example, a paper by the Bavarian CSU on the double-zero option: ‘Die Null-Lösung II ist falsch’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2 September 1987. 21 Mechtersheimer, Alfred (1982) Rüstung und Frieden, München: LangenMüller/Herbig, p. 88. 22 At a CSU party congress in Munich, see Süddeutsche Zeitung 23 November 1987; for an analysis of nationalist arguments in the peace movements see

210 Public opinion,domestic policies Diner, Dan (1982) ‘Die “nationale Frage” in der Friedensbewegung’, in Die Neue Friedensbewegung. Friedensanalysen 16; Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, pp. 86–112. 23 This argument was even made by some peace researchers, see Lutz, Dieter S. (1987) ‘Dolus eventualis. Überlegungen zur Gefahr eines bedingt vorsätzlichen Welt-Krieges in und um Europa’, in Kriegsursachen, Friedensanalysen 21, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, pp. 294–307. 24 Mechtersheimer, Rüstung und Frieden, op. cit., p. 120. 25 For an attempt to explain anti-American feelings within the West German left and the peace movements see Müller, Harald and Rise-Kappen, Thomas (1987) ‘Origins of estrangement. The peace movement and the changed image of America in West Germany’, International Security 12:1: 52–88. 26 For a good summary of these arguments see Kamp, Karl-Heinz (1988) Nukleare Kurzstreckenwaffen in Europa – Abschaffen oder Modernisieren?, Interne Studien Nr.10, Bonn/St.Augustin: Forschungsinstitut der KonradAdenauer-Stiftung. See also the recommendations of NATO’s High Level Group ‘Neue Waffen empfohlen’, Frankfurter Rundschau 28 October 1988. 27 See, for example, Alfred Dregger’s Address at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of the Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, 5 May 1988, manuscript, p. 9. 28 See, for example, Rühe, Volker (1987) ‘Perspektiven der Friedenssicherung in Europa’, Europa-Archiv 42:23: 675–82; ‘Unionsfraktion dringt auf Entscheidung über Abrüstungskurs’, Frankfurter Rundschau 1 December 1988. 29 See,

for

example,

‘Verminderung

der

Atomwaffen

bis

zur

“Minimalabschreckung”’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 24 May 1988. 30 See ‘Übersicht über die Beschlüsse des Parteitages in Münster. Teil 7: Außen, Friedens-, Sicherheits- und Deutschlandpolitik’, Parteitag der SPD in Münster 30 August – 2 September 1988. 31 It was introduced in the debate by Volker Rühe, the deputy chairman of the Christian Democratic Bundestag faction, during the double-zero debate in spring 1987. For the following see also Asmus, Ronald (1988) ‘West Germany faces nuclear modernisation’, Survival 30:6: 499–514. 32 See ‘Übersicht über die Beschlüsse’, op. cit., The SPD’s opposition to battlefield nuclear weapons dates back to the ‘neutron bomb’ debate of 1977– 8. 33 This concept was first spelled out by Wolfgang Ischinger who, until very

Towards an anti-nuclear consensus 211 recently, was a close aide to Genscher in the Foreign Ministry. See Ischinger, Wolfgang (1988) ‘Jenseits der Abschreckung? Nuklearwaffen, Rütungskontrolle und die Zukunft Europas’, Europa-Archiv: 12: 339–48. 34 See ‘Bonn is deferring decision on missile’, New York Times 11 February1989. 35 See ‘Declaration of the Heads of State and Governments participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels’, 2–3 March 1988. 36 A first indication was given by Supreme Allied Commander Europe John Galvin in August 1988. See New York Times 11 August1988. 37 See Rühe, ‘Perspektiven der Friedenssicherung’, op. cit. Lamers, Karl (1988) ‘Konventionelle Abrüstung in Europa’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B 43:18: 12–20. 38 See the Brussels communiqué, op. cit. 39 See MccGwire, Michael (1987) Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

9 Up (or down) on arms: American and Canadian public attitudes in the mid1980s Don Munton

INTRODUCTION If arms control is, as Clausewitz might have said, ‘a continuation of politics by a mutual restraint on military means’,1 then, like all international politics in this interdependent age, it must have a domestic side. Yet the study of arms control only rarely touches seriously on questions of popular demands and pressures, or of domestic support and consent. The reasons why the study of arms control matters has afforded so little attention to that of public opinion on arms control seem to rest partly in the perspective from which students of military strategy stalk their subject and partly from the way in which purveyors of public opinion present theirs. The former usually assume the general public is much too ill-informed to comprehend the complexities and subtleties of their subject, and thus assume the public has little in the way of logically related ideas about arms control. If strategists think of public opinion as having any substantive content, they tend to regard it, among other evils, as something of a threat to the dual need for rational choice and bargaining flexibility in the making of national security policy. The latter, for their part, generally do so little with their basic polling data on security and arms control issues as to give the former cause to reconsider their assumptions.2 And yet, there is mounting evidence that public attitudes are having an important impact on arms control and disarmament policies. The evidence, of a largely anecdotal sort, to be sure, stems from evident public pressures to conclude the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty,3 and from the more recent debate, at least in some NATO countries, concerning the modernization of short-range nuclear forces. If public opinion is having some impact, or even if it is only thought to be having some effect, then there is clearly a need to improve our

American and Canadian public attitudes 213 understanding of this confused corner of the security policy landscape. What one strategist has said about the subject of arms control and disarmament itself – that it ‘has been an arena for much of the compelling interplay of optimism and pessimism, realism and utopianism, naivete and sophistication, and fascination and frustration which has characterised thinking about peace and security in the nuclear age’4– is at least as true of the subject of public opinion on arms control and disarmament. If the Western general public can be found to exhibit logically related ideas on arms control issues, these are presumably a reflection, albeit perhaps a pale one, of conventional expert thinking and the ongoing policy debates about these matters. To be sure, there is no suggestion here whatsoever that the average member of the mass public has the detailed technical knowledge of the expert in strategic studies or arms control. The precise specifications and relative capabilities of the Pershing II or the SS-20 missiles, for example, are obviously not matters on which the mass public is well informed. It is suggested here, however, that the fundamental ideas underlying the thinking in the expert literature on these issues are not beyond the ken of the average person. The appropriate place to begin, then, is to review briefly, and in their most basic form, the key policy arguments of strategists, arms control and disarmament theorists, and others. From these a simple model of ‘strategic thinking’ on arms control will be constructed with which some data on public opinion can be analysed.5 STRATEGY AND ARMS CONTROL The non-political arguments for arms control and disarmament come in a variety of forms, from the ethical case that war, and thus the preparation for war, is immoral, to the socio-economic case that both arms and war are wasteful of human and material resources and deleterious to social development.6 These arguments are often complex and subtle, and, at any rate, lie outside the realm of this chapter. The political case, with which present concerns rest, appears rather more straightforward. After the First World War, as Hedley Bull observes, ‘disarmament doctrine’, placing less emphasis on the economic costs of weapons, ‘has had as its core the notion that armaments and, in particular, armaments races are a cause of war’.7 The variants of the argument are many; the essence the same. ‘Whether the inevitability of the result be attributed to the frailty of human nature, the rationality or the irrationality of government leaders, the inherent

214 Public opinion, domestic policies combustibility of counter-posed military forces, or the inscrutable workings of history, the point is the same’, notes Inis Claude, ‘the theorists of disarmament are convinced that arms races cause wars.’ The prescription is therefore clear. Reduce arms and the likelihood of war will be reduced. To abolish or reduce and limit armaments, and to halt or otherwise control armaments races’, as Bull says, ‘is to contribute to international security.’ Or as Claude summarizes the disarmers’ case, ‘the elimination of national armaments, or the limitation of competitive military development so as to keep force levels at a very low point, offers mankind’s best hope for a peaceful world’.8 Although there is some historical empirical evidence to support the proponents of disarmament,9 military strategists and the realists such as Claude and Hans J. Morgenthau remain unconvinced that arms are a causal factor in the onset of wars. Some nevertheless accept the proposition that arms races exacerbate interstate tensions and thus that disarmament will reduce such fears and suspicions and stabilize the balance of power. ‘As the armaments race aggravates the struggle for power through the fear it generates and the burdens it imposes’, notes Morgenthau, ‘so disarmament contributes to the improvement of the political situation by lessening political tensions and by creating confidence in the purposes of the respective nations.’10 Or, as strategic analyst Lawrence Freedman has put it, arms control ‘in principle . . . provides an opportunity . . . to head off dangerous new weapons developments and to create the conditions for preventing future crises from turning into war’.11 The conventional critique of disarmament theories is that they are fundamentally mistaken in identifying arms as the cause of wars. Weapons, it is asserted, are the instruments with which wars are fought, not the determinants from which they arise. The disarmament thesis’, according to Inis Claude, ‘is subject to the fundamental criticism that it confuses germs with symptoms, causes and effects, means and ends.’ In fact, ‘armament policy reflects rather than creates the ambitions, antagonisms, and fears which underlie the phenomenon of war’.12 ‘Men do not fight because they have arms’, Morgenthau argues similarly; They have arms because they deem it necessary to fight.’13 The perceived ‘necessity’ to fight and the ‘ambitions, antagonisms and fears’ which underlie that perception, require, of course, the existence of an adversary or adversaries. States seldom have difficulty identifying some source of potential threat to their security, and conflicting interests, perhaps too often, are readily perceived.14 It is not the weapons at hand, then, but these conflicting interests and

American and Canadian public attitudes 215 the inevitable struggle for power in the anarchic international systemthat lead to wars. It is thus argued, for example, that the current ‘East–West antagonism derives from genuine conflicts of interest and ideology, and . . . will therefore persist until these conflicts are resolved’. It is, Lawrence Freedman notes, ‘much more than a creature of the arms race’.15 If an abundance of weaponry and the likelihood of war are only either indirectly or spuriously related, armaments are nevertheless central to the struggle for power and to the stability of the international system. Arms, and thus disarmament, are at the very heart of the security problem of independent entities. And such is as true of the contemporary world as it was of nineteenth-century Europe or the Greek city-state system. For Morgenthau and the realists, armaments and the armaments race ‘are a manifestation – and one of the most important manifestations – of the struggle for power on the international scene’.16 As long as armaments are a primary determinant of national power, ‘all politically active nations must be intent upon acquiring as much power as they can, that is, among other things, upon being as well armed as they can’.17 It thus follows that the reduction or limitation of weaponry, as much as its build-up, is part of, and has a direct effect upon, the struggle for power amongst those nations. It is this intimate relationship between arms, power and security that explains not only the interest states can demonstrate both in proposals for arms control and disarmament and in negotiations on these matters but also the difficulties states often encounter with accepting proposals and concluding negotiations. With their very security at stake, governments tend to be cautious – most strategists would say justifiably cautious – about accepting constraints on, or reductions in, their military power and the primary means they have of ensuring their security. During the 1950s and 1960s, for example, ‘disarmament talks [became] peripheral activities of states whose serious business is the building of national strength’.18 As a result, while disarmament conferences and negotiations have been a common feature of the post-war period, successful agreements have been rare. Governments, it seems, are more interested in convening such negotiations than concluding them, and more interested in rhetoric than ratification. The widespread and evident interest in talking about disarmament stems directly from the pursuit of objectives other than those of genuine arms control or disarmament. These may include increasing one’s international prestige or preventing the loss of such prestige as might occur if one showed disinterest, maintaining alliance solidarity, or even maintaining existing weapons systems and

216 Public opinion, domestic policies stocks rather than having them reduced. Pretense mixes with politics. ‘The fact that so little has changed over the decade’, notes Lawrence Freedman, ‘may be a source more of satisfaction than of regret to those actually engaged in many of the key negotiations.’19 Yet another acknowledged objective of governments negotiating arms control and disarmament is the reassurance of public opinion, that is management of the domestic rather than the external political environment. ‘The conduct of political warfare about arms control, the cultivation of a favourable public image in relation to disarmament’, Bull has argued, ‘is a constant preoccupation of all governments concerned in arms control negotiations’.20 And what matters politically is that one appears to be negotiating, not that one is successful. ‘The value of arms control to governments’, observes Freedman, ‘often lies in the reassuring spectacle of negotiation, rather than in any concrete achievements.’21 Beliefs in the domestic political value of negotiating arms control and disarmament stem apparently from two common assumptions: first, that public opinion supports these sorts of measures, and second, that this opinion is susceptible to management – or manipulation – by governments. For some analysts public support for disarmament seems unqualified, perhaps even unquestioning and insatiable. For others it is at least, in moderate doses, a given. ‘Although disarmament has been unsuccessful, and is generally dismissed by the strategic cognoscente’, notes one of their number, ‘it nonetheless remains a popular idea.’22 At the same time – indeed, in almost the same breath – some strategic analysts at least imply that ‘bad’ arms control and disarmament agreements can be unpopular domestically and lead to effective, mobilized opposition.23 BUILDING THE MODEL: ENEMIES, CAPABILITIES, THREAT, WAR AND WEAPONS The essential underlying assumption of realist and strategic writings about international politics, disarmament and arms control is, as Bull put it, that ‘the world of sovereign states which are armed and divided is a dangerous one, in which there is no absolute security from war and defeat’.24 Four fundamental concepts arise from this premise and assume a prominence in these writings. Each of these concepts is presumed to play an important role in the calculation by decision-makers of national security policies. They may, therefore, be

American and Canadian public attitudes 217 hypothesized to play a role also in the public’s thinking, and ininfluencing the security policy preferences that individuals adopt. It is to these specific concepts and the linkages between them that we now turn. The object is to build a theoretical model of attitudes and policy preferences regarding security. One of these four key concepts is the danger of attack or war. As Hans Morgenthau noted, The generally professed and most frequent actual motive for armaments is fear of attack, that is, a feeling of insecurity.’25 The security policy prescription here is clear. Si vis pacem, para bellum; if you want peace, prepare for war – a lesson passed on from the Greeks and Romans, and one repeated, for example, by George Washington, Ronald Reagan and many others in between. The underlying principle, of course, is that of deterrence. If there is a danger of war from an external threat, then prudence dictates the build-up of armaments to dissuade the would-be attacker. Although an elaborate structure of concepts, terminology and argumentation has grown up in the post-war period around the conundrum of nuclear deterrence, the essential idea is the same whether the instruments are conventional or nuclear: deterrence requires one to be sufficiently armed to be able to inflict costs on a would-be attacker greater than any potential benefits to be gained by that attacker. Thus, one hypothesis in the model is: a perceived danger of attack or war will increase the support for armaments and lessen the support for arms control. The obverse in this case, as in those below, is implied; to be explicit, it is as follows: the lack of a perceived danger of attack or war will increase the support for arms control and lessen the support for armaments. It might be noted that the latter, obverse, proposition is as much a strategically derived argument as the former. There is another side to the coin, of course. ‘The fear of war has provided [disarmament] movements in recent years with an impetus much more powerful than the feeling that armaments are a waste’26– namely, the familiar argument that preparing for war through building up armaments will lead to increased tensions and make war more likely. The point, in part, is not disputed. Lawrence Freedman has argued that contemporary arms control theory as it emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s ‘was based on a simple insight: despite their deep-rooted antagonism, East and West shared a critical interest in avoiding war, particularly nuclear war’.27 Thus, to the extent that arms control is part of conventional strategic thought, there is an acceptance of the principle that controls of various sorts can reduce the likelihood of unintended attack or war. The contrary hypothesis to that above, then, is: a perceived danger of unintended attack or war

218 Public opinion, domestic policies will increase the support for arms control and lessen the support for armaments. Perhaps the most obvious of strategic concepts are those of the enemy, the entity with which there are serious conflicts of interest or with which the struggle for power is being conducted, and the assumed motivations of that adversary. Without at least a potential threat from an identified enemy, security policies are less than problematic and there is little obvious externally based need for armaments. With such a threat security policies can become crucial. By the realist logic, the need for weaponry is unarguable in a world characterized by the pursuit of self-interest and disorder – a world ‘armed and divided’ in Bull’s phrase. It follows that hostile policies on the part of the enemy and a perceived threat will increase the perceived danger of war, increase the support for armaments and lessen the support for arms control. Another important concept is the military strength of the nation vis-à-vis its adversaries, or, in other words, for the superpowers, the prevailing military ‘balance’. For Hedley Bull, indeed, this is the fundamental concept; ‘the subject matter of arms control negotiations,’ he said, ‘is the balance of military power’.28 The crucial aspect, then, is not merely the military capability of the nation itself, but the comparison with that of its adversary. ‘Power is a relative phenomenon’, Claude notes, ‘and it lies in the nature of politics that statesmen should be more profoundly concerned with the ratio of its distribution than the absolute levels of its development.’29 Or, as Morgenthau argued, ‘What is at stake in the armaments race between A and B is the ratio of the armaments of both nations. Shall A and B be equal in armaments, or shall A be superior to B, or vice versa, and if so, to what extent?’30 Thus, if one’s own strength is less than that of the enemy’s, there will be a greater perceived threat, and a greater perceived danger of war, and thus increased support for armaments and less support for arms control. Correspondingly, if security is enhanced by one’s own military strength, even if not assured by superiority, then interest in arms control will be greater than in the presence of a military imbalance.31 It might appear by this point that the focus here has drifted well off that of public opinion. Not so. The underlying hunch of this exercise is that public attitudes on security policy, and arms control in particular, may well reflect the basic kind of thinking to be found in the expert debates on these matters. That is, within the general public of the various Western countries there may exist sets of logically interrelated ideas – a logic of security policy – which reflects, albeit in simple terms, the logic underlying conventional, realist, strategic appreciations.

American and Canadian public attitudes 219 This logic is reflected in the hypotheses advanced above. Simply put, it is hypothesized here that one’s support for arms control depends on a perceived threat (i.e. an enemy with both hostile intent and capability) and a perceived danger of war. There is no suggestion that a public consensus exists on these matters, or that most, let alone everyone, in the mass public will agree on all these judgements. On the contrary, and despite the prevailing tendency to read into public opinion polls a consensus that is most often not there, differences in views across individuals are to be expected. The assumption here is that the interrelationships amongst these perceptions and attitudes, when investigated directly in public opinion data, will reveal some important elements of what might be called the ‘logic’ of Western public thinking on security issues. The United States public opinion data was obtained from a January 1985 Columbia Broadcasting System–New York Times (CBS–NYT) survey that anticipated the restarting of the Geneva arms control talks and, of course, preceded the late 1985 Reagan–Gorbachev summit meeting in that city.32 The Canadian data employed here was obtained from a mid-1987 survey designed by the present author and funded by the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security.33 The choice of these two particular surveys was dictated by strict theoretical considerations; it was essential that they asked, first of all, questions relevant to the outlined concepts and hypotheses and, second, many of the same questions or close equivalents, thus allowing for a comparative analysis.34

American perceptions and attitudes Among the questions asked on the 1985 American survey were ones concerning perceptions of the Soviet threat, Soviet and American capabilities and actions, and the chances of nuclear war, and preferences concerning whether or not the United States should be superior militarily to the Soviet Union. The survey also explored attitudes on whether or not increases in nuclear weaponry provide an advantage to the USA or USSR. Given its centrality to the ideas of arms control, this last question was used here as the policy preference to be explained. For the most part these questions were similar but not identical to the wording of ones on the Canadian polls. While the two sets of questions are sufficiently parallel to allow comparison of attitude structures, the differences, though usually slight, should be

220 Public opinion, domestic policies Table 9.1 Comparison of American and Canadian attitudes on arms control USA (%) Military strength: USSR superior parity USA superior USSR interest in disarmament: yes/are interested no/are not interested USA interest in disarmament: yes/are interested no/are not interested Soviet threat: USSR a threat USSR not a threat Danger of war: likely/much danger unlikely/not much danger Position on arms control: more nuclear weapons an advantage not an advantage

Canada (%)

31 50 18

31 62 7

100

100

42 58

46 54

100

100

80 20

37 63

100

100

56 44

58 42

100

100

27 72 100

55 46 100

33 67 100

Reductions would increase security Reductions would not increase security

82 18 100

Sources: CBS–NYT survey, January 1985; CIIPS–Munton survey, June–August 1987 Notes: Non-responses and ‘don’t knows’ were eliminated from the percentages shown here. The arms control questions results are shown separately to emphasize the point that the questions on the two surveys, while similar in thrust, were not identical in wording.

kept in mind when the marginal percentage results are compared. (For marginal percentages for the questions on each survey, see table 9.1.) For most of the Cold War period the bulk of the American public has regarded the USSR as their major enemy and military threat. That perception had by no means disappeared by the mid-1980s. Asked in the CBS survey whether the Soviet Union was a growing military threat, most Americans (56 per cent) said it

American and Canadian public attitudes 221 was, while 44 per cent said it was not. Asked about the likelihood of nuclear war in 10 years, though, most said it was unlikely. Slightly more than one-quarter (27 per cent) thought it very or somewhat likely; the rest (72 per cent) thought it unlikely or very unlikely. With respect to military strength, a bare majority (50 per cent) expressed the view that the United States and the Soviet Union were about equal. About one in three Americans (31 per cent) thought the United States was weaker, while about one in five (18 per cent) thought it superior. With respect to perceived Soviet and American policy motivations, the questions used here concern each superpower’s interest in arms control. The assumption is that this perceived interest is a reflection of broader foreign policy motivations.35 The actual questions asked were as follows: ‘Do you think the Russian leaders really want an arms control agreement with the United States now or not?’ and ‘Do you think Ronald Reagan really wants an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union now or not?’ A clear majority of decided Americans retained a negative view of the USSR in this respect. Almost six in ten (58 per cent) did not think Soviet leaders want arms control; the remainder (42 per cent) were more positive in their perceptions.36 In contrast, the vast majority, fully eight in every ten (80 per cent), believed their own president was indeed genuinely interested in arms control with the USSR. Only a small minority (20 per cent) disagreed, many fewer than the proportion who disapproved, for example, of the same president’s handling of foreign policy. This endorsement is presumably due more to the appeal and standing of Reagan personally – at the time of the CBS–NYT survey, recently reelected in a landslide victory – than to his Administration’s first-term attitude toward arms control itself, which at that point seemed at best indifferent. Among other policy-oriented questions, the respondents to the CBS–NYT survey were asked the following: ‘Do you think the United States and the Soviet Union already have so many nuclear weapons that it doesn’t really matter which country has more or do you think further increases in nuclear weapons could give one country a real advantage over the other?’ Americans are evidently split on this issue: two-thirds (67 per cent) agree there is no advantage while one-third (33 per cent) believe there is an advantage to having more nuclear weapons. This is, of course, a key policy question, one at the core of many defence-related debates in the United States. It is as well basic to arguments about arms control and disarmament and thus central to the present enquiry. The result when this data is fitted to the theoretical model outlined earlier is

222 Public opinion, domestic policies shown in figure 9.1. Arrows are used to indicate relationships between two concepts, and the strength of each bivariate relationship (technically, the d value) is also shown.37 The perceptions and preferences of Americans on these matters are clearly interrelated and, as we shall see, interrelated in what is, strategically speaking, a logical manner. As predicted in the model, perceptions of relative military strength are, first of all, related to perceptions of Soviet objectives on arms control, to perceptions of a Soviet threat, and to concerns about a nuclear war. Those who see the USSR as militarily stronger than the USA tend to be more negative in their perceptions of Soviet motivations, more likely to perceive the Soviets as a threat, and more concerned about the likelihood of war. Those who regard the USSR as militarily stronger also tend to believe more nuclear weapons will provide an advantage. (As these results show symmetrical associations they can be interpreted inversely as well. Thus, those who thought that the USA was on par militarily with the USSR or that it was the stronger also were more likely to perceive a Soviet interest in arms control, to deny the USSR was an immediate danger, to regard war as unlikely and to believe that it did not really matter which country had more nuclear weapons.) Perceptions of Soviet interest in arms control are also related to perceived threat and danger of war, as well as to attitudes about nuclear weapons. Those who regarded the Soviet Union negatively tended more to identify it as the greatest threat to peace, and both of these groups regarded war as more likely than those with less negative perceptions of Soviet objectives and those who did not regard it as a growing threat. And those with a negative perception of Soviet arms control motivations were much more likely to believe there were advantages to having more nuclear weapons. In contrast, perceptions of a lack of interest by President Reagan in arms control are related to seeing war as more likely but not to attitudes on nuclear weapons. Third, and again as predicted, those who perceive the USSR as an immediate danger also have more concern about a nuclear war and believe more nuclear weapons are advantageous. As noted above, perceiving a Soviet threat is based in part at least on perceiving a Soviet military superiority and no Soviet interest in arms control. In contrast to the potency of their perceptions of the Soviet Union, Americans’ positive or negative perceptions of their own country’ sactions were not significantly related to either the danger of war or policy preferences.

American and Canadian public attitudes 223 Figure 9.1 Model of American attitudes towards arms control, 1985

224 Public opinion, domestic policies It thus appears from these results that Americans’ policy preferences regarding nuclear weapons are very much driven by their perceptions of a Soviet–American military imbalance, of Soviet motivations, of a Soviet threat and of a danger of war. Seeing a hostile and stronger USSR, and thus a likelihood of war, in short, leads to a preference for greater, not less, military capability. On the other hand, a less hostile image and a perceived rough parity in strength leads to a belief that there is no advantage to having more nuclear weapons.38 What is said of the policy-makers on both sides therefore appears generally true for the American public as well: they ‘tend to judge the state of their relationship by reference to the overall military balance, especially the nuclear balance, and the extent to which they or their allies seem to be in conflict around the globe’.39 In one respect at least, however, there is a failing in the American public’s logic with respect to its ‘realist’ qualities: those who regard the USSR as militarily superior tend strongly to believe the Soviets are not interested in arms control. This is a psychologically consistent negative image, but it is not a ‘correct’ realist view. The realist school predicts that militarily superior actors will, in fact, be much interested in disarmament because such arrangements will tend to freeze what is for them a desirable status quo. Americans may be realist in judging their own policies but seem to find more difficulty imputing the same logic to the other side.

Canadian perceptions and Western policies As noted above, the Canadian survey posed similar or identical questions to those used on the American one. The respondents were similarly asked whether the Soviet Union and its allies are ‘superior, inferior, or roughly equal to the military strength of the United States and its allies?’ A strong majority (62 per cent) believed them to be roughly equal – a judgement shared, of course, by a substantial number of experts in this area. A strong minority (31 per cent) regarded the Soviet Union as superior – a judgement also shared by some other experts. Only a small proportion (7 per cent) thought it inferior militarily. As were their American counterparts, Canadian respondents were asked regarding both USSR and USA interest in disarmament and arms control. The precise wording of the questions was: ‘Some people believe that the Soviet (or, alternatively, American) leaders do not genuinely want disarmament. Other people believe that they do genuinely want disarmament. Which of these views is closest to your own?’ A majority of respondents perceived each leadership as not wanting

American and Canadian public attitudes 225 disarmament, though more thus perceived American leaders (63 per cent) than so perceived Soviet leaders (54 per cent). Fewer regarded the American leadership as genuinely interested in disarmament than regarded the Soviets as such (37 per cent to 46 per cent).40 Given these perceptions of relative capabilities and of motivations, to what extent do Canadians regard the Soviet Union as a threat to their security? Asked to agree or disagree with the statement that the Soviet military represents a ‘real, immediate threat to the West’, most (58 per cent) either strongly agreed or agreed; the rest, a sizeable minority (42 per cent), disagreed but few did so strongly. Few Canadians, it seems, regard the USSR as the greatest threat to their security but most at the same time regard it as one such possible threat.41 It is a truism to say that the spectre of a nuclear catastrophe has hung over the entire post-war period, and of this constant and dominating fact of the present age the Canadian public is well aware. The 1987 Canadian respondents were asked, simply, whether there is much danger of nuclear war or not much danger. Slightly more believed there was much (55 per cent) than not much (46 per cent) danger. These levels of concern appear appreciably higher than those of the previous decade but about the same as those of the early 1960s. How then to preserve the peace? On a variety of policy measures, Canadians generally opposed increases and supported reductions of nuclear weapons. Among these queries was whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: The security of Western countries could best be increased by substantial reductions in both American and Soviet nuclear weapons.’ Fully 80 per cent agreed or strongly agreed. Almost all the rest disagreed rather than strongly disagreed. To put this point succinctly, Canadians no longer believe in a basic maxim of international politics – that more weapons make us more secure – at least with respect to nuclear weapons.42 The 1987 Canadian data was fitted to the same theoretical model as used for the American attitudes; the results are shown in figure 9.2. As in the American case, Canadians’ appreciations of the superpower military balance are related to their perceptions of Soviet interest in arms control and of the USSR as a threat. Those who believe the Soviets hold the edge tend more to regard them as uninterested in arms control and as a threat. The impact of perceptions of the military balance on the former, the evaluation of interest in arms control, however, is substantially less than in the American data. (The respective d values are 0.08 for Canadians versus 0.19 for Americans.)

226 Public opinion, domestic policies Figure 9.2 Model of Canadian attitudes towards arms control, 1987

American and Canadian public attitudes 227 In stark contrast to the American pattern, Canadians appear overall not to make a connection between the military balance and the likelihood of war. Nor does there seem to be any impact on basic arms control attitudes. Those who see the Soviet Union as militarily stronger do not tend more than those who see a rough parity or American superiority to regard a nuclear war as likely or to oppose reductions. Canadian images of Soviet and American interest in arms control are, as those of Americans, related to perceptions of threat, to concerns about nuclear war, and also to arms control policy preferences.43 In both cases, for the USA and the USSR, those who find some genuine interest also find less danger of war. Also similarly, and even more strongly, Canadians who are more positive about Soviet motivations on arms control are less inclined to perceive a growing and immediate Soviet threat. And, of course, conversely, those who are sceptical about the professed Soviet interest in arms control see more danger of war as a threat. Canadians as much as Americans, moreover, make connections between a Soviet threat and the likelihood of war. Those who regard the USSR as an immediate threat tend more to believe there is much danger of war; those who do not, see not much danger. Also similar to American thinking, those sceptical about Soviet motivations are less persuaded that reductions in nuclear weapons would increase security while those more positive are more persuaded. Notwithstanding these similarities, the structure of Canadians’ logic on arms control differs substantially from that of Americans. First, perceptions of the superpower military balance are not related to positions on reductions. Seeing the USSR as stronger or weaker leads neither to believing that reductions of nuclear weapons would increase security nor to rejecting this notion. Second, unlike Americans, Canadians’ perceptions of a Soviet threat are unrelated to their arms control preferences. In other words, those perceiving an immediate threat from the USSR do not tend to be either more or less positive in their position on reductions. Third, Americans concerned about the likelihood of war see an advantage to having more nuclear weapons, while Canadians more concerned about the danger of war were not any less – or more – likely to support arms control. The Canadian public thus seems to be of two minds here. Some see a conventional Soviet threat and thus regard war as likely; hence they believe weapons reductions are inadvisable. Others, a larger group, perceive a danger inherent in two heavily armed superpowers and their adversarial relationship, and thus see weapons reductions as desirable. Finally, and accordingly, Canadians’

228 Public opinion, domestic policies perceptions of both superpowers are related to their judgements about arms control, while for the American public, there is no direct link in the case of perceptions of the Reagan Administration’s interest. Those Canadians who regarded the USA and USSR as interested in arms control tended more to support reductions than those who believed the superpowers did not want arms control. Thus, of the five factors in these models, three had a significant direct relationship with the policy preferences of Americans but not that of Canadians. Of the other two factors, both had a significant and direct relationship for Canadians while only one did for Americans. RECONSIDERING THE MODELS: THE DESIRABILITY OF SUPERIORITY The positions Americans, but not Canadians, take on an issue fundamental to arms control – the maintenance or enlargement of nuclear forces – appear significantly influenced by their perceptions of the USSR–USA military balance. This balance is, of course, a basic link in the arguments of strategists and Morgenthauian realists alike as to how rational policy makers must regard arms control and disarmament. ‘Competition for armaments reflects, and is an instrument of, competition for power’, Morgenthau reminds us. ‘Therefore, a mutually satisfactory settlement of the power contest is a precondition for disarmament. Once the nations concerned have agreed upon a mutually satisfactory distribution of power among themselves, they can then afford to reduce and limit their armaments.’44 But this observation raises a question about the manner in which the notion of the superpower military balance has been conceptualized here; namely, can we simply assume preferences about the desirable military balance from perceptions of the current state of this balance? Such an assumption was, in effect, made in the use of the empirical question from both surveys on the nature of the balance. Alternatively, should this perceived balance have an explicitly normative element? What is perhaps of some considerable importance here is whether individuals, like states, are status quo oriented or revisionists in regard to the military balance. Or, in other words, what is the relationship between individuals’ evaluations of the present and their desires for the future, that is, between what the military balance is and what it should be? Americans and Canadians who assess the USA as militarily predominant are presumably, for the most part, not dissatisfied with that situation. Those who assess it as on par with Soviet capability, on the other

American and Canadian public attitudes 229 hand, may or may not be satisfied with that perceived situation. If they perceive Soviet and American capabilities as roughly equal, and believe that such parity is best for international security, then the status quo is acceptable. If they think that the USA is of roughly equal strength but should be stronger, or if they think that it is the weaker and should be either on par or the stronger, then they will be rather dissatisfied with the status quo. There were such normative questions with respect to preferences for the East– West military balance, or imbalance, as the case may be, in both the 1985 CBS– NYT survey and the 1988 Canadian survey. The question on the former referred specifically to whether it was most desirable for the United States to be militarily superior to the Soviet Union, equal to it, or whether it mattered if it was weaker. Not surprisingly, few (8 per cent) opted for the last choice. A slight majority preferred the USA to be on par militarily and 38 per cent wanted it to be superior. The vast majority of Canadians, on the other hand, prefer that neither superpower be predominant; fully four in every five (82 per cent) believe it would be best if parity existed rather than a predominance of power on one side or the other.45 A much smaller group (16 per cent) thought it would be best for the Americans to have an advantage over the Soviets in total nuclear strength. Only 3 per cent thought it best for the Soviets to have a military edge. To explore the implications of introducing an explicitly normative element into the perceived balance, the data from each survey on the two relevant questions were cross-tabulated (see tables 9.2 and 9.3). Two-thirds (66 per cent) of Canadians are, in these terms, satisfied with the status quo, while one-third (33 per cent) are not. Of the latter, most (61 per cent) believe the USA is weaker and would prefer that it be on par with the USSR.46 In the Canadian data, the two sets of responses are weakly but positively correlated (x2 = 11.6, significance = 0.02 and Pearson’s r = 0.06). Americans are less sanguine. While a majority (56 per cent) are, in these respects and, presumably, to varying degrees, satisfied with the existing balance, fully 44 per cent are not. In the American data, the correlation of the two responses is also positive but relatively strong (x2 = 109 and r = 0.19). There are two major differences between the two patterns. First, there is a larger proportion of American revisionists, those who regard their own military capability as either equal to or less than that of the USSR but believe it should be superior. Second, there is a larger proportion who believe the USA is and should be superior. Conversely, there are more Canadians who perceive and prefer parity.

230 Public opinion, domestic policies Table 9.2 American perceptions of present and desired USA-USSR military balance (total table %) Present military balance USA superior Parity USA weaker

USA superior (%)

Parity (%)

USA weaker (%)

12 16 10

5 31 18

1 4 3

Source: CBS–NYT survey, January 1985 Note: Percentages in this table are total %; that is, they represent the percentage of the entire sample (N = 1,381) in each of the cells, and thus the sum for the table as a whole equals 100%.

Table 9.3 Canadian perceptions of present and desired USA–USSR military balance (total table %) Present military balance USA superior Parity USA weaker

USA superior (%)

Parity (%)

USA weaker (%)

3 9 4

7 55 20

– 2 1

Source: CIIPS–Munton survey, June–August 1987 Note: Percentages in this table are total %; that is, they represent the percentage of the entire sample (N = 981) in each of the cells, and thus the sum for the table as a whole, including the effect of rounding, equals 100%.

The basic theoretical model employed here was retested with this ‘relative capability’ measure substituted for the empirical assessment of current military strength. For American public opinion, the pattern or structure of the model is the same but particular relationships are strengthened (see figure 9.3). In the Canadian case, on the other hand, the results are not significantly different. In the American model the previously observed patterns are essentially reinforced. As realist theory would predict, revisionists, those for whom America’s relative power position is less than desirable, tend strongly to believe in the advantages of more nuclear weapons. Most of the non-revisionists, those who are satisfied with the American position, believe more weapons would make no difference. Indeed, the relative capability factor proves to be a much greater influence on policy positions than the simple assessment of military strength. (Compare figures 9.1 and 9.3. The d value almost doubled, to 0.17 from 0.09 in the previous model.)The gap between actual and desired capability position is also

American and Canadian public attitudes 231 Figure 9.3 Revised model of American attitudes towards arms control, 1985

232 Public opinion, domestic policies more strongly related to perceptions of Soviet motivations in the arms control area and to perceived Soviet threat. Both of these are, in turn, related to attitudes about the advantages of more nuclear weapons. Moreover, relative capability is also related significantly to the perceived likelihood of war, which is, in turn, related to policy positions. The revisionists tend to be more negative about Soviet aims, to perceive an immediate Soviet threat, to regard war as more likely and, thus, to think it advantageous to have more nuclear weapons. In the revised Canadian model, in contrast, there are few changes and these are of little import. (For this reason no figure is provided here.) A relationship does emerge between the relative capability factor and approving reductions in both Soviet and American nuclear weapons. While statistically significant, though, it is of little impact, being much weaker than in the American case. (The d value is 0.06 versus 0.17 for the USA.) Weaker also, compared with the USA results, are the relationships between the gap, on the one hand, and perceptions of Soviet motivations and of a Soviet threat, on the other. Again, as in the earlier model, neither Canadians’ perceptions of threat nor their estimates of the likelihood of war are generally related to support for or opposition to reductions of nuclear weapons. CANADIAN–AMERICAN DIFFERENCES How to account for these differences between two close allies and between the public of two countries with strong socio-cultural commonalities and political-economic ties? A full answer to this question almost certainly lies deep in the political cultures of the respective nations and could only emerge from a thorough analysis of the broader social, psychological and political context in which thinking on these issues is embedded. A start towards such an in-depth answer, however, may be possible by looking further at the national differences in the attitudes revealed in these same polls and at the interrelationships amongst these attitudes. In particular, it would be useful to examine more closely the key relationship between perceptions of the relative military balance and positions on the arms–security questions. An appropriate starting point is to recall that more Canadians than Americans can be regarded as satisfied with the status quo (66 per cent as compared with 56 per cent) and fewer Canadians than Americans find the present ‘balance’ undesirable (33 per cent to 44 per cent) (see tables 9.2 and 9.3). As well, there were more Canadians who agreed with the idea that reductions in nuclear weapons would increase security than there were Americans who believed that more weapons would provide no advantage (82 per cent to 67 per cent) (see table 9.1). Correspondingly, there were fewer

American and Canadian public attitudes 233 Canadians who disagreed that reductions would increase security than Americans who believed more weapons would be an advantage. Roughly the same proportion of Canadians and Americans find the present balance desirable or acceptable but have an ‘anti-disarmament’ orientation; that is, they do not believe arms reductions would increase security (in the Canadian case) or do believe more weapons are advantageous (in the American case). (These groups are 11 per cent and 14 per cent of the total samples, respectively). And roughly the same proportion in both countries (26 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively) find the present balance undesirable but nevertheless have a ‘pro-disarmament’ orientation; that is, they believe reductions would increase security (the Canadian question) or believe more weapons bring no advantages (the American question). The differences between the two cross-tabulations, and the statistical reason for the lack of a significant relationship between these two variables in the Canadian model, are thus to be found in the other two cells. The Canadian public includes many fewer revisionist anti-disarmers than the American – about one-half to one-third as many – and about one-quarter more pro-disarmament non-revisionists. Moreover, those Canadians who prefer the present military balance, and those who do not, tend to agree and disagree that reductions would increase security in about the same proportions. Thus, there is no association or correlation between these elements for the Canadian sample, and the models for the two countries are correspondingly different. The question, then, is why, in substantive terms, are there fewer arms-oriented revisionists and more disarmament-oriented non-revisionists in Canada? What sets of other attitudes explain this difference? And what is the strategic content of these attitudes, if any? For answers to these questions we must look at the responses to other items in the questionnaire. One factor appears to be a deep-seated distaste for nuclear weapons and a fundamental persuasion for arms control widespread, but not universal, in Canada. Those Canadians who are non-revisionist disarmers tend less to believe that the maintenance of a military balance in Europe is necessary to prevent aggression and more to agree that the use of military force is no longer an appropriate way for countries to pursue their interests. Compared again with revisionist anti-disarmers, they tend more to favour giving high priority to arms control whether nuclear, conventional or chemical, to believe that both the INF treaty and START reductions will make the world safer, to prefer that strategic weapons talks proceed as soon as possible (rather than waiting to see if the USSR complies with the terms of the INF treaty), to advocate that the West begin to disarm even if the Soviets are not doing so,

234 Public opinion, domestic policies and to be in favour of eliminating all nuclear weapons as a goal (rather than keeping a small deterrent force). They tend more to disagree that nuclear weapons are a more effective deterrent than conventional weapons and to oppose the use of nuclear weapons even in the event of a Soviet attack on Western Europe. They also are more likely than revisionist anti-disarmers to oppose Canada acquiring nuclear weapons for its own armed forces, to oppose the testing of United States cruise missiles in Canada, and to favour Canada becoming a nuclear free zone. Only some of these positions gain strong majority support amongst the revisionist disarmers as a group, let alone amongst Canadians generally. Such, though, is the strength of these attitudes that, reinforced by the lack of a strong military tradition in Canada and an historical aversion to nuclear weapons, they apparently override military balance considerations and thus appear to be partly responsible for the distribution of attitudes observed here.47 The larger proportion of Canadians who can be categorized as non-revisionist disarmers is, however, not solely, and perhaps not even mainly, a function of attitudes about military force and support for arms control. It seems due also to at least four other factors. One of these, though probably not the most important, appears to be a slightly less negative perception of the USSR, in certain respects, on the part of Canadians. Non-revisionist disarmers tend to have more positive perceptions of the USSR. While more individuals with the latter view might thus lead (if the relationship were causal) to more individuals with the former position, Canadian perceptions of the USSR in the mid-1980s do not appear on the basis of the present data to be consistently and strikingly more positive than those of Americans.48 A second factor, and one of likely greater importance, is a rather negative perception of United States policies on the part of Canadians, certainly a less positive one than that of most Americans. For example, while less than two in every five Canadians thought ‘American leaders’ genuinely wanted disarmament, four in five Americans believed President Reagan wanted disarmament.49 Canadians split almost evenly (50/50) on whether or not the United States could be trusted to keep its part of arms control agreements. By contrast, about three in every four Americans (76 per cent) maintain their country can indeed be trusted to keep its commitments in the INF treaty.50 Notably, Canadians more negative in their images of the USA tended more than those who were more positive to be non-revisionist disarmers. Thus, Canadians’ generally more negative image of the USA – or, perhaps, lack of American patriotism – may explain the differences in strategic logics. Third, and closely related to the above factor, Canadians are developing a ‘postCold War’ image of international politics, and appear to have done so to a greater

American and Canadian public attitudes 235 extent than Americans. During the Cold War period most Canadians had essentially positive perceptions about the USA and essentially negative perceptions of the USSR. It is no longer so. There is now a strong tendency to blame both superpowers, but particularly the USA, for the deterioration in East–West relations in the early 1980s, and to give what credit was due for recent progress, such as the INF treaty, to both superpowers, not just to the United States. There are also more Canadians who regard the superpower arms race as the greatest threat to world peace than believe it to be the USSR; indeed, as many regard the USA as the greatest threat as so regard the USSR. Perceptions of Soviet leaders (or policies) and perceptions of American leaders (or policies) in the 1980s were still strongly related. They were correlated, however, not in a negative way, as one might expect of images of an adversary and an ally, but rather in a positive direction. That is to say, those with a negative perception of the USSR tended to have, not a positive view of the USA, but a negative view. Those with a positive view of the USSR (or USA) tended to have a positive view of the USA (or USSR). While there were certainly some who had a positive perception of the USA and a negative perception of the USSR – the traditional ‘Cold War’ images – they were fewer in number than both those who were relatively negative about both superpowers and those who were relatively positive about both. Thus, for example, three in ten (32 per cent) find neither leader trustworthy on arms control. In contrast, one in ten (11 per cent) regarded Ronald Reagan as trustworthy and Gorbachev as not trustworthy.51 This ‘plague on both your policies’ sentiment emerges even more prominently on other pairs of parallel questions. Of those Canadians surveyed in mid-1987 almost a majority (46 per cent) believed neither superpower leader was genuinely interested in disarmament. Nearly six in ten (57 per cent) expressed little or no confidence in both the American and the Soviet ability to handle world problems. Finally, almost seven in ten (68 per cent) believed both the USA and USSR are trying to increase their areas of influence. Once again, as with the other factors, these shifts in Canadian attitudes may to some extent account for the presently high number of Canadians who are comfortable with the present military balance and who believe that Western security would be enhanced by substantial reductions of nuclear weapons. Canadians who consider the arms race to be the greatest threat tend to be those in the non-revisionist disarmer category, for example, as well as those who were in 19877 most concerned about East–West relations, those most likely to blame the USA for the poor state of East– West relations, and those most likely to blame both superpowers (or the USA alone) for the lack of progress in disarmament talks prior to 1987.

236 Public opinion, domestic policies Fourth, there is also now a significant minority of Canadians who regard the abundance of nuclear weapons as the most immediate or serious international security problem, rather than the solution. And again, each of the perceptions of this issue is related to one’s position on the military balance/arm–disarm connection. That is, the non-revisionist disarmers tend more to believe that the superpower arms race (or USA actions) is the greatest threat to peace, and that both superpowers (or the USA or other countries) would be responsible for starting a nuclear war if that were to occur. Moreover, the non-revisionist disarmers tend more strongly to believe that there could be no winners in a nuclear war; to deny the argument that nuclear weapons are a more effective deterrent than conventional weapons; to believe that a continued nuclear arms race would, sooner or later, lead to war; and to think that, if a nuclear war were to occur, it would more likely come about by accident than by deliberate act. Given these associations, the significant numbers who so perceive thus, in effect, increase the number of non-revisionist disarmers. The consequence of the strength of these views in Canada, and the nature of these associations, would seem to be, once again, to explain in part the different composition of the Canadian and American public in terms of the strategic logic which they employ. CONCLUSIONS Public opinion on arms control is neither amorphous nor random. Americans tend to be conventional military strategists – primitive perhaps, but strategists nevertheless. They tend either to evaluate the USSR as militarily stronger, to perceive it as disinterested in arms control and as a threat, to regard a nuclear war as likely, and thus to support enlarging the American nuclear arsenal, or they tend to see the two superpowers as equally strong, to perceive the Soviet Union in a less hostile manner, to regard nuclear war as unlikely, and thus to find no advantage in more nuclear weapons. Overwhelmingly, they view their own president as genuinely interested in arms control and believe this reduces the likelihood of war. For both perspectives, therefore, perceptions of America’s power relative to what one deems it should be, as well as perceptions of threat, are clearly fundamental factors driving American public attitudes about arms control. To be or not to be ‘Number One’ is an issue of critical proportions, not only for American strategists and politicians, but, clearly, for Americans in general. This parallelism, of course, explains in part why rhetoric about rebuilding US military strength strikes such a resonant chord in American electoral politics. While many Americans may accept intellectually the idea that more nuclear weapons may

American and Canadian public attitudes 237 not increase security, few have reconciled a natural and traditional inclination for military supremacy with this view, and few evidently give it the same weight in their evaluation of policies. For Canadians, the world, or at least the world of nuclear arms control and the superpower relationship, looks strikingly different. While there are both military balance revisionists and non-revisionists in Canada, the consequences of these differences are slight and the distinction is of little relevance to policy choices. In part, this is probably due first to the fact that fewer Canadians than Americans are of the revisionist persuasion. Perhaps, also, the minority of Canadians who think it desirable or necessary for American power to increase is too small, below some threshold level, for this view to be sustained strongly and unabashedly. In part also the potency of the power factor to influence policy attitudes may be due to the sheer extent of the consensus in Canada on the security desirability of reducing the present nuclear stockpiles. (Recall that over 80 per cent agree.) This consensus is such that differences in perceptions of the enemy are simply of less consequence. There is clearly a stronger sense that, with respect to nuclear weapons, ‘enough is enough’ and that more is not better. The lack of potency, in affecting one’s position on arms control, of the differences between perceiving the balance of power as it is and as it should be, seems also to stem from different perceptions of the superpowers and, in particular, of the United States. Canadians, not being Americans, lack the reservoir of old-fashioned patriotism which makes it difficult for many of their southern neighbours to see themselves, or at least see their leadership, as part of the global security problem. The lack of connection between attitudes about the relative military balance and arms control positions across the Canadian public is thus not inexplicable; it seems due to a set of factors that significantly differentiate Canadians’ logic on arms control from that of Americans. To the extent that Canadian thinking is more like that of Europeans than Americans, these factors may explain, for example, opposition in Europe in the 1980s to the deployment of new intermediate-range missiles. The question remains whether this logic is in any sense ‘strategic’. Although that very complex issue cannot be fully dealt with here, a few observations can be made. First, it is clear that Canadians’ positions on arms control are, in general, related to their perceptions of threat in some sense. The difference, and the change over recent decades, is that for most this threat is no longer the traditional and singular one of an aggressive, expansionist USSR. A much more commonly perceived threat currently stems more from instability in the East–West relationship and from the dangerous accumulation of nuclear weapons than from a deliberate attack by the ‘other’ side.

238 Public opinion, domestic policies Consequently, and logically, the policy of choice is to cut these stocks substantially. This perspective is by no means antithetical to a logical strategy of security. It reflects, moreover, certain changes evident in strategic thinking in recent years. As Lawrence Freedman, for example, has observed, ‘It is clear that whatever the strategic instabilities that might emerge at much lower numbers (less than a tenth of current arsenals) not even a proposed 50 per cent cut makes much difference to the basic condition of mutual assured destruction.’52 What advantages would fewer weapons bring? Reductions would, many seem to be saying or implying, at least reduce the risk of nuclear war through accident. Again, some strategists agree, pointing out that dangers arising from command and control system weaknesses would be reduced with such significant cuts.53 It might also be argued that this alternative perspective on security, in rejecting mere parity and arguing for reductions, is, in fact, more consistent with the strategic consideration of ‘sufficiency’54 than is the still widespread view – at least in the United States – that more nuclear weapons increase security. These assumptions, perceptions and positions of the Canadian general public are manifestly not those of conventional strategists. But they are nevertheless, on some points, positions with which some strategists agree and to which others are also moving. And they comprise, overall, a strategic logic of sorts about arms control. If not yet common or quite respectable within the mainstream of the strategic studies community, this logic may well become so. NOTES 1 Booth, Ken (1975) ‘Disarmament and arms control’, in John Baylis, Ken Booth, John Garnett and Phil Williams (eds) Contemporary Strategy: Theories and Policies, New York: Holmes and Meier, p. 89. 2 For a critique of the superficial sort of analyses carried out on polls on international security issues, see Munton, Don (1988) ‘Threats, arms and security in Canadian, British and American public attitudes’. Paper presented to a conference on Public Opinion and Security, Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, May. 3 See, for example, Thomas Risse-Kappen’s article in this volume. 4 Booth, op. cit., p. 89. 5 The classic distinction between arms control and disarmament, provided by Hedley Bull, is that disarmament is ‘the reduction or abolition of armaments’ while arms control is ‘restraint internationally exercised upon armaments policy,

American and Canadian public attitudes 239 whether in respect of the level of armaments, their character, deployment of use’ ((1965) The Control of the Arms Race, New York: Praeger, p. vii). The focus in this paper is the nature of Western public thinking on the limitation and/or reduction of armaments, and specifically, of nuclear weapons. The terms arms control and disarmament therefore both apply and both are used here, as they are in the literature, to refer to this process of limiting and/or reducing weaponry. As Bull has said ‘the controlled reduction of armaments’ is at ‘the intersection between disarmament and arms control’ (p. viii). This usage is not meant to imply, however, that there is no distinction to be made between the terms. 6 These arguments are outlined and discussed by, amongst others, Bull, op. cit., chapter 1 and Booth, op. cit. It may be true, as Hedley Bull said, that ‘the greater part of what has been said about disarmament is the product of public movements of agitation and protest against governments for their failure to disarm’, ‘or the product of official pronouncements designed to allay such protest’ (p. 3), but a greater deal, especially in the way of trenchant criticism of arms control and disarmament notions, has also been provided in the literature of international politics and strategic studies. 7 Bull, see The Control of the Arms Race, op. cit., p. 4. 8 Claude, Inis L. (1964) Swords into Ploughshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, New York: Random House, p. 263. 9 See, for some quantitative evidence, Wallace, Michael (1979) ‘Arms races and escalation: Some new evidence’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 23:1: 3–16, and (1981) ‘Old nails in new coffins: The para bellum hypothesis revisited’, Journal of Peace Research 18:1: 91–5. 10 Morgenthau, Hans (1949) Politics Among Nations, New York: Knopf, p. 330. 11 Freedman, Lawrence (1986) Arms Control: Management or Reform?, Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House Papers 31, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, p. 3. 12 Claude, op. cit., p. 263. 13 Morgenthau, op. cit., p. 327. 14 This is not to say, however, that states always and correctly perceive immediate threats, and do so in sufficient time; on the phenomenon of ‘strategic surprise’, see Knorr, Klause and Morgan, Patrick (1983) Strategic Military Surprise: Incentives and Opportunities, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. 15 Freedman, op. cit., p. 2. 16 Morgenthau, op. cit., p. 314. 17 Morgenthau, op. cit., p. 315.

240 Public opinion, domestic policies 18 Claude, op. cit., p. 282. 19 Freedman, op. cit., p. 16. 20 Bull, The Control of the Arms Race, op. cit., p. 67. 21 Freedman, op. cit., p. 16. 22 Booth, ‘Disarmament and arms control’, op. cit., p. 91. 23 See, for example, Freedman, op. cit., p. 138. 24 Bull, The Control of the Arms Race, op. cit., p. 202. 25 Morgenthau, op. cit., p. 331. 26 Bull, The Control of the Arms Race, op. cit., p. 19. 27 Freedman, op. cit., p. 5. 28 Bull, The Control of the Arms Race, op. cit., p. 67. 29 Claude, op. cit., p. 268. 30 Morgenthau, op. cit., p. 315. 31 Bull, The Control of the Arms Race, op. cit., p. 74and Booth op. cit., p. 101. 32 The US data are from the January 1985 survey of the regular CBS–NYT poll provided by the Survey Unit, CBS News, through the University of Michiganbased Consortium for Political Research. The survey was conducted by telephone with 1,381 respondents. The University of British Columbia Data Library acquired and processed this data. 33 The 1987 Canadian survey was designed by the author and funded by the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security. The first in a series of planned annual polls, the survey, comprising a set of 45 questions, was conducted in June through August 1987 by the Longwoods Research Group with a national sample selected randomly to be representative of Canadian households and chosen from a panel of 30,000 households maintained by Market Facts Ltd. The survey was conducted by mail in both English and French and comprised a total of 1,015 respondents. For reports on this survey, see Munton, Don (1987–8) ‘Superpowers and national security’, Peace and Security 2:4: winter, and (1987) ‘Canadians’ attitudes on peace and security’, Working Paper, Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, December. A second Canadian survey, also designed by the author and funded by the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, was carried out in June through July 1988 using the same methodology as the 1987 survey. The sample size was 1,005 and the response rate was 63 per cent. (By comparison, the 1987 survey, which was conducted in part during a mail service strike in Canada, had a response rate of 48 per cent.) The margin of error with samples of this size is approximately ±3 per cent, 95 times out of 100. Of the 1,005 respondents to the

American and Canadian public attitudes 241 1988 survey, 563 were also respondents to the 1987 survey. Data from the later survey are utilized here only in the section of the chapter entitled ‘Canada–United States differences’ and not for testing the model. For the results of this survey, see Munton, Don (1988–9) ‘Canadians and their defence’, Peace and Security 3:4: 2–5, and Driedger, Michael and Munton, Don (1988) ‘Security, arms control and defence: Public attitudes in Canada’, Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, Working Paper 14, December. 34 The time difference of 29 months between the fieldwork of the American survey and that of the Canadian one is assumed here not to be of critical importance and, more specifically, not to have led to the differences discovered between the two publics. The interrelationships amongst the key variables are assumed to be more stable than the marginal percentages for any one question, such as the perceived danger of war. At present there is no direct empirical evidence to substantiate these assumptions, due to the lack of strictly comparable data over time for each country. An October 1985 survey in Canada carried out for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, analysed elsewhere by the present author, did not include a question on arms and security, thus rendering inappropriate its use in the present analysis. However, the nature of Canadian perceptions in 1985 of the United States and the Soviet Union, threat and war, as revealed in the CBC survey, are very close to those in the 1987 survey used here, and, for that matter, also resemble those in (the post-INF treaty) follow-up 1988 survey. (See, for example, note 41.) It can be argued, as well, that the only major international events of relevance which occurred during this 1985–7 period, perhaps, were two inconclusive Soviet–American summits; there was certainly little or no progress towards major arms control agreements and thus little likely impact of such events on public opinion. Little public information about the likelihood of the December 1987 INF treaty began to emerge before September 1987, at which point the Canadian survey had been completed. That having been said, where there are reasons to expect a time-bound phenomenon in the results examined here, these reasons will be noted. (See, for example, note 38.) 35 On this point, Hedley Bull (see note 5) notes that: ‘The serious pursuit of arms control agreements . . . may be part of a nation’s foreign policy, or it may not. Whether or not it is will depend on the particular system of arms control, the general character of the nation’s foreign policy, and the circumstances of the moment. . . . Powers that are weak, ambitious, and frustrated . . . would be hostile to the reduction of their own armaments . . .’ (p. 67). Bull adds, with respect to the nature of such evaluations, that ‘the judgement that the serious pursuit of a

242 Public opinion, domestic policies particular arms control system does, or does not, form part of a nation’s policy can be made only imprecisely and temporarily’ in part because ‘the support for any such system within a government may ebb and flow’ (p. 67). 36 This breakdown is perhaps somewhat affected not only by traditional enmities but also by the uncertainties of the Soviet leadership situation in the early months of 1985 prior to Mikhail Gorbachev’s coming to power. 37 A d value is, simply put, a difference in proportion (or percentages) in a crosstabulation table. It therefore has a theoretical range from –1.00 to +1.00. Given two variables, one a cause (e.g. perception of Soviet threat) of another, the product (e.g. favouring increases in weaponry), the d value would be the difference between the proportion of those who perceive a threat who are in favour of an arms build-up, on the one hand, and the proportion of those who do not perceive a threat who favour a build-up, on the other. The d value in this case would then be the difference in attitude towards armaments due to perception of threat. As a measure of the strength of the influence of one variable on another, it is for nominal data analogous to a beta coefficient in a regression analysis of interval data. It provides, in other words, a procedure for estimating non-metric causal models for dichotomous data. The statistical significance of each d can be calculated on only those d values significant at the 0.05 level as reported here or shown in the figures. On the ‘d systems’ approach, see Davis, James (1980) ‘Contingency table analysis: Proportions and flow graphs’, Quality and Quantity 14: 117–53, and (1975) ‘Analysing contingency tables with linear flow graphs: D systems’, in D. Heise (ed.) Sociological Methodology, San Francisco, JosseyBass, pp. 111–45. Davis’ formulation is based on the work of Goodman, Leo (1963) ‘On methods for comparing contingency tables’, The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, A 126:97, and Goodman, Leo and Magidson, J. (ed.) (1978) Analysing Qualitative Categorical Data, Cambridge, MA: Abt Books. The data examined in this chapter was first cross-tabulated using the SPSSx statistical package and then further analysed by means of the microcomputer-based ‘Chipendale’ software programme of James A. Davis and distributed by True Basic. For the d system models, respondents with missing data on any of the questions used in a particular model were eliminated. The sample sizes therefore were N= 1,106 for the CBS survey and N = 1,011 for the Canadian one. It should be noted that the d values shown in the figures and discussed in the text are simple bivariate differences not partials. Given that the primary purpose here is to explore the hypothesized model – that is to explore in a preliminary way the links in the thinking of the public in two countries – and to compare and contrast these,

American and Canadian public attitudes 243 no attempt is made here to provide overall estimates for these models based on partial associations. 38 This pattern appears to be quite similar to that found in American thinking in the early 1960s. See Munton, ‘Threats, arms and security’, op. cit. The pattern is also representative of a conventional realpolitik perspective which assumes that nuclear capability is a crucial aspect of overall military capability. 39 Freedman, op. cit., p. 14. 40 It is of some relevance here to note the extent to which Canadians’ views on these matters have shifted over the long term. This shift is most evident in a comparison between these 1987 results and those from an identical pair of questions on the 1962 Canadian Peace Research Institute (CPRI) survey. In 1962, the vast majority of Canadians believed that the Soviet leaders did not want disarmament and that American leaders did. Now, as noted above, Canadians are almost evenly divided on whether the Soviets do or do not want disarmament and most believe the Americans do not want it. For historical data, see Munton, Don (1983–4) ‘Public opinion and the media in Canada from Cold War to détente to new Cold War’, International Journal 1:1: 171–213. 41 Respondents to the survey were asked what posed the greatest threat to world peace. Very few pointed to the USSR. Only one in every twenty (5 per cent) said Soviet actions on the international scene were the greatest threat. About the same number (8 per cent) thought it to be American actions. On the other hand, fully one-quarter believed the superpower arms race was the greatest threat. Finally, approximately equal groups thought that the spread of nuclear weapons to smaller countries and the Middle East situation were the greatest threat (29 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively). These results closely parallel those from an almost identical question asked on a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) poll conducted prior to the Geneva summit in November 1985, and on the 1988 Canadian survey. 42 The spring of 1987 survey conducted for External Affairs posed two related questions – whether the ‘existence’ of nuclear weapons and whether current nuclear practices and developments make war less likely or more likely. A clear majority said both make war more likely (54 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively). Distinct minorities thought these factors made war less likely (33 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively). (The pattern of responses to the second of these questions, that concerning nuclear ‘practices and developments’, would likely be different following the December 1987 INF agreement.) See Munton, ‘Public opinion and the media’, op. cit., on the differences in Canadian attitudes

244 Public opinion, domestic policies in 1962 and 1987 on whether or not the best way to prevent war is for the West to increase its military strength so as to be more powerful than the Soviets. 43 Canadians’ perceptions of American and Soviet interest in disarmament are also intercorrelated and are so much more strongly (d=0.46 and 0.44) than are Americans’ perceptions of American and Soviet interest in disarmament (d=0.11 and 0.16). This point is more fully explored below. 44 Morgenthau, op. cit., pp. 329–30. 45 This high proportion preferring that the two superpowers have a rough parity militarily is also found in polls in, among other Western countries, the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany. Compare the results presented in ‘Canadians and their defence’, op. cit. Munton 46 Note that the basic difference here between the measure of military balance used in the model in figure 9.1 and the present formulation lies in the fact that those in the middle cell in the left column of tables 9.2 and 9.3 are categorized differently. 47 See Driedger and Munton, op. cit., for other data on Canadian attitudes towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. 48 There is, it should be noted, very little difference evident between Canadians and Americans on some of these measures (see tables 9.2 and 9.3), despite, it might be added, the difference in the timing of the two surveys. 49 For more current data, see Americans Talk Survey (ATS), Survey 12, 1988, Yankelovich and Associates, New York. 50 For results on slightly different questions, see ATS, Survey 12, op. cit. 51 It should be noted that these percentages are total table percentages for the crosstabulation of these two responses. 52 Freedman, op. cit., p. 30. As Freedman goes on to note: ‘Stability in the nuclear age depends on the nuclear arsenals appearing unambiguously horrible.’ Thus ‘reducing the pace and the breadth of technological innovation or the overall numbers of the weapons even to a low level is not going to make nuclear war less horrible’ (p. 31). 53 Freedman, op. cit., pp. 30–1.

54 Freedman, op. cit., pp. 21–4.

Part V European arms control in the 1990s

10 CFE and the future of Europe Roger Hill and Robin Hay

As the last decade of this century began it looked as though a major agreement on conventional armed forces in Europe would soon be reached with surprising ease. The negotiators in Vienna were scrambling to resolve the remaining hard issues about such points as numbers of combat aircraft and definitions of main battle tanks, but it was expected that these would soon be settled and that during 1990 a great new force reductions agreement would be established that would entail the removal and elimination of tens of thousands of pieces of military equipment from the inventories of NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries. Not only that: the first agreement, CFE I, would pave the way to further rounds of negotiation on the reduction of conventional armed forces in Europe, and a new era of mutual security and positive co-operation would dawn in the old continent. Six months later, the situation was not quite so bright. There was still the expectation that conventional armed forces in Europe would eventually be reduced, but not the previous near-certainty that this would come about easily and logically as a result of an orderly CFE process. People wondered whether CFE had not been overtaken by events, and worried about a turning back to confrontation. In early July 1990, CFE seemed stuck, even though intensive efforts were continuing in Vienna to clear away remaining conceptual and technical problems. Yet pessimism seemed premature. The hopes for an agreement on conventional force reductions in Europe have always been heavily dependent on the general political atmosphere between East and West in Europe, and would be bound to rise again once some critical, fundamental problems of European security could be resolved. The most important in the summer of 1990 was the question of German reunification and the related issue of German membership in the Western alliance; if these could be successfully dealt with – and the tide of history in Europe suggested they soon might – then there was no reason why the countries negotiating in Vienna should not go on rapidly to a first CFE accord. After that, there would probably be further CFE agreements of one kind or another as well as renewed efforts to make major advances on such issues as the reduction of tactical

248 European arms control in the 1990s nuclear weapons and the erection of new political and security structures for the continent as a whole as well as for some of its regions. A brief examination of the history of the conventional force reductions issue will show the relationship between arms control and the political environment. After that, it will be useful to review linkages between the CFE process and related issues of European security, before looking at the prospects for the future. CONVENTIONAL FORCE REDUCTIONS AND THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT Although the idea of negotiated reductions in conventional forces in Europe had appeared in various arms control proposals in the 1950s and early 1960s1, the origins of NATO’s current attempts to reach an agreement with the East are to be found in the Harmel exercise conducted by NATO in 1966 and 1967. At that time NATO embraced a policy of détente as well as defence, and indicated, in a report on the future tasks of the alliance, that conventional force reductions in Europe might be a good avenue for improving relations with the East. This idea was taken up again by NATO foreign ministers assembled at Reykjavik in June 1968, where they issued a specific call to the Warsaw Pact to open negotiations on the control and reduction of conventional forces in Europe. NATO wanted to keep abreast of the political changes that were underway in Europe and giving rise to such phenomena as the Prague Spring, the hopes for ‘communism with a human face’, and the yearning for a withering away of confrontation between the two rival political systems of East and West; and it also wanted to ensure that if US forces in Europe were in future to be reduced, then that development would take place as a result of East–West negotiations and not through various destabilizing, uncoordinated unilateral moves. Thus the West launched the process that was later to become know as MBFR, the negotiations on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions. The East did not immediately pick up on the Reykjavik offer – in fact the next major development in East–West relations was the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 – but in due course it did respond positively. Exploratory talks between the Warsaw Pact states and the NATO countries, except France, began in Vienna in January 1973, and full-scale negotiations within the same group opened in October of that same year. The focus was on reducing armed forces in the central part of Europe, that is to say in the Federal Republic of Germany and the Benelux countries on the Western side and the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia and

CFE and the future of Europe 249 Hungary in the East, and on creating a new arms control regime characterized by common ceilings and effective verification arrangements. MBFR looked promising at the outset, when President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger were pressing for new accommodations with the Soviet Union. However, the steam went out of their efforts during 1974 when the Watergate crisis gradually crippled the Nixon administration, and the hopes for a breakthrough in negotiations dissipated thereafter as a new period of East–West competition set in. The main characteristic of the years from 1975 to 1985 was a continuing, spiralling arms build-up, not great progress in arms control and disarmament; and, as a result, MBFR stagnated and eventually became a byword for futility and frustration. The two sides did reach agreement in principle, in due course, on common ceilings for Central Europe of 700,000 ground troops within a ground–air ceiling of 900,000 personnel; but then the talks bogged down again in endless, fruitless exchanges about data and verification. There was simply not the political will on the two sides to make compromises and drive the negotiations forward to a successful conclusion.2 New life was breathed into the hopes for conventional arms control in Europe in the mid-1980s, as Gorbachev consolidated his position in the Soviet Union and launched a series of diplomatic initiatives aimed at reducing international tensions and confrontations. On 11 June 1986, in Budapest, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies put forward proposals calling for major reductions in land and tactical air forces as well as in theatre nuclear weapons in Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, and indicated that the kind of figures they were considering amounted to 100,000 to 150,000 troops on each side within a year or two and half a million men each by the early 1990s.3 The Reykjavik summit of 11–12 October 1986 also opened new prospects for arms control. President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev held talks which altered the whole atmosphere of East–West relations and which led to intensive efforts to reach agreements on strategic nuclear weapons and on intermediate-range nuclear forces. Reykjavik also raised fears among America’s allies in Europe about being left at the mercy of a perceived Warsaw Pact preponderance in conventional forces once nuclear systems had been cut, and sparked off intensified interest in means of enhancing stability and security in Europe. These concerns lay behind new proposals that the West put forward towards the end of that year. On 11 and 12 December 1986, allied foreign ministers met in Brussels, and issued a major new declaration that offered to open an East–West dialogue aimed at agreeing on a mandate for new negotiations on conventional

250 European arms control in the 1990s arms control covering ‘the whole of Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals’. They also set out criteria for successful negotiations, to establish the basic framework for their subsequent negotiating positions. These ministers included representatives of France and Spain as well as of those allies which had been participating in the MBFR process.4 Now East and West gradually spelled out the main elements of their positions on conventional arms control. Conventional Mandate Talks (CMT) began in February 1987 aimed at developing the terms for new negotiations intended to supersede MBFR. Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika were especially important in the process of forward movement, since they led to new arms control initiatives and unilateral reductions which significantly enhanced the prospect of agreements with the West. For example, on 29 May 1987, the Warsaw Pact recognized the existence of asymmetries between the two sides and offered to negotiate their elimination. On 30 March 1988, its foreign ministers indicated very clearly that they were willing to make major asymmetrical cuts in military manpower and key conventional armaments; and around the end of that year, first the Soviet Union and then most of the other Warsaw Pact countries announced that they intended to make very substantial unilateral cuts in manpower and also in tanks, aircraft and other military equipment. The Warsaw Pact’s commitment to establishing a major agreement on conventional force reductions was confirmed by further statements on the eve of, and during, the new CFE negotiations, which opened in early March 1989.5 NATO, for its part, grappled throughout 1988 and the first half of 1989 with the problem of stability. Despite the urging of some Western analysts to show more flexibility,6 the positions put forward by NATO in this period were far tougher than those pursued in MBFR, since they called for common ceilings extending across the whole of Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals and not only in the central part of the continent. NATO set out its basic position at the ministerial meeting of 2–3 March 1988, when it called on the Warsaw Pact to make highly asymmetrical reductions focusing on tanks, artillery and other conventional systems that could be especially useful for launching a surprise attack or initiating large-scale offensive action; and it backed this up at year end when it called for ceilings of 40,000 tanks for the whole of Europe and comparable limits on other types of equipment.7 The West did not have to show much suppleness in this period because the East kept adjusting its policies towards Western positions. However, at the NATO summit meeting of 29–30 May 1989, President Bush did initiate significant new moves on the Western side by advancing proposals designed to overcome some of

CFE and the future of Europe 251 the principal remaining differences between the two sides as well as among the Western allies. The problem of tactical nuclear weapons – whether to emphasize modernizing them or negotiating reductions in them – was resolved by agreeing that American–Soviet talks on partial reductions should be authorized once CFE reductions in conventional forces had begun; and it was also agreed to include in the CFE negotiations, as the Warsaw Pact was proposing, the question of ceilings on helicopters, land-based combat aircraft and manpower (with particular reference to US and Soviet stationed forces).8 This NATO summit of 29–30 May 1989 was a major event in the continuing search for a CFE agreement. The danger of serious fissures in the NATO alliance over the tactical nuclear issue was averted, and the way was paved towards a comprehensive accord on conventional arms control with the East. The political will that had been absent from conventional arms control for so many years had now been injected, by the West as well as the East, into the negotiating process, and there were now high hopes that an agreement could be established in a matter of months rather than years. Western leaders directed that work on fully fledged new proposals should be completed with great urgency, ready for the third round of CFE negotiations that were due to begin on 7 September 1989 and aiming at an initial CFE agreement within six months to a year. Now political imperatives once again demonstrated their significance for the conventional arms control process in a most remarkable fashion. Eastern Europe was swept by political upheaval as the autumn of 1989 advanced; ‘the street’ set the pace as governments adjusted, compromised and fell. In Vienna, the CFE negotiators found themselves scrambling to reach an agreement while there was still enough stability in Europe, and especially enough coherence in the Warsaw Pact, to permit meaningful accords. Intensive rounds of bargaining produced progress on such issues as zones of reduction, verification and the definitions for various kinds of equipment;9 and as the year end neared it seemed very likely that remaining issues would now be swept up and rapidly resolved in a kind of free-fall drop towards an agreement. On 14 December 1989, East and West exchanged draft treaty texts in Vienna. They now appeared close to agreement on a whole range of issues, including common ceilings of 20,000 for main battle tanks, 28,000 for armoured troop carriers or armoured combat vehicles, and 1,900 for combat helicopters. They differed on artillery, from 16,500 in the Western proposal to 24,000 in the East’s, but they did have a common definition of this type of materiel. For combat aircraft,

252 European arms control in the 1990s NATO’s proposed limit was 5,700 for each side while the Warsaw Pact’s proposed limit was 4,700. Additionally, NATO proposed that US and Soviet ground and air manpower stationed in Europe should be reduced to 275,000 each. The Warsaw Pact submitted instead a proposal which gave overall manpower totals for East and West. These were set at 1.35 million troops for each side and included sublimits of 300,000 stationed troops for each. There were articles in both proposals regarding verification, though the precise provisions were still to be deposited. The NATO text contained a similar heading for stabilization measures, whereas the Warsaw Pact document spelled out a number of such requirements. The question of sufficiency limits was also broached in both draft treaties, that is setting limits on the manpower, main battle tanks and other main equipment that any one country would be allowed to retain under the agreement.10 One of the main differences between the two drafts tabled on 14 December 1989 was over definitions of equipment, especially regarding aircraft and tanks. The Warsaw Pact insisted that certain types of aircraft, such as air defence interceptors, land-based naval aviation, and training planes should be excluded, whereas NATO wished to include all land-based aircraft capable of combat. Regarding tanks, NATO defined an MBT (main battle tank) as a tracked vehicle weighing 20 or more tons and with a main armament of 75 mm or larger: the Warsaw Pact set the limit at 10 tons.11 Early in 1990 there were further important moves in the pursuit of a CFE agreement. On 31 January President Bush, in his State of the Union Address, proposed limitations on the numbers of US and Soviet forces in Central and Eastern Europe, at 195,000 men each.12 His statement also envisaged an allowance of 30,000 US troops elsewhere in Europe in such countries as Italy, Turkey, Greece and the United Kingdom. During February NATO shifted its stand on aircraft and tanks. It moved towards the Warsaw Pact position by proposing ceilings on combat aircraft of 4,700, rather than 5,700. Each side would be allowed to keep 500 air defence interceptors in addition to the 4,700 combat aircraft figure, and trainers would be excluded from the bargaining. The definition of main battle tanks was also adjusted, to apply to tracked vehicles weighing more than 13 tons having a turret-mounted main armament of 75 mm or above.13 On 13 February 1990, at the Open Skies conference in Ottawa, there were further important CFE developments. Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze agreed to President Bush’s proposals of 31 January 1990 for limitations of 195,000

CFE and the future of Europe 253 US and Soviet troops in Central Europe, with a further 30,000 to be stationed elsewhere in the continent.14 So, early in the Open Skies conference, there were high hopes that most of the remaining CFE issues could be resolved in a short time. The two sides were in agreement on the numbers of main battle tanks (20,000), and helicopters (1,900), had moved closer on artillery (16,500 NATO; 20,000 Pact) and differed relatively little on armoured combat vehicles (30,000; 28,000)15 and aircraft (5,200: 4,700). They were agreed that there could be 195,000 US and Soviet forces stationed in Central Europe, plus 30,000 US and Soviet troops stationed elsewhere in Europe. In addition, the Soviet Union was seriously discussing the withdrawal of its forces from Czechoslovakia and Hungary (in bilateral negotiations with the new governments of those two countries). However, by the time the Open Skies conference closed in Ottawa on 27 February 1990, a new hardening in Soviet policies towards European security was discernible. The Soviet delegation prevented an agreement on aerial inspection arrangements between East and West, and also gave signs of a general hardening of foreign policy attitudes. Soviet negotiators showed a reticence about forward movement to arms control measures and confidence-building agreements which had not been seen for more than a year, and caused a good deal of frustration among most of the other Open Skies delegations. It became clear by the spring of 1990 that a new mood had set in in Moscow. Caution had taken hold, as Gorbachev faced up to a sea of domestic problems in the Soviet Union itself, including Lithuania, ethnic clashes in the Caucasus, economic chaos and constitutional upheaval, as well as the major foreign policy conundrum of relations with a rapidly reunifying Germany. During the opening ministerial phase of the Open Skies conference, Shevardnadze had agreed to new talks between the two Germanies and among the former Allied Powers (the USSR, the United States, France and Britain), under the Two-plus-Four formula; but thorny problems remained about the forms of German reunification and about a united Germany’s alliance relationships, whether with NATO or with the Warsaw Pact. The German question was not resolved by the end of June 1990, although hard bargaining was underway in the Two-plus-Four negotiations, giving rise to a number of reports of willingness to seek a compromise. The economic reunion of Germany was formally initiated at the beginning of July, and there were high hopes that political issues, including forms of government and relations with NATO and the Warsaw Pact, would be settled very soon. However, the West insisted that

254 European arms control in the 1990s Germany should not be neutral and unanchored in the heart of Europe, while the Soviet Union drew attention to its historical experiences with Germany and to its continuing requirements for a secure, stable, and not unfriendly construct on its Western borders. The differences between the two sides were undoubtedly serious ones, and there was a widespread recognition that a good deal of flexibility, imagination and comprehension for the other side’s perceptions would be necessary to resolve the German question rapidly and in a generally satisfactory manner. Since the bulk of Soviet forces outside the USSR are stationed in East Germany – while most NATO forces are stationed in the Federal Republic – it was inevitable that the German question, once it became a bone of contention, would have a major impact on the CFE negotiations. By mid-summer 1990 the effects of the hard bargaining over Germany were being felt across the whole spectrum of East-West relations, and nowhere more so than in Vienna. A general freeze came to overlay the talks, preventing further advances on the remaining arms control issues; and it soon became clear that new steps to a first CFE agreement would not be down a simple, straightforward path, but through a complex of linked political, strategic and arms control problems which constituted, together, the key to the entire future of security in Europe. THE COMPLEX OF EUROPEAN SECURITY ISSUES: MID-SUMMER 1990 In mid-summer 1990 the hopes for a CFE agreement depended heavily on general developments in the field of European security. At the same time, CFE itself offered possible ways out of some of the difficulties impeding progress towards a new political relationship in Europe.

German reunification and its implications German reunification was the most critical problem affecting the prospects for conventional arms control in mid-July 1990. Its prominence as an issue not only had a major impact on the whole effort to bring about a rapprochement between East and West, it also related directly to the question of force levels in Germany and to the problem of finding a place for a united Germany in the new Europe and as a member of either or both of the two alliances involved in the CFE negotiations.

CFE and the future of Europe 255 The East–West atmosphere and Soviet policies The question of the general East–West atmosphere was critical. In mid-summer 1990, the West was in a generally helpful mood (now that the tide of affairs seemed to be going its way), but President Gorbachev continued to confront a sea of domestic and international difficulties that made it hard for him to move forward to a final settlement of the German question and related issues. He had succeeded in containing, for the time being, the Lithuanian demand for independence and ethnic unrest in other parts of the Soviet Union, but appeared to be experiencing much greater difficulty with dissent within the Communist Party, challenges to his authority from the leadership of the Russian Federation, and persistent and widespread economic disruption and malaise. His hold on power seemed assured for the immediate future, but there were sufficient rumblings of discontent to raise doubts about the medium and long term. In the circumstances, he obviously needed to be careful to keep at least a moderate degree of support in the army and other central agencies of government, and not to alienate the military hierarchy by giving up, without guarantees and compensation, the Soviet Union’s hard-won position in Germany. The patience of the army hierarchy seemed to have been sorely tried by the abandoning of the Brezhnev doctrine the previous year, by the upheavals in Central and Eastern Europe, by Soviet agreement to military withdrawals from most of the countries of those regions, and by the effects of military cut-backs and reforms at home which, though they promised a modernized and better-equipped army in the future, none the less had forced thousands of officers and other ranks out of the service and into unemployment. President Gorbachev could not afford to accept humiliation by the West over the German question, and had to slow down the pace of movement towards complete German reunification, and towards the establishment of related agreements such as CFE I, until events and negotiations had reached a point where a mutually satisfactory settlement could be established. At the Twenty-Eighth Party Congress in Moscow in early July, key questions at issue were whether President Gorbachev would continue as General Secretary, and whether the Party itself would remain as a single political force or else split into two or more parts. There were fears at one stage that the hard-liners, who were vociferous in the debates, would oust President Gorbachev from his party position and then, by one means or another, move on to capture control of the state and force the Soviet Union into more conservative paths with respect to German reunification, the CFE and other foreign policy issues as well as domestic

256 European arms control in the 1990s policies. The interventions of hard-line, senior military officers in some of these debates was especially worrisome for progressives and for anyone who looked for rapid progress on German reunification and a first CFE treaty. A split in the party was also a possibility, and this too had some worrisome aspects in the short term because of the time it would take to work itself out and the incalculable nature of the consequences. Eventually, however, President Gorbachev succeeded in retaining his hold on the Party, and then in strengthening it by securing the election of like-minded moderate or reformist leaders. By mid-July the prospects for détente looked better, and Soviet leaders responded positively to NATO offers to make further efforts to tackle the German problem as well as CFE and other outstanding East–West issues.

Reunification and the Soviet forces in Germany German reunification also had direct military implications for CFE. One group of forces that would be affected directly would be the twenty Soviet tank and other divisions in East Germany, which had traditionally constituted the spearhead of the Warsaw Pact’s capability for striking offensively against the West. With the impending withdrawal of Soviet forces from Hungary and Czechoslovakia under bilateral agreements, those remaining in the GDR would soon constitute over 80 per cent of the Soviet forces stationed outside the USSR in Eastern and Central Europe. They also amounted in 1990 to about one-third of all active, Category I and Category II, Warsaw Pact divisions in Eastern and Central Europe and to more than one-fifth of all such divisions between the Elbe and the Urals.16 They were critical to the entire East–West balance of power being discussed in the CFE negotiations in Vienna. If German reunification was to go ahead, new arrangements would have to be made for these Soviet forces in East Germany. The German settlement of a CFE agreement would have to include provisions concerning their status, numbers, posture, and gradual reduction or withdrawal. East and West both seemed to expect that these forces would be cut significantly, but the question was how soon and by how much. If they remained at high levels and capable of large-scale offensive action, then the Warsaw Pact and NATO would remain in an essentially confrontational mode. If, however, these Soviet forces in East Germany were cut severely or withdrawn entirely, then the two sides would have to move from confrontation and collective defence towards other concepts of European political and strategic interrelations such as mutual or common security. The most widely

CFE and the future of Europe 257 shared expectation was that the Soviet forces in East Germany would be cut in half in a couple of years or so, and then gradually reduced over the following months to a residual component of about 50,000–100,000 troops. After that, the Soviet Union might keep some limited forces in Germany almost indefinitely, or it might withdraw, entirely, all of its divisions.17 Such thinking fitted the requirements of German reunification and also European construction. Accepting some Soviet forces in East Germany for a few years, or even for a somewhat longer period, would not be impossible for Germany or the West and would serve to reassure the Soviet Union in a period of transition. The continued presence of these forces would also help to reassure Poland about the security of its borders, and might be welcomed by other European states concerned about stability in a period of major political and other changes. The Germans too might see some advantages in keeping some limited Soviet forces for a while in the former East Germany, as a quid pro quo for continued American and other Western military presence in the territory of the Federal Republic. Gradually reduced to 100,000 or less on each side, the stationed forces in Germany would become guarantee forces rather than confronting armies, and would have as their main tasks the maintenance of stability, peacekeeping, border observation and verification of arms control arrangements, rather than deterrence and preparation for possible East–West hostilities.18 These prospects raised heartening possibilities for the future of Germany and of Europe as a whole. However, they also gave rise to some concerns about the future of CFE, and in mid-summer 1990 it was clear that the military aspects of German reunification would need to be handled very carefully if they were not to disrupt the conventional arms control process. The main worry was that the force levels agreed for Germany as part of the reunification settlement could go way beyond what had so far been discussed for a CFE I agreement in the Vienna negotiations. In effect, by looking towards states of mutual and then common security, with only minimal Warsaw Pact and NATO forces remaining in Germany and then mainly for guarantee purposes, the force levels aspect of a German reunification agreement would not only go way beyond CFE I, but also beyond what had normally been envisaged for immediate follow-on negotiations, that is additional cuts of about 10–15 per cent on both sides. The Two-plus-Four negotiations would be dealing with issues which previously had been relegated to a further and different stage of the conventional force reduction process. There was some fear that the whole CFE process might be bypassed and made redundant, especially when one took into account the trend towards unilateral and

258 European arms control in the 1990s bilateral reductions that was now present and having an effect on the European scene. Phasing of reductions was critical here. If the CFE process was not to be made redundant, then the initial reductions stipulated under a German settlement would have to be limited in scope if they were to be dovetailed with CFE I requirements. Additional, limited reductions might be made in the following year or two – linked to immediate CFE follow-on negotiations – without disrupting the wider arms control process, but further reductions would have to be spread out over a longer period if they were to be synchronized with the broader force reductions process. The terms of a German settlement would also have to avoid prejudging critical CFE issues, though that was a difficult proposition considering that the focus of the entire East–West military confrontation in Europe had always been on Germany. What the Two-plus-Four negotiators had to bear in mind in these respects, in the summer of 1990, was that, although the Vienna talks might result in an initial CFE agreement in 1990 or early 1991 and also a follow-on agreement by late 1991 or 1992, the first two phases of reductions themselves would certainly take many months to carry out and would have to be accompanied by the installation, and putting into effect, of sound verification systems and other institutional arrangements. Movement beyond that, to further negotiated reductions, would be bound to take at least 3 to 4 years to carry out, because at that point East and West would be cutting into the minimum levels of forces needed to maintain solid collective defences, especially along the Central Front, and entering a new phase characterized by co-operation and common security.19 That transition would be hard to make and would require the utmost care and mutual reassurance as cuts took place. The reductions would have to be phased and orchestrated in such a way as to reassure both sides that they were not opening windows for the other to exploit, and they would have to be monitored very carefully in accordance with solid inspection arrangements. An entire, continent-wide arms control regime would have to be put in place and made to operate effectively, which would be a much more difficult proposition than creating a force limitations system for one country or simply engaging in a series of unilateral cuts.

Reunification, German forces, and a united Europe Another group of forces directly affected by the negotiations on German reunification were of course the German forces themselves, including the armies,

CFE and the future of Europe 259 air forces, navies and reserve or paramilitary forces of both the Federal Republic and the GDR. It was generally accepted in the summer of 1990 that these forces would be moulded into one body, the armed forces of a new, unified Germany; but questions remained about numbers, dispositions and alliance connections. Without an agreement on limits, the German armed forces would amount to over 650,000 well-equipped personnel, backed up by a great pool of skilled reserves, and would constitute by far the greatest military force in Central Europe. The Soviet Union, especially, was anxious to reduce this force significantly, as part of a German settlement, and to place limits on it to prevent future expansion. The governments of the two Germanies, however, were concerned about seeing Germany singled out in this fashion. Ever since the founding of the Federal Republic in the late 1940s and German rearmament in the following decade, the FRG leaders have consistently opted for full partnership in Western institutions including NATO, allied integrated military structures, and West European organizations. They chose membership in the West over forms of German reunification that might threaten adherence to Western structures and a democratic political life, and rejected any proposals that might single out the FRG and make it separate and different from other Western states. They were not interested in a Germany that would be neutral and unsettled in the heart of Europe, and that might just conceivably, in due course, follow some new Bismarck-like path to a further disaster. Accordingly, Federal German leaders had always made it very clear that, if German reunification was eventually to take place, then it would have to be on terms acceptable to themselves, essentially through the absorption of East Germany rather than the formation of some spiritless, neutralized conglomerate. The new GDR leaders in the summer of 1990 also appeared to share these perceptions. The answer to this ‘singling out’ problem appeared to lie in linking limitations on the German armed forces to the broader context of conventional arms control in Europe. The Federal German government had already made its position on this issue clear many years earlier, in the early 1970s, when it had insisted that the MBFR negotiations should focus, on the Western side, not only on the armed forces located in the territory of the Federal Republic, but also on those located in Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands. Now, in mid-summer 1990, limitations on German forces would have to be linked effectively, somehow or other, to CFE. Opposition to separate limits on the German armed forces was restated by Chancellor Kohl during 1990. At the NATO London summit meeting of 5–6 July 1990, he began to envisage a solution whereby limitations on German forces

260 European arms control in the 1990s negotiated in the Two-plus-Four talks would be placed within the framework of broader limitations on manpower to be formulated in the ongoing CFE negotiations.20 However, this idea was resisted by other Western allies who feared that allied security might be jeopardized by an overhasty rushing towards an agreement on overall CFE manpower levels, or who worried about the delays that might arise, in both the German reunification and CFE processes, because of efforts to stuff too much content into two sets of negotiations that were already very complex. The result achieved on this question at the NATO summit meeting was to agree that a commitment should be given, at the time of signature of the first CFE treaty, ‘concerning the manpower levels of a unified Germany’. Once that treaty was signed, moreover, ‘follow-on talks should begin with the same membership and mandate, with the goal of building on the current agreement with additional measures, including measures to limit manpower in Europe’.21 Chancellor Kohl and President Bush let it be known in London that they could now envisage limitations on the German armed forces being ‘set within the context of negotiations involving all the NATO and Warsaw Pact European forces’.22 In other words, a solution to the question of limiting Germany’s armed forces could now be envisaged in the following manner: an agreement on initial levels for the German armed forces would be established in the Two-plus-Four process, but formally signed only when CFE I was also signed; CFE I would set limits on Soviet and US forces stationed in Europe, so Germany would not in any case be singled out; CFE I would also contain an undertaking to proceed directly to immediate follow-on negotiations, which would tackle, among other issues, the question of manpower limits for the whole of Europe. This package provided a sound basis for NATO and the Federal German government to negotiate further with the Soviet Union, which they proceeded to do in mid-July. Manfred Woerner, Secretary General of NATO, and Chancellor Kohl of West Germany both visited Moscow between 14 and 16 July, and succeeded in taking the process of rapprochement a major step further. Concentrating on the German reunification issue, Chancellor Kohl established a critical agreement in principle with President Gorbachev which resolved the German force limitations issue along the lines proposed by the West, while also establishing an accord on the question of German membership in NATO.23 Regarding limitations, the problem of numbers was as important as the linkages issue. German armed forces of over 650,000, with massive reserves, would probably have been perceived as dominating Central Europe and

CFE and the future of Europe 261 counterbalancing, alone, the Soviet armed forces west of the Urals. With the Warsaw Pact in disarray, and the Soviet Union possibly drifting further and further into obsolescence and dissension, there were those who feared that Germany might reappear once again as the foremost military power in all of Europe. The ground might be prepared for a new round of struggle over hegemony in Eastern Europe and for reawakened German tendencies – even in a democratic and peaceful country – to seek domination over the continental heartland. From the Soviet point of view, there was a fear that, if the Soviet leadership allowed German reunification to take place on terms that permitted the rise of a great new German army, then it would be casting away everything that had been achieved at such enormous cost and sacrifice in the First and Second World Wars. From the German perspective, severe reductions and limitations on the size of the new German armed forces would be equally unsatisfactory. If they were reduced from the 650,000 in the defence establishments of the two Germanies to the 250,000 suggested earlier in 1990 by Shevardnadze,24 then Germany might become an area of serious military weakness in the centre of Europe. It might come to be regarded as a vacuum or a minor player that would be perpetually overshadowed by the Soviet Union and therefore permanently dependent on guarantees from the United States and the other Western powers. Unable to defend itself at the conventional level with its own forces or with limited help from other countries, Germany would remain a client of the United States and suffer continuing insecurity in the face of Soviet diplomatic pressures and recurrent American bouts of neo-isolationism. The problem of satisfying Soviet concerns about the size of the German armed forces was compounded by the question of a united Germany’s role in a united Europe. The integration of the European Community was proceeding rapidly in mid-summer 1990, and it was possible that most of the states of Western and Central Europe would be grouped together in a great new confederation by the middle of the decade. Germany would be at its core and the confederation itself might extend eastwards as far as Czechoslovakia, Hungary and even Poland. Other European states would have privileged economic and political relations with it even though they might not be full members, and it would have certain collective foreign and defence policies as well as a well-co-ordinated and integrated economic structure. By any standards, this European community or confederation would be one of the world’s political, military and economic giants, a superpower that in most respects would be on roughly the same scale as the United States, the Soviet Union, China and Japan.

262 European arms control in the 1990s The prospect of such a European confederation was bound to raise questions in Soviet minds. In their thinking about the power of a future German army, in particular, Soviet leaders had to reflect that the new Germany would probably not stand alone, but enjoy close relations with other democratic European states within the European Community. Germany and the community or confederation would also serve as poles of attraction for virtually every other European state outside the Soviet Union and even for some that were still inside it such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and possibly others. Moreover, it would be allied with the United States (and Canada), not in a nervous protector–client relationship but within a partnership among equals. The armies of this confederation could well include some which stood on the very borders of the Soviet Union, backed up by the German army and the other armed forces of Western Europe and by the power that the United States and Canada continued to deploy in Europe or maintain across the Atlantic. The Soviet Union had to try to come to terms with this emerging giant while there was still time. Its leverage was slipping away, because Germany was already unifying economically and would be reunified politically in December 1990 when elections took place simultaneously in the FRG and the GDR, and the latter then merged with the former. Of course the Soviet Union would still have about 350,000 troops stationed in East Germany at that time, unless there was an agreement to reduce them; and, theoretically, these could be used to enforce its will in that part of Germany by taking over control and instituting military rule and repression. However, in reality, that option had been given up when the Soviet leadership renounced the Brezhnev doctrine in the autumn of 1989; and even if Gorbachev or some other Soviet leader wanted to lend ‘fraternal assistance’ for the preservation of Communism, there would be no one with even a shred of credibility to lend it to. The suppression of the national uprising in Hungary in 1956 and the upheaval in Czechoslovakia in 1968 required the existence of two functioning states and the availability of a Kadar and a Husak to put at the head of them, but by 1990 it was clear that the GDR would soon liquidate itself and thus obliterate the possibility of installing some Soviet puppet as leader, even if such an individual could be found in the new tide of reaffirmed nationhood that was soon bound to prevail, with whatever misgivings here and there, across the length and breadth of Germany. Naturally the Soviet leaders wanted to put a cap on the German army and the other German military arms. However, in the end they surely knew that they would have to be satisfied with moderate figures, below existing numbers for the armed forces of the Federal Republic, but not massively reduced. They had

CFE and the future of Europe 263 managed to live securely and peacefully over the previous quarter-century facing German armed forces of roughly this size, and they doubtless felt that they could continue to do so for a little while longer. They could, of course, look forward to further reductions in these forces in due course, as part of continent-wide cuts negotiated as part of the on-going conventional force reductions process.

A unified Germany and NATO The other major issue raised by German reunification was the question of a united Germany’s membership in NATO. Soviet concerns had been clearly stated, and had not been wholly allayed by proposals such as that of Federal German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who had recommended leaving the former East German territories as a special zone beyond the boundaries of the NATO alliance and designated to serve for several years as host for the remaining Soviet forces in Germany. At the London summit meeting of 5–6 July 1990, the Western allies addressed this issue and stated that a ‘united Germany in the Atlantic alliance of free democracies and part of the growing political and economic integration of the European Community will be an indispenable factor of stability, which is needed in the heart of Europe’. They then went on to say that the Atlantic community must reach out to the countries of the East and offer a number of concrete ideas designed to encourage a favourable attitude among their former adversaries: a joint nonaggression declaration by all NATO, Warsaw Pact and other CSCE members; an invitation to President Gorbachev and representatives of other Central and Eastern European countries to come to Brussels to address the North Atlantic Council; and an invitation to Warsaw Pact governments to establish regular diplomatic liaison with NATO.25 The Soviet response to these initiatives was positive, indeed enthusiastic. All the critical issues relating to German membership in the Atlantic alliance were not immediately resolved, but the way was paved for tackling this question effectively during the Woerner and Kohl visits to Moscow in mid-July. The former limited himself to dealing with general questions of European security, but the latter seized the opportunity to focus on the central issue of Germany. With the Twenty-Eighth Soviet Party Congress completed and President Gorbachev’s position reinforced, the two leaders were able to make remarkable progress. On 16 July 1990 it was announced in Moscow that the Soviet Union had accepted NATO membership for a united Germany and agreed that the 350,000 Soviet troops in East Germany would be withdrawn in a matter of 3 or 4 years. In exchange, no nuclear weapons and no

264 European arms control in the 1990s foreign troops should be based in eastern Germany, and the level of German forces would be cut from 480,000 in the existing West German army to 370,000 for the whole of Germany. German reunification became a reality in 1991 after all-German elections in December 1990.26 Thus, the way was now cleared for successful completion of the Two-plus-Four negotiations, and for forward movement on conventional arms control and other key facets of European co-operation and security.

Reunification and European allied forces in the FRG Returning to the question of military forces in Germany, another group affected by the prospect of reunification in mid-summer 1990 were those of the other European allies stationed in the Federal Republic. British, French, Dutch, Belgian and Luxemburg forces would no longer face an adversary in the middle of Germany, but would find themselves located within the territory of a unified country. Some of them might remain, for some time at least, as part of the forces of the new European confederation or else under continuing NATO arrangements, but the majority would likely be withdrawn in the following few years under the terms of follow-on conventional force reduction agreements. They might be seen by the Soviets and others as stabilizing elements in the new European power structure, and as a means of counterbalancing, within this new Europe, the strength of a united Germany. British and French nuclear forces, moreover, might help to guarantee the new European confederation from external aggression and to uphold the new security regime that would be formed for Europe as a whole.

Reunification and North American stationed forces US forces in Germany were another group that would be affected directly by German reunification. Like the Soviet forces in Germany, the expectation was that they would probably be reduced initially to around 195,000 in accordance with the terms of the German settlement or under a linked CFE I agreement; and that they might then be reduced further, over the next 3 or 4 years or so, to perhaps 50,000. Such a development would have major implications for the Western alliance, as well as for security in Europe. Canadian forces in Europe would also be affected by German reunification and CFE: they might be left at existing levels initially, but would probably be reduced to less than 2,000, or withdrawn entirely, if the force reductions process went further.

CFE and the future of Europe 265 The future of NATO and its implications The future of NATO was a major element among the complex of security issues present in Europe in the mid-summer of 1990. At the summit meeting in London on 6 and 7 July, alliance political leaders reviewed the whole field of East–West relations in light of current developments in the Soviet Union, in Eastern Europe, in the negotiations on German reunification, and in other key areas, and concluded that NATO, while continuing to provide for the common defence, would have to be adapted to emphasize its political work. They also decided that alliance strategy would need to be modified to recognize the vastly altered strategic situation in Europe. They stated that: (1) as Soviet troops left Eastern Europe and a treaty limiting conventional armed forces was implemented, NATO would field smaller and restructured active forces, which would be highly mobile and versatile, relying increasingly on multilateral corps made up of national units; and (2) the Alliance would continue to rely on a mix of nuclear and conventional forces, based in Europe, but the strategy of forward defence and flexible response would be modified by moving towards a reduced forward presence and adopting a new doctrine in which nuclear forces would truly be weapons of last resort. The leaders also agreed that the negotiations on conventional arms control underway in Vienna should be pursued as actively as possible in the hope of an agreement in 1990, and stated that the CSCE should become more prominent in Europe’s future.27 The core issue that the leaders faced in London was of NATO’s place in the post-Cold War world. Would the alliance still be necessary once the old confrontation, as now seemed likely, gave way in a few years to co-operation? And, if so, what would its tasks and responsibilities be? Some analysts were then arguing that NATO had served its purpose and should give way to a strengthened CSCE, and others believed that the new Europe, with Germany at its centre, would be so powerful as not to need additional support from across the Atlantic. NATO’s usefulness in the future seemed likely to depend on assuring a sound defence while the processes of change in Europe worked themselves out and then to go on, provided that stage was completed satisfactorily, to serve as a bridge between the new Europe and North America. For the time being, it remained essential as a mechanism for co-ordinating Western policies on CFE and other critical issues of European security. The question of short-range nuclear weapons was not the problem for the alliance and for arms control that it had been a year earlier at the Brussels summit

266 European arms control in the 1990s meeting of May 1989. In London the allies agreed that, once a first CFE agreement was signed, new negotiations should begin between the United States and the Soviet Union on the reduction of short-range nuclear forces. And when these began, the alliance should propose, in return for reciprocal action by the Soviet Union, the elimination of all its nuclear artillery shells from Europe.28 In effect, the use of nuclear weapons in Europe had now become inconceivable: the Germans would not use them against their fellow-countrymen, and the idea of NATO employing them against Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Soviet Union in the age of perestroika, or any other normal European state was almost equally unimaginable.

The roles of individual states A further important element in the complex of European security issues in midsummer 1990 was the growing distinctness of some of the individual states of Europe, especially some members of the Warsaw Pact. Hungary, for example, had recently undergone major political changes, redefined its relationship with the Soviet Union, and expressed the intention to leave, eventually, the Warsaw Pact. Questions were therefore raised about the utility of continuing to conduct the CFE negotiations on a bloc-to-bloc basis, or establishing agreements to be upheld by the two alliances when at least one of these groupings seemed likely before long to disappear. The special interests of the NATO flank countries – Norway, Denmark, Greece and Turkey – also required careful consideration in light of the continuing East–West aero-naval confrontation around the northern and southeastern peripheries of Europe.

Remaining CFE arms control issues The arms control requirements of a CFE I agreement were also not entirely satisfied by mid-July 1990. Some hard work still remained to be done on such issues as the exact limits for combat aircraft and subcategories of armoured combat vehicles as well as on verification systems. No one doubted that solutions would be found if the political pressure was turned on again, but the negotiators recognized that there was still much to do if they were to arrive at an initial agreement that was not structurally or technically flawed.29

CFE and the future of Europe 267 THE CURRENT SITUATION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS A first CFE agreement was signed in November 1990 at the Paris Summit as part of an intensive effort to tackle the complex of issues outlined above. This effort also led to a treaty on German reunification, German membership in NATO, nonaggression declarations among NATO and Warsaw Pact members, and the convening of immediate follow-on negotiations on conventional force reductions (CFE I A). Once ratified, the CFE I accord will be the greatest arms control treaty in history. Not only will it entail the reduction of tens of thousands of tanks, armoured combat vehicles and artillery pieces – as well as significant numbers of combat aircraft and other matériel– it will also establish limitations on the remaining forces, confidence-building measures, and verification systems. It will also include complaints procedures and other institutional arrangements. An effective arms control regime will be put in place for the whole of Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals; and collective security will supplement collective defence as a means of enhancing peace and stability in Europe. The CFE arms control regime will be a major new feature in the security landscape of Europe. Once it is established, the states of Europe will come to see it as a major source of national security, and will regard maintenance of the regime itself as a prime goal of national policy. There will be a trend away from reliance on the balance of power, to increased trust in institutional arrangements. Responsibility for upholding the system and the peace and security that rests upon it will lie not only with the two alliances, so long as they endure, but also with each individual state that is a party to the treaty. The move from confrontation to mutual security and then common security will be underway. The conventional forces on the two sides will also be brought into a much closer balance by a CFE I regime. American intelligence estimates already indicate that, instead of fourteen days or less of warning time, the West, partly due to unilateral Warsaw Pact cuts, now has up to three months warning of a full-scale Soviet attack in Europe. Once the CFE I system is put in place, the dangers of a surprise attack or successful large-scale offensive action will be largely removed from the European scene.30 If the CFE I agreement can be ratified soon, then the prospects of an orderly and phased progression to further conventional arms control accords will be enhanced. A CFE IA agreement might be possible within an additional year or

268 European arms control in the 1990s two, placing the new limits on German military manpower within the context of continent-wide manpower limitations. Then further, deep cuts may follow over the next few years, until a state of drastically reduced armaments is achieved across Europe. Negotiations on the control of naval forces might also be set underway. Conditions of confrontation and competition might be replaced, by the turn of the century, by entente, co-operation and common security. If the new CFE regime can be solidly established then, as the German unity and CFE I/CFE II issues are settled, the stage will be set for new political achievements in Europe. A new European confederation is likely to take shape, with Germany at its core, and to assume a major role in continental and even global affairs. It may not, especially near the outset, comprise all the non-Soviet states of Europe, but it is likely to include the present European Community as well as several neutral or East European countries. It will have a population of over 350 million, an economy on a comparable level to the United States, and sufficient military power and diplomatic cohesion to ensure, very largely, its own defence.31 In addition, it will be associated with the United States and Canada through NATO, and with these countries and the Soviet Union in CSCE and CFE arrangements. The CSCE, especially if institutionalized, will supply a continentwide vehicle for co-operation among all the states of Europe and North America; and the CFE conventional arms control regime will provide a great bedrock for continuing security throughout Europe in the period ahead. It should help to ensure that all the states and peoples of Europe are given the opportunity to flourish and develop in a peaceful and non-threatening environment as they enter the next millennium a few years from now. NOTES 1 See Keliher, John G. (1980) The Negotiations on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions: The Search for Arms Control in Central Europe, New York: Pergamon, pp. 1–17, on the early history of the conventional forces issue, on Senator Mansfield’s initiatives, the Harmel report and the Reykjavik declaration. 2

ibid., p. 73.

3 Appeal by the Warsaw Treaty Member States to the Member States of NATO and to all European countries for the reduction of armed forces and conventional armaments in Europe, Budapest, 11 June 1986 .

CFE and the future of Europe 269 4 Brussels Declaration on Conventional Arms Control by Ministers at North Atlantic Council Session, Brussels, 11 December 1986 . 5 For further details of these Warsaw Pact proposals, see Hill, Roger (1990) ‘Conventional arms control’, in Maureen Appel Molot and Fen Osler Hampson (eds) Canada Among Nations: The Challenge of Change/1989 Ottawa: Carleton University Press, pp. 93–104. 6 For example, see Hill, Roger (1988) Are Major Conventional Force Reductions in Europe Possible?, Canadian Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament, Aurora Papers 7, March; and Dean, Jonathan (1988) ‘Can NATO unite to reduce forces in Europe?’ Arms Control Today, The Arms Control Association, 18:8: 11–18. 7 See Hill, ‘Conventional arms control’, op. cit., p. 95, for further details of these Western proposals. 8 ibid., p. 98. 9 ibid. 10 However, the NATO proposal did not deal with manpower, while the Warsaw Pact draft treaty referred only to stationed manpower and equipment. 11 See Basic Reports from Vienna: a regular update on the CFE and CSBM negotiations from the British American Security Information Council, 15 January 1990, no. 4, covering the Fourth Round of CF E. See also The Arms Control Reporter 1989, pp. 407.D. 45–8. See also Slade, Andrew (1990) ‘Dismembering the Cold War’, CFE Special Report, Jane’s Defence Weekly 13 January, pp. 72–5. 12 See SIPRI Yearbook 1990, p. 499. 13 ibid., pp. 499–500. See also Lewis J A C, and Slade, Andrew (1990) ‘NATO shift eases route to CFE’, Jane’s Defence Weekly 17 February, p. 287. 14 Department of External Affairs and International Trade, Ottawa, The Disarmament Bulletin no. 13, spring, p. 12. 15 When the designation of this category was agreed as armoured combat vehicle (ACV), NATO increased its requirement to 30,000 ACVs compared with an earlier call for 28,000 armoured troop carriers (ATCs). 16 Category I divisions are kept at 75 per cent strength or higher and could rapidly come to full strength. Category II are 50–75 per cent strength and would normally be deploy able within 30 days of mobilization. There are also Category III divisions which are usually under 33 per cent strength and would take 90–120 days to deploy after mobilization; see Gervasi, Tom (1986) The

270 European arms control in the 1990s Myth of Soviet-Military Supremacy, Harper & Row: New York, p. 470. 17 See p.257, the section on a unified Germany and NATO, for the actual agreement on this point established in principle in Moscow, 15 July 1990 . 18 For a major Canadian statement on future defence tasks and other security requirements in Europe, see Canada and the New Europe, notes for a speech by the Right Honourable Joe Clark, PC, MP, Secretary of State for External Affairs, at Humber College, Lakeshore Campus, Toronto, 26 May 1990. 19 Earlier estimates of minimum requirements on the Central Front between the two Germanies and Czechoslovakia suggested that, in a continuing confrontation, about half a million allied ground forces, plus 150, 000– 200,000 air force personnel, and related equipment, would be required to ensure stability and a sound military balance. See, for example, Hill, Are Major Conventional Force reductions in Europe Possible? op. cit. 20 See Apple, R. W. jun. (1990) ‘Western leaders call for new NATO to assure Soviets’, New York Times 6 July, pp. A1, A6. 21 See NATO (1990) London Declaration on a Transformed North Atlantic Alliance, NATO Press Service, Press Communiqué 5–1 (90) 36, 6 July, p. 3. 22 See Whitney, Craig R. (1990) ‘New defense stand’, New York Times 7 July, pp. 1, 4. 23 See p.261, the section on a unified Germany and NATO, for the Moscow agreement of 16 July 1990 . 24 See Whitney, Craig R. ‘NATO leaders gather, in search of a purpose’, New York Times 5 July, p. A8. 25 NATO, London Declaration on a Transformed North Atlantic Alliance, op. cit., p. 20. 26 See Soviet Union Accepts United Germany in NATO, Ending Impasse, Reuter Library Report, 16 July 1990. 27 NATO, London Declaration on a Transformed North Atlantic Alliance, op. cit., pp. 3–5. 28 ibid., p. 4. 29 See Slade, Andrew (1990) ‘CFE update – Breaking the impasse’, Jane’s Defence Weekly 16 June, pp. 1208–14. The negotiating situation had not changed significantly a month later. 30 Gordon, Michael R. and Engelberg, Stephen (1989) ‘Soviet changes mean earlier word of attack’, The New York Times 26 November, p. 18. 31 On the possible future of Europe, see His Excellency Jacques Lecomte,

CFE and the future of Europe 271 Ambassador for the Commission of the European Communities to Canada, ‘1992 and the Future of Europe’, Proceedings of International Security Seminar Series, organized jointly by the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and the Department of National Defence, vol. 2, no. 6, 7 February 1990.

11 European arms control developments James Macintosh

It must now be one of the most overworked of clichés to note that Europe has entered a period of genuine transformation during the last 2 years. Cliché or not, it is undeniably the case that the most remarkable events have occurred at a scintillating pace, a process perhaps symbolized best by the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. The Warsaw Treaty Organization has virtually collapsed and, in a stunning reversal, most of its members have begun installing market economies and adopting democratic parliamentary political systems. The Soviet Union has become a dramatically less threatening presence in Europe – and one overwhelmed with a daunting array of domestic problems. German unification in 1991 appears certain, as well, altering fundamentally the political and economic landscape of Europe. The further integration of the European Economic Community appears inevitable as does the Community’s eventual extension north and east. Most European countries seem inclined to reduce their militaries at a pace exceeding that to be mandated by the emerging Vienna CFE treaty. The wide range of truly significant changes in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the foreign policy initiatives undertaken by the Soviet Union under President Mikhail Gorbachev, have already helped to transform Europe and its security environment. Much more can be expected to develop in the very near future, as well, as a variety of arms control processes produce tangible results and economic and political processes yield closer ties and stronger integrative impulses. Despite these seemingly irreversible trends, however, there will remain the distinct possibility of major unrest within Europe, most likely to be precipitated by growing economic, political and social problems in at least several East European countries as well as in the Soviet Union.1 Resurgent nationalism in several regions could also become a serious political

European arms control developments 273 problem. In the West, efforts to manage the economic integration of Europe may collide with countervailing national imperatives, thwarting or even reversing progress towards a single European market (and polity). As well, the sudden changes forced upon the existing European security structure, many aspects of which have not been revised in years, may undermine that structure’s basic stability in ways not fully appreciated nor anticipated today. The case of the INF treaty discussed below is a good example of this type of unappreciated change. As if to underline the fragility of our security assumptions, the August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait with its sudden twists and turns has provided a compelling reminder of how the unexpected can occur to disrupt our assumptions and why flexible, multi-purpose conventional military forces will remain necessary well into the 1990s and perhaps beyond. It has also provided a startling reminder of how the security of Europe may depend upon more than intra-European events such as the dissolution of the WTO and the negotiation of several arms control agreements. Events and processes outside of Europe can play an important role in defining Europe’s security environment in the future, a role that may prove to be largely immune to arms control remedies. This chapter makes a brave and hopefully not futile effort to bring this volume up to date with respect to several key arms control fora relevant to the CSCE group of states. In doing so, it recognizes that the nature of contemporary events – and the speed at which they occur – make this undertaking a very challenging one. Nevertheless, a few remarks are in order about the emerging arms control environment that both Canada and Germany will confront as the decade of the 1990s gets under way. The chapter begins with a brief retrospective look at the INF treaty, primarily because it marked the start of what is now a much larger transformation in European security affairs. It also warrants attention because the changes initiated with the negotiation of the INF treaty elevated the importance of several other arms control fora – principally the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) and the Confidence- and Security-building Measures (CSBM) negotiations in Vienna – and helped to define the change in the underlying logic of the European security environment. These, as well as the START strategic arms talks and the incipient short-range nuclear forces (SNF) talks, help to define the nature of the emerging European security architecture in a unique way. The bulk of the chapter looks at the CFE and the CSBM negotiations in Vienna, bringing earlier work up to date. The chapter’s conclusion includes commentary on the larger arms control environment and its relationship to events in Europe.

274 European arms control in the 1990s THE INF TREATY AND CONVENTIONAL FORCE ARMS CONTROL2 In the shadow of 1990s arms control progress, the INF treaty almost has become a subject of ancient history. Although ratified a scant 3 years ago in May 1988, it is barely remembered amidst the rush to finish two conventional arms control agreements, a chemical weapons convention, and a new strategic arms control agreement – all perhaps to be accomplished before the spring of 1991. Nevertheless, it should be recalled that the negotiation of the INF treaty was a tremendously significant event, one that signalled a very important positive shift in Soviet– American relations and represented a major step in the transformation of European security affairs. Prior to the INF treaty, only the CSCE’s Stockholm document had managed to have any positive arms control impact on European security relations. Not only did the INF treaty signal the beginning of a positive shift in European defence relations, it also marked a fundamental but barely perceived shift in the underlying nature of those defence relations. Although not fully acknowledged, the shift by the Western states has been away from a traditional variant of extended deterrence (as exemplified by Flexible Response) and apparently towards a sparer form relying primarily on a combination of conventional forces and barely linked strategic nuclear systems. Unilateral and multilateral efforts during the past 2 years or so have further modified this new security relationship by nudging it towards conventional force symmetry at much lower force levels with increasingly remote nuclear underwriting for both sides. These efforts have contributed to an atmosphere of significantly reduced threat where virtually no expectation of armed conflict any longer exists. The INF treaty quickly elevated both the real and the perceived importance of the conventional force balance by thinning out the linkages between conventional and nuclear forces within NATO’s Flexible Response policy. In the process, it made more apparent some important problems underlying both the concept and the policy of extended deterrence. In particular, the removal of all long-range theatre nuclear missiles from Europe demonstrated the apparent fragility of extended deterrence concepts (which rely upon escalation) by excising a major component – perhaps the most important component – in the escalation sequence.3 The linkages between the different levels of potential NATO military response theoretically available to animate Flexible Response were reduced to American (and, to a lesser extent, French and British) strategic nuclear forces on the one hand and short-range tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons and conventional forces on the other. Contemporary interest in removing short-range nuclear systems simply underlines the dimension of this shift in thinking and the reduction in escalatory linkages.

European arms control developments 275 Thus, the INF treaty placed European conventional military balances and negotiations about them in a new ‘less nuclear’ context that both strained and challenged existing understandings of extended deterrence and how it works. Just as NATO’s policy of Flexible Response cannot be seen in the same light in a new Europe with a unified Germany and a symmetrical conventional force balance at reduced levels, neither can it be seen in the same light in a post-INF world. The former will change the immediate conventional force environment in the centre of Europe while the latter concerns the underlying mechanism of extended deterrence and the role of the United States in underwriting West European security. Compounding the complexity of this situation is the increasing tendency of East European states to adopt very constrained defence policies and deployments, further challenging the old European defence realities. The promise of SNF negotiations and the existing START strategic nuclear negotiations will further exaggerate this challenge to basic extended deterrence concepts by removing or reducing more escalatory linkages. Precisely how the increasing threat of nearby but ‘out-of-area’ nuclear and chemical weapons capabilities (and the prospect of their actual use) will interact with this already poorly appreciated transformation of the European defence environment is very difficult to say although there is an increasing chance that it will feed a tendency towards Euroisolation. These changes and the associated broader change in basic Western perceptions of the ‘Soviet threat’ give the Vienna CFE and CSBM processes a different meaning – and a far greater importance – than they could have had in 1975 or 1980. This is because conventional forces themselves may become more important as the fundamental underwriter of both security and stability within and around Europe. In a post-INF European security environment, it may fall to the Vienna talks or their successors, conducted in an increasingly institutionalized CSCE context, to help impose an enduring stability on NATO–WTO and broader European security affairs, compensating for major strains and inconsistencies in the international security policies of various CSCE states and the complex security environment created by those interacting policies. It is a mistake, however, simply to assume that the current atmosphere of good will and progress will sustain relations throughout Europe and in the surrounding area for the rest of this century. A need for a new, explicit security architecture will become increasingly critical, one that will provide the stability and resilience to survive future regional and global security shocks. However, neither the Vienna CSBM nor the CFE talks may be able to deal with the actual force structures and doctrines which will continue to invest the military forces of both alliances with offensive capabilities regardless of the overall size of

276 European arms control in the 1990s forces deployed in CSCE Europe. Major equipment and manpower reductions will not fundamentally alter this reality although the movement of Soviet forces out of the soon-to-disappear German Democratic Republic and other East European states will go a long way in reducing concerns about surprise attack.4 Nevertheless, until these doctrinal and offensive capability dimensions of the conventional military relationship are addressed successfully, in new or successor negotiations, the full potential of the European conventional arms control process will be limited. And until the inherent danger of contemporary offensive conventional military force is muted or controlled, the longer-term potential danger of an unexpected political turnabout in Eastern Europe or, more dangerous still, in the Soviet Union cannot be ignored or easily mitigated. This limitation in the scope of the CFE and CSBM talks does not mean that the two negotiating processes cannot make an important contribution in terms of improving the perceived ‘stability’ and ‘transparency’ of the military situation in Europe.5 It does mean that the reasons for those conventional forces being where they are and in the configurations they currently possess are in many cases immune to CDE- and CFE-type solutions. Unless European security thinking and planning are more sophisticated in dealing with these complex realities, apparent arms control bargains may not achieve the results either expected or possible. It also means that European security thinking may need to embrace a separate collection of international security concerns – ones associated with developments occurring outside of Europe – and that these concerns may require military responses that are inconsistent with solutions that enhance intra-European stability and security. Paradoxically, this effort to foster greater intra-European stability may also contribute to a new variety of internal NATO strain that could see the Alliance join the Warsaw Treaty Organization as an irrelevant body. The arms control efforts, if successful, may challenge the basic historical rationale of NATO as a collective defence alliance relying on American nuclear weapons as a final guarantor. Reduction negotiations that further reduce the availability and ‘connectedness’ of those nuclear weapons (i.e. SNF and START) and minimize the perceived conventional military threat can only compound these internal tensions and complicate planning for dealing with external threats. These tensions will have serious implications for all NATO allies, whether they be central players such as the Federal Republic of Germany or more peripheral states such as Canada. Thus, the INF treaty marked the initial and unheralded step towards a new European security environment that is far less dependent upon old-style extended deterrence linkages built around different types of nuclear systems. Some arms control negotiations (START and SNF) will continue this process while others (CFE

European arms control developments 277 and CSBM) will focus on stabilizing European conventional force relations or containing the spread of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and advanced delivery technologies throughout the world. It is not at all clear yet what the replacement European security architecture will be like. What is relatively clear, however, is that the process of change is far from over and is still susceptible to major upset. Each of the contemporary arms control negotiations, therefore, will help to shape this emerging security environment both in Europe and in the larger international system but in ways that are far from obvious. THE CFE AND CSBM NEGOTIATIONS As is noted in an earlier chapter exploring the confidence-building character of the CSBM and CFE negotiations (including their predecessor talks), the current European conventional arms control environment is a creature of mid-1960s developments in Europe and the United States that made arms control negotiations useful vehicles for the attainment of various foreign and domestic policy objectives. In fact, the CSCE and MBFR processes can actually trace their roots to at least a decade earlier when the Federal Republic of Germany’s entry into NATO helped to redefine the international security environment in Europe.6 Both sets of negotiations have undergone profound shifts since their beginnings, however, moving from distinctly peripheral and perhaps even irrelevant exercises to become increasingly central arms control processes. Ironically, Germany is again playing an important role in defining the importance of these negotiations with its pending unification, rapidly growing economic weight, and continuing capacity to induce strong fears within the Soviet Union. Both arms control processes now give every indication of yielding genuinely significant outcomes before 1990 comes to an end. Indeed, the CSBM process has already done so with the negotiation of the Stockholm Document of 21 September 1986. As we will see, the Vienna CSBM agreement is very likely to amplify this success while the CFE Treaty will contribute what several years ago would have seemed to be impossible conventional force reductions. THE VIENNA CSBM NEGOTIATIONS The Vienna CSBM negotiation mandate is to build upon and expand the results already achieved at the* Stockholm Conference with the aim of elaborating and adopting a new set of mutually complementary

278 European arms control in the 1990s confidence- and security-building measures designed to reduce the risk of military confrontation in Europe.7 The Vienna negotiations began on 6 March 1989 and the basic positions of the two Alliances were presented promptly on 9 March 1989.8 Although the initial positions were relatively comprehensive and serious, they have been modified in the intervening period to accommodate the refinement of existing proposals and the development of new ideas.9 NATO tabled an ‘amplified’ version of its original package of proposals on 9 June 1989. This amplification contained, amongst other things, several proposals dealing with information exchange including the possible creation of a military data bank. This was a precursor suggestion for later discussions that would involve the possible creation of some type of CSCE information and communication centre. Following up on the 9 March introductory package of proposed CSBM, the WTO states tabled four major papers on 5 July 1989, including one dealing with information exchange and two others calling for the notification of air activities and the notification of ‘sea and amphibious activities’. Several more WTO working papers were circulated between July 1989 and the summer of 1990, including ones further exploring air, sea and amphibious activities. However, due to the rigid resistance of NATO (and particularly the United States), the Soviet Union has largely abandoned its efforts to include maritime measures in the coalescing Vienna agreement. This desire to introduce maritime elements into the CSCE remains a Soviet goal, however, and it has periodically produced slowdowns in the negotiations while the Soviet Union attempts to underline the importance it attaches to the eventual inclusion of naval forces in CSCE discussions. The Soviet Union is not alone in this regard and some NATO states have expressed a desire to deal with at least some maritime arms control issues. Reflecting to some extent this concern with maritime military capabilities, the neutral and non-aligned (NNA) states introduced a package of measures on 12 July 1989 that constituted a relatively narrow expansion of the original Stockholm Document. It included lowered notification ceilings and introduced broader categories of amphibious and airborne forces. These last components reflect the Swedish concern with mobile military forces and have been an important influence in the construction of the NNA position along with a consistent desire to avoid restrictions on mobilization capabilities, a mainstay for many of their defence plans. Suggesting the eventual shape of the Vienna CSBM Document, the negotiators established two main working groups on 5 May 1989. One group was tasked with information, verification, communication and consultation measures. The second

European arms control developments 279 group was to deal with notification, observation, annual calendars and limitation measures. The main new features represented in this division of responsibilities were communication and consultation, areas where the Vienna agreement is likely to cover new ground. One CSBM element pursued during 1989 bore interesting fruit in early 1990. In part precipitated by claims about and indications of doctrinal revision within the Soviet Union, the CSCE states agreed to conduct a ‘Seminar on Military Doctrine’ in order to explore the nature of this increasingly important consideration within the evolving European security environment. This informal ‘seminar’ ran from 16 January to 5 February at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. It was generally considered to be a good success although most Western states remained unconvinced about Soviet doctrinal revisions. As an educational exercise with significant opportunities for senior military officials from each of the CSCE countries to interact informally with each other, however, the seminar received top marks. There is every indication that further seminars will be held, perhaps mandated by the Vienna CSBM Agreement. After a period of considerable internal debate, NATO tabled a major package of revisions and new measures on 18 May 1990. Although it would not become clear for several months, one of the critical considerations in this debate was the degree to which the CSCE should be permitted to become formally institutionalized. Until this time in early 1990, NATO had resisted any effort to create formal CSCE bodies and institutions. The NATO package included a proposal to examine the development of a new communication system for use by the thirty-five CSCE states as well as the creation of a ‘mechanism for the discussion of unusual activities of a military nature’ (potentially, a risk reduction centre cum consultative commission). It also proposed ‘visits to combat air bases to observe routine activities.’10 Also proposed was the exchange of information detailing military infrastructure upgrading. Building on the 18 May 1990 proposals, NATO’s 6 July 1990 ‘London Declaration on a Transformed North Atlantic Alliance’ proposed that the ‘CSCE in Paris decide how the CSCE can be institutionalized to provide a forum for wider political dialogue in a more united Europe’. Amongst the proposals was ‘a CSCE Centre for the Prevention of Conflict that might serve as a forum for exchanges of military information, discussion of unusual military activities, and the conciliation of disputes involving CSCE member states’.11 Future discussions within the CSCE about information handling, communications and at least some verification tasks are very likely to revolve around this proposal although it will probably require more time than the Vienna CSCE talks have available to them actually to transform these ideas into action.

280 European arms control in the 1990s The Vienna CSBM Document will almost certainly be completed in the autumn of 1990 unless a major last-minute problem emerges in the negotiations. It will follow the pattern of the existing Stockholm CCSBMDE Document, adding several new measures and extending some of the existing ones.12 The longer-term future of the CSCE’s CSBM negotiations is unclear at this point due to the likelihood that CFE- and CSBM-type negotiations will be merged under a more general CSCE mandate. At present, it appears likely that the near-term progress of the CFE reduction talks will dictate the nature and timing of any future merging of the force reduction and confidence-building processes. This means that a drawing together of the two negotiations will almost certainly have to await a relatively brief follow-on CFE I B (or bis after the French term for intermediate) negotiation. This brief follow-on will attempt to address several larger personnel reduction issues having to do primarily with setting ceilings on personnel levels within Central Europe. This is a ticklish undertaking because the Soviet Union is determined to limit German force levels (a goal partially achieved in a 16 July bilateral German– Soviet agreement) while the Federal Republic is determined to resist any efforts to ‘singularize’ it with any restrictive measures. Thus, any personnel limits will have to apply to at least several other states in the central region of the ATTU, as well. This could become complicated given the presence of British and French troops in Germany, the evolving status of German forces in the two Germanies, and the presence of other Western forces in the Federal Republic. Thus, some form of interim CFE negotiation in 1991 will likely follow the completion of the current talks. Only after that will it be possible to merge the two processes. It may still be the case, even after their merging, that some bilateral and non-CSCE multilateral agreements will be penned to formalize specific force reduction arrangements within the ATTU area. This could be the case, for instance, amongst several East European states. In short, the pattern of arms control arrangements in Europe could easily become quite complex with an extensive patchwork of separate undertakings covering a wide variety of specific security relationships. THE NEGOTIATIONS ON CONVENTIONAL ARMED FORCES IN EUROPE A copy of the CFE mandate was attached to the 17 January 1989 Concluding Document of the Vienna CSCE Follow-Up Meeting, an act that clearly underlined the

European arms control developments 281 fact that the negotiations were to ‘take place in the framework of the CSCE process’. The CFE negotiations began shortly thereafter, on 6 March 1989.13 The basic NATO CFE position was tabled on 6 March and proposed reductions in selected ‘offensive’ systems such as tanks and artillery to equal alliance levels set at a figure approximately 5 per cent below the lowest level possessed currently by either side within the Atlantic-to-the-Urals (ATTU) mandate area defined by the territories of the twenty-one European participants. Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze outlined the basic details of the WTO CFE position on the same day. A detailed version of that proposal was subsequently presented on 25 May 1989. The NATO CFE position has been fleshed out and revised since it was first presented in March, particularly as far as verification and ‘stabilizing measures’ are concerned. In addition, several key aspects of the NATO CFE approach were altered by President Bush in his speech of 29 May 1989. Finally reversing a long-standing alliance policy and bending to Soviet wishes, he proposed including land-based combat aircraft and helicopter cuts as part of a CFE agreement. These forces, he proposed, should be reduced to a level 15 per cent below current NATO figures. In addition, he suggested that the United States and the Soviet Union each reduce their ‘stationed forces’ in Europe to 275,000 personnel, a reduction that would see the Soviets remove approximately 325,000 men and the United States 30,000. President Bush expressed the hope that the negotiations might be completed within 6 to 12 months, a timetable that has proven to be optimistic.14 The introduction of personnel reductions in the Bush amendments, while necessary from a political perspective, created an additional complication for the negotiations. A Soviet–American personnel reduction was crucial due to the speed of diplomatic developments in Eastern Europe, including substantial unilateral force reductions by the East. The verification of any negotiated Soviet–American personnel reduction, however, ran the risk of reintroducing into the CFE the sorts of problems that had plagued the MBFR negotiations for over a decade. It also opened the door to complicated reduction problems having to do with French and British ‘stationed’ forces in the Federal Republic as well as the question of the Federal Republic’s own Bundeswehr force levels. In addition to these personnel-related questions, the late introduction of aircraft and helicopter limits led to a constellation of new definitional problems and disagreements about baseline equipment counts. On 13 July 1989, the new elements proposed by President Bush were formally added to the 6 March NATO proposal with the aircraft limits completing the first section of the package dealing with equipment reductions and the personnel reductions comprising a new section in the proposal. The revised package also

282 European arms control in the 1990s included an outline of the constraining measures that would be presented in greater detail on 21 September 1989. Throughout the remainder of the summer and through September, NATO negotiators gamely struggled to finish the remaining key elements in their position, attempting to overcome internal disagreements about, amongst other things, verification, weapon system production monitoring, weapon system definitions, non-circumvention measures, and stabilizing measures. Only by deferring some issues and glossing over the details of others were they able to prepare what would constitute Chapter III in the NATO CFE package. NATO was able to present its Chapter III measures on 21 September 1989. This collection included an information exchange measure, a stabilization measure (notification of reserve call-ups; monitored equipment storage; bridging equipment limits of 700 armoured bridging vehicles per alliance group; and constraints on the size and frequency of military activities), the exchange of some verification information, and an incomplete non-circumvention measure. The WTO’s CFE proposal was presented in detail on 25 May 1989. It specified ceilings for single countries, foreign deployments within the mandate area, as well as deployments within the three zones of reduced armaments. That proposal was then modified on 29 June 1989 with the adoption of an approach calling for regional ceilings on conventional forces in revised zones that corresponded much more closely to NATO’s suggested limits and zones. The proposal called for the creation of an extended central zone comprised of Belgium, Denmark, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, as well as the Soviet Union’s Baltic, Byelorussian, Carpathian, and Kiev military districts. Of special interest was the relatively modest level of equipment specified for the ‘rear area’ zone of the Soviet Union (for instance, 1,300 tanks and 1,350 armoured personnel carriers). According to this plan, the two sides would be limited to reduced subtotals of equipment (for instance, 13,300 tanks each) within the central zone.15 The WTO group of states presented working papers in the autumn of 1989 that discussed aircraft definitions (7 September) and then aircraft and helicopter numbers (28 September). The latter paper set limits on combat helicopters (1,900) that were similar to NATO’s proposals although the aircraft figures were less close at 4,700 (but excluding ‘air defence’ aircraft). Including both trainers and air defence craft, the Soviet approach would have left the WTO with 12,094 aircraft compared with 6,084 for NATO, hardly the sort of result envisioned in the NATO approach.16 On 19 October 1989, the WTO group of states tabled two papers that explored in considerable detail a variety of information exchange, stabilization and verification

European arms control developments 283 measures, many of which appeared relatively close to NATO positions. This was particularly the case for information exchange, the verification of reductions and residual levels, data verification, verification means, and consultation. Interestingly, several measures (such as entry and exit points) proved to be closer to American thinking than NATO European thinking. At least several NATO European states (France and the United Kingdom, for instance) were concerned that some American verification and monitoring ideas were excessively intrusive and constraining. The WTO paper on stabilizing measures exhibited less overlap. The thorny issue of tank and armoured combat vehicle definitions was addressed by NATO on 12 December when it proposed new definitions and numbers for various categories of armoured vehicles although it would be mid-1990 before this problem was finally resolved.17 Shortly thereafter, on 14 December, both the WTO and NATO tabled draft treaties. These documents contained many empty spaces and unspecified measures (‘placeholders’) but provided an outline of what the final CFE treaty would look like. Following up on the 12 December NATO tank paper, the WTO presented its tank and armoured combat vehicle position on 12 January 1990. This brought the two sides closer with the adoption of three sub-categories of armoured combat vehicles employing similar definitions. The two sides remained at odds, however, over the issue of light tanks and heavy-armament combat vehicles (HACVs) and how much they could weigh. In early February 1990, NATO announced a further revision of its tank definition position, proposing that the tank category include any wheeled vehicle over 20 metric tons and any tracked vehicle over 13 metric tons, both with guns of at least 75 mm. NATO also presented a revised proposal for attack helicopters and combat aircraft numbers, as well, moving closer to the WTO position on both systems.18 The number (and type) of Soviet combat aircraft to include in the CFE has proven to be a particularly difficult issue, largely because of the strategic defence requirements of the Soviet Union and the presence within the mandate area of major WTO air training facilities. These facts create an inherent asymmetry. Other WTO member aircraft holdings have complicated this issue even more due to the mix of aircraft types, but it is the Soviet forces that are most important due to their preponderant numbers.19 A revised stationed force ceiling (first announced in President Bush’s 31 January 1990 State of the Union address) was formally tabled on 8 February, calling for 195,000 personnel in the Central Zone for each superpower but permitting the United States an additional 30,000 personnel outside the Central Zone. The Soviet Union accepted this position on 13 February. After considerable internal debate, on 22

284 European arms control in the 1990s February 1990 NATO finally tabled its draft CFE treaty articles dealing with verification and information exchange as well as its ground inspection protocols. No position on aerial inspection or equipment destruction was presented although NATO tabled a draft protocol for the latter three weeks later on 15 March. The question of how to destroy treaty-limited systems has been surprisingly hard to resolve, primarily because of the difficulty in completely destroying equipment such as tanks. Melting tanks, for instance, has proven to be hugely time consuming and expensive. The CFE participants have generally moved towards a position that recognizes that ‘reduced systems’ will take a long time to destroy and may need to be stored for some time before being destroyed. Efforts have also been expended to develop quick and inexpensive ways of disabling these systems. A plastic explosive charge carefully placed near a tank’s turret mount, for instance, can destroy its operational usefulness and make it prohibitively expensive to repair. Similar approaches can completely disable other armoured vehicles (typically breaking their backs or destroying other key structural areas) and artillery pieces.20 The WTO tabled its inspection proposal on 12 April 1990.21 The proposal came quite close to the NATO position in many ways but failed to provide any agreement on the difficult issue of inspection quotas and their targets. The Soviet Union in particular was concerned about the NATO approach to quotas which revolved around geographic extent and equipment counts, yielding a somewhat one-sided set of quotas from the Soviet perspective. The Soviet Union preferred to discount geographic size and factor in the number of military bases in each country. Other unresolved questions included the number of inspections each country would have to receive at declared and undeclared sites, both before and after reductions, as well as how to conduct aerial inspections and baseline validations. Further refinements in the areas of combat aircraft ceilings, inspection quotas, ground equipment definitions, and equipment destruction modalities were explored in April and May of 1990 but with only modest success. The WTO, for instance, presented a draft protocol on destruction on 26 April and presented a Soviet aircraft proposal on 24 May. The Soviet Union presented another ‘non-paper’ on aircraft on 4 July that moved the positions of the two sides slightly closer but still not close enough for agreement. The Soviet paper retained the overall central limit of 4,700 combat aircraft per alliance with an additional 1,500 air defence interceptors but cut the permitted level of combat trainers to 750 and spoke of the ‘recategorization’ of combat trainers in a manner reminiscent of the approach to be used in converting helicopters. The United States explored six proposals with the Soviet Union between 16 and

European arms control developments 285 19 May during Secretary of State Baker’s visit to Moscow (including ones expanding details on inspections, equipment definitions, destruction approaches, and aircraft limits) but no significant progress was reported. The rapid pace of events associated with the unification of Germany as well as some domestic political manoeuvring in the Soviet Union probably accounted for much of the lack of progress. Formal agreement on tanks and armoured combat vehicles finally came on 27 June but no other major components of a CFE treaty had been settled by the end of summer 1990. Nevertheless, the two groups of states seem to be quite close on most major items in what promises to be an extensive and complex treaty. The only real question at this date appears to be whether a treaty text can be prepared fully in time for the 19 November 1990 deadline. Barring a last-minute snarl, the answer is probably yes although some verification details may need to be completed after the Paris CSCE summit. The likely shape of the CFE Treaty is reasonably well understood at this point. The primary portion of the Treaty will spell out careful definitions of treaty-limited systems, detail comprehensive lists of individual systems in each category and require reductions in each limited category to collective (alliance) limits somewhat below NATO’s current holdings, both for the ATTU area overall and for defined subregions within the ATTU area. The systems, of course, include main battle tanks, artillery, armoured combat vehicles (APCs, AIFVs and HACVs), combat aircraft (and air defence interceptors), attack helicopters, and (in a separate part of the treaty) armoured vehicle launching bridges. Although final figures are not yet available, each alliance group will be allowed a maximum of approximately: 1 20,000 main battle tanks (no more than 16,500 in active units); 2 30,000 armoured combat vehicles (no more than 27,300 in active units). Of 30,000, no more than 18,000 to be AIFVs and HACVs and only 1,500 can be HACVs; 3 20,000 artillery pieces (no more than 17,000 in active units); 4 6,800 combat aircraft (land based maritime air frozen and covered by a separate political agreement); 5 2,000 attack helicopters Thus, this central portion of the treaty will contain a collection of ceiling totals of limited systems (for both the ATTU region and several subregions) for both the two alliance groups and for any single alliance state (the latter being a ‘sufficiency’ limit which will likely be set at 33 per cent of the combined totals for most systems). The

286 European arms control in the 1990s equipment limits for the different zones are difficult to specify at this point but will represent significant reductions compared with current figures. The issue of stored equipment will also have to be addressed. The NATO proposal, for instance, calls for a limit of 8,000 tanks, 11,000 ACVs and 4,500 artillery pieces per alliance group in the smallest zone comprised of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Poland. The remainder of the Treaty will specify how reduced systems are to be stored and destroyed, how systems are to be counted, what information is to be supplied and how; detail the modalities of inspections of various types (including baseline and challenge at both declared and undeclared sites); create a Joint Consultative Body; and detail a series of stabilizing measures (including constraints on military activities). There also will be lengthy and detailed protocols on notification; information exchange; the establishment of a data base; inspection; destruction; and the operation of the Joint Consultative Body. In all, the CFE Treaty will be an impressive and wide-ranging document, one that corrects a number of enduring and troubling conventional force asymmetries.22 CONCLUSIONS Although some specifics may be changed by the time the CFE Treaty is finally negotiated, the basic features are set and the size of reductions is largely determined. Very significant reductions in a number of key weapon systems will have been formalized, redefining the conventional military balance in Europe. When the CFE Treaty is combined with the Vienna CSBM Agreement, the two will constitute an even more comprehensive package of measures and will surely come close to establishing the basis for a genuine security regime across Europe. The combination of substantial equipment and personnel reductions, behavioural constraints, confidence-building notifications and information exchanges, and a wide range of inspection and observation measures will dramatically improve the basic underlying nature of European military relationships. However, the CFE Treaty and the Vienna CSBM agreement will still represent only a part of a larger security reality. First, the major reductions in conventional weapons in Europe will only address two dimensions of instability – that which flows from significant quantitative asymmetries in armour and artillery and that which flows from having large numbers of offensively configured forces virtually on NATO’s border and ready to move with short notice.21 While in no way minimizing

European arms control developments 287 the importance of the CFE and the CSBM agreements, it is necessary to recall that the remaining forces in Europe will still be highly capable and, in changed political circumstances, they could still constitute a significant threat. This is an inherent function of contemporary conventional military technology and operational doctrine. It is very difficult to imagine how this apparently immutable fact can be changed. Additional personnel reductions in European armed forces such as those that might emerge from a CFE follow-on agreement will help slightly but personnel reductions (generally targeted at Germany) cannot deal effectively with technical capabilities. Worse, reducing force sizes beyond a certain minimum size can sometimes impair the defender’s capacity to respond to a mobile and flexible attacker, yielding a counterintuitive and fundamentally destabilizing effect. Thus, other approaches will also need to be explored to complement the results of the CFE and the CSBM negotiations. This will very likely lead to a changed focus in conventional arms control negotiations – one that favours doctrinal and deployment transformation. Although the effort to develop non-offensive defence-type adjustments for European forces has been promising to date, yielding a wide array of often interesting proposals, it has yet to produce the sort of solution that can transform existing forces without (1) creating massive administrative and organizational problems; (2) costing more than contemporary defence budgets can afford; or (3) producing new types of instability or otherwise undermining existing levels of stability and security. While no effort is made here to predict how non-offensive and less offensive defence transformations might be explored, negotiated or adopted, it does seem plausible to argue that the post-CFE CSCE would provide an ideal fora for the pursuit of this idea. It has already hosted (if circumspectly) one session of doctrine talks and will surely do so again within the next year or so. This is a natural context for the next stage in conventional European arms control negotiations. It is an open question whether any form of CSCE-mandated arms control negotiation will deal with naval CSMs in the near future. Extremely contentious throughout the CSBM negotiations, the effort to introduce maritime confidencebuilding measures, constraints, and/or reductions will almost certainly become the subject of intense discussion during the next round of CSCE mandate talks in 1991 and 1992. The resistance of NATO, and the United States in particular, to any discussion of maritime arms control issues could well bend under the pressure of the Soviet Union, the NNA states and at least several NATO states to expand the focus of European security discussions. However, even if the CSCE states are able to agree to a new security mandate that includes the consideration of maritime security issues broadly defined, they may

288 European arms control in the 1990s prove to be intractable negotiating subjects. There is currently a presumption that confidence-building and force reduction approaches that have proven useful when addressing conventional military ground force problems in Central Europe can also be employed in the maritime context. This may be true to only a limited extent and certainly warrants considerably more study. The inherent nature of naval forces (particularly their freedom of movement) and the ways in which they can be used makes them far more difficult to constrain compared with ground forces. The most likely CSCE-wide maritime arms control result – if one emerges at all – probably will be a moderate package of information, notification and observation confidence-building measures generally similar to some elements in the existing Stockholm CSBM Agreement. Any limitation arrangements going beyond that basic level will have to be negotiated on a more particular basis, concentrating on specific regional bodies of water, subsets of CSCE states, and security problems unique to the specific region. Each regional maritime context has such unique problems, potential participants (some of whom are not CSCE states), and physical conditions that an inclusive CSCE-wide maritime regime seems most unlikely. A two-tiered approach to maritime security issues may work effectively, however, and no reason exists to demand CSCE-wide application of all agreements. Indeed, given the possible expansion of global maritime agreements, a three-tiered system could easily come into existence. The larger European security environment, of course, will be shaped by more than the CFE and CSBM agreements and what follows on from them in either the very near term (probably a ‘CFE-bis’ personnel reduction negotiation) or the mid-term (a modified CSCE security negotiation to replace the CFE and the CSBM as they currently stand). As was already discussed at some length in the first part of this chapter, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Rorces Treaty played an important role in redefining the underlying nature of the European security environment. It actually mandated a significant (if still imperfectly grasped) alteration in the basic operating assumptions of NATO’s defence policies by removing one component of the larger collection of nuclear systems supporting Flexible Response. This can be expected to continue in the 1990s, especially with the incipient removal of short-range nuclear systems. The first and most obvious additional component in this broader arms control environment helping to define European security will be START. This strategic arms control negotiation is nearing completion and probably will be concluded in late 1990 or early 1991. The expected START Treaty will impose a number of limits on strategic range nuclearsystems, most notably on missile and bomber numbers (1,600 strategic

European arms control developments 289 nuclear delivery vehicles or SNDVs) and warheads (4,900 on ICBMs and SLBMs). The treaty will also limit the Soviet Union to 154 heavy ICBMs with 1,540 warheads and is to result in a reduction of 50 per cent in Soviet missile throw-weight. While it will come nowhere near the promised 50 per cent reduction in overall strategic forces and will deal inadequately with some nettlesome problems (such as effective limits on submarine-launched cruise missiles), it will establish useful ceilings and should lead to a considerably more restrictive START II treaty, particularly if cruise missiles and mobile ICBMs can be limited in a more constructive manner than now is the case. However impressive and constructive in their own right, it is not clear that these strategic-weapons-related negotiations will play much of a role in directly influencing European defence issues. So long as a modest and partially invulnerable strategic nuclear force continues to exist in the United States – say a force of 2,500 warheads on 1,000 SNDVs, and probably a good deal fewer – it will likely serve as effectively in underwriting extended deterrence as the existing force does. As was alluded to earlier in this chapter, however, the notion of extended deterrence is more elusive than many appreciate so some caution ought to be exercised in discussing the relationship between American strategic nuclear forces and conventional forces in Europe, particularly in a future that is increasingly resistant to prediction. French and British Euro-strategic nuclear forces complicate this picture but in a constructive way, making any inclination to ignore American nuclear guarantees even less likely to occur. An associated issue of considerable importance is ballistic missile defence. While strategic missile defence is unlikely to move far enough forward to challenge the ABM Treaty seriously, and the implied strategic logic of assured vulnerability associated with it, the same may not prove to be true of tactical missile defence. The spread of missile technology combined with the demonstrated capacity of several regional actors in the Middle East and Asia to build (and, in some cases, use) chemical as well as nuclear devices may spur at least some states to develop tactical ballistic missile defence systems. It is not clear how this will interact with the existing ABM Treaty and general attitudes towards security within Europe. Where once there was some interest within NATO in developing tactical ballistic missile defence to be used against short- and medium-range missiles fired from the East, the focus may shift to a European-wide interest in developing a moderate level of protection against external actors such as Libya and Iraq. It is difficult to see how a new arms control forum could effectively address the collected concerns of proliferating missile technology, nuclear technology, chemical and biological weapons, and the potentially destabilizing acquisition of missile

290 European arms control in the 1990s defence systems. Despite the fact that the problems are synergistic, the only feasible way of addressing them is likely to be fragmented. A European-wide defence system deployed in despair of ever controlling the spread of various mass-destruction technologies ‘just beyond the neighbourhood’ is far from out of the question and probably beyond arms control constraint in this century. Much will depend upon developments within and between other regions of the world and, significantly, the willingness of Western industrial concerns to supply critical technologies to these other actors. The evidence to date has not been encouraging. Although the Chemical Weapons Convention being negotiated in Geneva by the Ad Hoc Committee at the Conference on Disarmament, when completed, will constitute a significant document and may help to constrain the spread and development of chemical weapons, its impact on the European security environment is difficult to gauge. The principal source of concern about chemical usage will decline in rough proportion to the reduced concern about WTO attack against NATO. Although there is still the chance that some European states might come to see some virtue in maintaining chemical weapons stocks for deterrence purposes, the greater concern is the fear of external attack. This is very much a part of the larger combination of concerns associated with the proliferation of delivery technology (principally missiles) and the mass-destruction warheads they can deliver (nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological). While the Chemical Weapons Convention will help to minimize concerns linked to this larger collection of issues, it may prove to be limited in what it can achieve. Events that have transpired in the Persian Gulf in 1991 – particularly the short savage war against Iraq – suggest that many states are prepared to be very serious about chemical weapon problems. This may encourage a more focused follow-on negotiation when the Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC) is finally completed. It could also lead to a more comprehensive CWC in the first place. The Iraq war may also prove to have been an idiosyncratic reaction and the progress of chemical arms control may not be quickened or expanded. The most directly relevant to Europe of the various arms control negotiations will be short-range nuclear forces (SNF) talks. No official timetable exists at present although there is a generally held expectation that negotiations could begin very shortly after the CFE Treaty is fully implemented. The fact that the whole understructure of the security environment in Europe has shifted recently has largely robbed short-range nuclear systems of their utility, to the extent that they ever possessed any beyond psychological value. The domestic political will is strong on this issue and little doubt exists now that most, if not all, short-range nuclear systems will be gone before the end of the century. Some residual number of selectable-yield

European arms control developments 291 systems, probably air-deliverable via cruise missile or stand-off attack missile, ought to be retained as a matter of prudence, a conclusion that may be strengthened by the continued proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons. Once the CFE and Vienna CSBM agreements are in place and a CFE follow-on has further reduced personnel levels within most of the Group 23 states, the only thing that could slow the current movement towards essential denuclearization is a serious political disruption in Eastern Europe and/or a shift in Soviet policy that sees it reacquire the ogreish aspect it possessed throughout much of the Cold War. While either could occur, it seems implausible that the movement towards regional denuclearization will be thwarted. In all, the arms control environment within which Canada and Germany will operate in the coming decade is almost certainly going to lead to the continued reduction of conventional and theatre nuclear forces in Europe. It is less clear what will occur beyond that virtually inevitable reduction process. While the ‘transformation’ of ‘offensive’ forces makes sense in principle, it may not be easily accomplished in practice. The same may well be true of maritime arms control, despite the generally good intentions of the CSCE states. Despite those good intentions there may be inherent limits to what can be achieved with arms control. At least as problematic will be the possible emergence of extra-European security threats, especially those entailing weapons of mass destruction. They may be even more resistant to arms control and confidence-building-style solutions. Almost as important, particularly from a Canadian perspective, will be the tendency for the inherent Atlantic divide that has always threatened the Atlantic Alliance to undermine and eventually destroy that alliance. The melting away of the Warsaw Treaty Organization as a threat can only weaken NATO’s rationale. With the contemporary demise of the principal military threat to the East, the arms control agenda of the future may be changed in ways we can only sense remotely now. Although regional and global arms control progress may be impressive and positive during the next 5 years, new upheavals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union as well as developing threats beyond Europe’s boundaries may undermine the entire current process. Indeed, the world of the near future may become much more threatening than our current optimism suggests. Perversely, the decline of the Atlantic Alliance and the emergence of more troubling extra-European threats could help to promote an already tangible sense of isolationism emerging in Europe. It will be exceedingly challenging trying to divine how Europe and its friends in North America ought to respond to these developments. It is a challenge that ought to be addressed now, however, rather than waiting for the worst to manifest itself. Moving forward with an invigorated CSCE, an institutional framework that increasingly ties North

292 European arms control in the 1990s America and all of Europe together on non-ideological, non-alliance grounds is almost certainly the most intelligent course to pursue. We should not think, however, that the course will be easy or obvious in the longer run. POSTSCRIPT The preceding text was written in late summer 1990. In two places, notes have been added to clarify the final details of the two principal negotiations. Otherwise, the narrative remains virtually unchanged. However, things have changed since then, so a few words by way of a post script seem in order. The completion of the CFE Treaty and the Vienna CSBM Document in November 1990 and the subsequent signature of the Charter of Paris with its ‘institutionalization’ of the CSCE process (creating, amongst other things, the increasingly important Conflict Prevention Centre) marked a watershed but by no means represented the end of a process. Upon completion of the two negotiations, work was almost immediately initiated on modest follow-ons to the CFE Treaty and the Vienna CSBM agreement. A personnel-oriented negotiation began in the CFE forum intended to establish personnel ceilings for each CSCE state. An effort is being made to develop CSBM-like stabilizing measures that can be added to the CFE enterprise, as well, but that exercise has not been especially productive. The fate of the promised aerial inspection measure for the CFE Treaty is even less clear and remains bound up with the separate “Open Skies” confidence building proposal. It is possible that negotiators will have to remain in Vienna to develop these remaining elements of a CFE 1A agreement while their colleagues travel to Helsinki to prepare a new mandate. The personnel-oriented CFE 1A negotiation has become particularly important because the Warsaw Treaty Organization, as of 25 February 1991, no longer exists and neither, as a consequence, does one of the two organizational entities that constituted the CFE’s fundamental structure. Even as the CFE negotiations came to an end in the autumn of 1990, most participants recognized that the CFE Treaty was institutionalizing a fundamental problem of asymmetric relations in the East as the Warsaw Treaty Organization collapsed. The Soviet Union, after all, is a massive military power and its former allies are not. In the wake of the dissolution of the WTO, there would be an integrated NATO on the one hand and a series of bilateral relations amongst the former WTO states on the other. Many of these states inevitably would feel threatened by the Soviet Union, still the most powerful military actor in Europe. Some would feel particularly vulnerable being ‘trapped’ between the Soviet Union

European arms control developments 293 and the Federal Republic of Germany. Some of them might also come to feel threatened by each other. The fact that the Soviet Union faces very difficult internal political, economic, and social difficulties exacerbates this situation as does the daunting array of difficulties facing the various Central and South-Eastern European states. While the demise of the WTO was expected, virtually no one expected it to collapse so quickly. There are good indications that a satisfactory CFE 1A agreement (not a treaty but a politically binding agreement) will be completed before the Vienna delegations focus their full efforts on a new Helsinki mandate in early 1992. A serious disagreement over Soviet compliance prevented any progress in the first half of 1991. As one of several dubious actions, the Soviet Union had sought in its initial submission of military information to exempt three divisions of land forces by resubordinating them to the Navy. This prompted a serious clash in Vienna but negotiations have since resumed with the resolution of these problems in mid-June 1991. Establishing specific personnel ceilings for each participating states (as distinct from ceilings for blocs), however, will not solve the more basic problems of asymmetry in Central and South-East Europe. That will require new force reduction negotiations and those – unless conducted on a bilateral basis – should not be expected for at least several more years. The CSBM follow-on negotiations have been less well focused, generally seeking to add some type of control on mobilization and force activation, aspects of military acitivity that have thus far escaped any serious constraint in CSBM agreements. It is difficult to gauge the prospects of success in this enterprise although some sort of arrangement – however modest – is likely to emerge, perhaps focusing on additional types of information as well as force generation notification and observation. However these two parallel Vienna negotiations unfold, the larger story lies in the development of a consensus for a post-Helsinki CSCE security mandate. This mandate (and the conception of a European security architecture associated with it) will help to structure relations amongst many of the world’s key states although several very important actors (Japan, China, India and some smaller Asia-Pacific powers) are obviously excluded at this point. In summer of 1992, the CSCE states will meet in Helsinki, Finland to review the implementation of the 1975 CSCE Final Act and, amongst other things, to approve a new mandate for arms control-related negotiations and discussions in post-1992 Europe. Informal discussions exploring the eventual nature of the mandate have already begun in Vienna and elsewhere (Washington and Brussels, for instance) and considerable progress has occurred since early 1991. To a large extent, this is due to what seems to be a clear shift in American

294 European arms control in the 1990s thinking that now sees some virtue and benefit in a broad Helsinki Mandate. The British and Dutch have also been very creative in exploring possible solutions. Indeed, a synthetic paper prepared by the United Kingdom has become something of a focus for mandate discussions in Vienna toward the end of summer 1991. Already, some clear patterns are emerging. For instance, a consensus has begun to emerge during the summer of 1991 that foresees the creation of a ‘security forum’ overview entity of some type associated with the Conflict Prevention Centre and its Consultative Commission. Some prefer a parallel and related body while others prefer adding the Forum function to the CPC itself. According to these developing ideas, this Security Forum would oversee as its primary responsibility a variety of security-oriented discussions and negotiations, each probably conducted on a subcommittee or working group level. The current model of the CSCE’s CSBM Plenary with working groups is seen by some to capture the essence of the new approach. From this post-Helsinki process, one could expect to see emerge a number of distinct negotiations and less formal security discussions. For instance: several more amendments to the basic Stockholm CSBM agreement ( a Vienna Document 1993, 1995, and so on); more annual CSCE seminars (including ones dealing with military doctrine, perhaps naval doctrine, civil–military relations, and aspects of defence policy planning); as well as efforts to constrain (however modestly) qualitative improvements in key weapon systems and to constrain conventional weapons proliferation. There may also be attempts to negotiate a shift in military deployments and exercise patterns toward more ‘defensive’ – or, at least, less threatening postures. Some of these discussions and negotiations may well take place on a sub-regional level – that is, not involving all of the CSCE states directly although the CSCE would still have to oversee and approve any sub-regional agreements developed under its aegis. A partial model of this already exists with the Hungarian–Romanian ‘Open Skies’ agreement of 1991. The main idea in this case would be to explore problems and then develop packages of measures (CSBMs and/or reduction measures) tailored to the specific security confitions, concerns, and requirments of a particular European subregion. It seems increasingly the case that CSBM and force reduction agreements developed for all of Europe cannot cater effectively to the sometimes idiosyncratic needs of a particular subset of states. At the risk of anticipating events that may never develop, there is some solid prospect that the CSCE states will develop a flexible, borad, and general ‘New Helsinki Mandate’ during the early months of 1992. This mandate would permit them to move forward constructively on a number of fronts to tighten the existing CFE and CSBM agreements, develop complimentary approaches to improve various

European arms control developments 295 dimensions of the stability of European military relations, and explore sub-regional approaches to difficult security problems that defy solution in broader, more universal contexts. It is clearly a promising image of the future emergin in Vienna as summer draws to a close. July 1991 NOTES 1 For a thoughtful exploration of these possibilities, see Mearsheimer, John J. (1990) ‘Back to the future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,’ International Security 15:1: summer. 2 The following discussion of the INF treaty draws on the author’s ‘Multilateral negotiations/regional: The view of the allies’, in Fen Hampson, Harald von Riekhoff and John Roper (eds) The Allies and Arms Control, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming. 3 Paradoxically, the removal of the INF missiles may also have revealed the actual robustness of real-world extended deterrence policies and situations (as opposed to their theoretical ‘reconstructions’). This point has gone largely unnoticed although it is tremendously important. The distinction between a policy and a theory of extended deterrence helps to explain how this can be true. The two are often confused or, worse, used interchangeably. A policy of extended deterrence is actually the collective product of loosely fitting and not-always-consistent elements of declaratory policy, weapon acquisition policy, and deployment/ employment policy as demonstrated by, in this case, individual NATO states as well as collectively by the Alliance. A theory of extended deterrence, on the other hand, is a largely academic construction (actually, a reconstruction) that attempts to explain how ‘extended deterrence’ works and ought to work. Often, this amounts to little more than a description. In short, the first is what governments actually do in all its messy inconsistent detail while the second is an analytic and sometimes very abstract reconstruction of government ‘deterrence behaviour’. 4 All other things being equal (which, of course, they seldom are), significant reductions in a defender’s numbers, even if a potential adversary’s forces also are reduced to the same level, can stretch the defender’s forces so thinly that they can no longer adequately respond to an offensive thrust. This is exaggerated further by the nature of contemporary military equipment and doctrine, all of which favour rapid manoeuvre.

296 European arms control in the 1990s

5

6

7 8

However, the movement of Soviet military forces out of East European countries will reduce significantly concerns about a surprise, low-warning, or accidental conventional war in Central Europe. The physical distances and lack of preparedness are crucial impediments to rapid action or accidental war. Although the estimates vary somewhat, the general view of Western intelligence establishments is that the amount of warning time for a major attack by the Soviet Union directed at Central Europe has gone from approximately 2 or 3 weeks to at least 6 months, if not a year. See, for instance, Gordon, Michael R. (1990) ‘Pentagon drafts new battle plan,’ New York Times 2 August. The term stability refers to crisis stability – the capacity of actors to resist rapid overreaction during a crisis because of fears of pre-emption. Transparency refers to the fullness and accuracy of information about military forces and their normal behaviour. Adequate transparency leads to relatively accurate perceptions of the behaviour and capabilities of potential adversaries – and thus relatively accurate estimates of their intentions. This, in turn, ought to reduce concerns about surprise and enhance crisis stability. A good argument can be made that the real origins of the CSCE and MBFR processes (as paired processes) are to be found in 1954, the year the Federal Republic of Germany was invited to join NATO. With that act, Soviet goals for a neutralized and unified Germany suffered a fatal setback, the basic shape of the European security environment was changed, and complex multilateral diplomacy was made inevitable for the attainment of basic Soviet goals. That lead to the need for a CSCE-type negotiation which created the counterrequirement for an MBFR-type negotiation. The introduction of the Soviet ‘Draft General European Treaty’ and the first of the so-called ‘Eden Plans’ with its reference to a reduction zone similar to that of the MBFR’s, both in 1954, are additional reasons for favouring 1954 as the beginning of a discrete process leading to the MBFR and the CSCE. The origins of the two related arms control processes are discussed at some length in Macintosh, James (1990) ‘Verification and the MBFR: Review, assessment and projection’, July, a study undertaken for the Verification Research Unit, External Affairs and International Trade Canada. From the Vienna FUM Concluding Document (1990), as reported in CSCE A Framework for Europe’s Future, US Information Agency, p. 15. The content of the initial positions is described in the earlier chapter, Chapter 6 ‘Confidence-building processes – CSCE and MBFR: a review and assessment’.

9 The information on NATO, WTO and NNA positions is drawn primarily from the Arms Control Reporter 1990. (A Chronicle of Treaties, Negotiations, Proposals, Weapons and Policy), Brookline, MA: Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies.

European arms control developments 297 10 Arms Control Reporter 1990, p. 402.B.267. 11 ibid., p. 407.B.381. 12 The Vienna CSBM Document was completed for signature on 17 November 1990 in Vienna. Not surprisingly, it resembled the Stockholm Document in many ways. It retains a reference to the declaration on ‘Refraining from the Threat or Use of Force’ and includes very similar ‘Prior Notification’, ‘Observation’, and ‘Calendar’ measures. The ‘Constraining Provisions’ terms have been simplified with the earlier double ceiling replaced by a single threshold figure of 40,000 troops. Thus, states are expected not to conduct large military activities unless they have been announced at least two years in advance. This measure also notes the expectation that the number of short-warning alert activities circumventing this limit (alerts are not subject to limitation) be kept to a minimum. The Vienna Document’s verification measure (‘Compliance and Verification’) deals with two types of verification activity. The first (‘Inspection’) is very similar to that of the Stockholm agreement. The second (‘Evaluation’), however, is new and is tied closely to the new Information measure. This portion of the verification measures is intended to permit an evaluation of the accuracy of supplied military information. It works on the basis of a quota system that assigns one mandatory evaluation visit each year per sixty reporting units (a unit being an organized entity of brigade/regiment size and character or its equivalent). However, no state is obliged to accept more than fifteen visits a year. The ‘Annual Exchange of Military Information’ measure is a key addition to the Vienna Document. It requires all participating states to submit a relatively detailed annual accounting of their military forces. This information is to detail the military organization, manpower, and major weapon and equipment systems of each state. The information is to include command organization down to the level of brigade/regiment (inclusive); designation and subordination of each unit; its peacetime location; its authorized personnel strength, the number and type of (amongst other systems) tanks, armoured combat vehicles, helicopters, artillery, and combat aircraft. In addition, this measure requires the submission of annual data detailing plans to deploy major weapon and equipment system in the region. Further, the participating states are obliged to exchange information each year itemising defence expenditures according to a United Nations format. The Vienna Document’s new measures also include ‘Risk Reduction’ (a measure requiring consultation and cooperation in the event of either unusual military activities or hazardous incidents of a military nature – linked to the Conflict Prevention Centre created by the Charter of Paris); ‘Contacts’ (a modest

298 European arms control in the 1990s measure requiring the invitation of visitors to a state’s air bases at least once every five years); ‘Communications’ (establishing a direct communications network linking CSCE capitals); and the self-explanatory ‘Annual Implementation Assessment’. 13 The text of the CFE mandate as well as the entire CSCE Vienna FUM Concluding Document appears in the US government publication (1989) CSCE – A Framework for Europe’s Future, Washington, DC: US Information Agency. 14 Apple, R. W. jun. (1989) ‘Bush wins backing for his arms plan from most allies’, New York Times 30 May. One component of the Bush proposals that has received surprisingly little attention is his resurrection of the ‘Open Skies’ concept made famous by President Eisenhower over 30 years earlier. This proposal led to separate negotiations intended to establish an Open Skies confidence-building regime. Although there were extremely positive indications at the initial Ottawa meetings in late 1989 that an Open Skies treaty could be signed promptly, the Soviet Union has recently proven reluctant to accept basic operating principles deemed essential by most of the other twenty-two states. There is little inclination now to press too hard on Open Skies for fear that it will interfere with the more important CFE negotiations. The Canadian government was actively involved in the Bush administration’s consideration of the ‘Open Skies’ idea. Beginning in early 1989, Canadian officials consulted with their American counterparts about ‘Open Skies’-type approaches. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney wrote to President Bush on 2 May to familiarize the President with Canadian thinking on the subject. It would appear that United States officials had begun thinking about ‘Open Skies’ by approximately March 1989 – and perhaps earlier. On 11 May, President Bush telephoned the Canadian Prime Minister, informing him that the United States planned to pursue the ‘Open Skies’ concept. See Slack, Michael and Chestnutt, Heather (eds) (1990) Open Skies – Technical, Organizational, Legal, and Political Aspects, Toronto: York University Centre for International and Strategic Studies. Also see Macintosh, James, ‘International verification organizations: The case of conventional arms control’, in Ellis Morris (ed.) International Verification Organizations, a study commissioned by External Affairs and International Trade Canada and forthcoming from Centre for International and Strategic Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada. 15 Gordon, Michael R. (1989) ‘Conventional-force curbs are proposed by Moscow’, New York Times 30 June, The original NATO approach defined a somewhat smaller central zone composed of Belgium, Luxemburg, the FRG, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, the GDR and Poland. The next largest zone added

European arms control developments 299 Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Hungary and the Soviet Union’s Baltic, Byelorussian and Carpathian military districts. The final zone added all remaining ATTU NATO and WTO territory. See (1989) The Arms Control Reporter for details, especially p. 407.B. 195 and 407.D entire section. 16 The Arms Control Reporter, pp. 407.B.233–4. These figures do not represent completely comparable systems but they suggest the disparity in approaches caused by the Warsaw Pact desire to exclude trainers and air defence fighters from the central limits. 17 The issue of tank and armoured combat vehicle definitions has been a difficult but important one for the progress of the CFE talks. Definitions are crucial to determining what system will count under what category with obvious implications for ceilings on certain types of systems. The main issue of contention has been what should count as a tank. The contention flows primarily from NATO’s desire to exclude from the overall tank category small armoured vehicles with medium cannon (such as the French AMX-13 and the British Scorpion vehicles) as well as wheeled vehicles with large direct-fire guns (such as the French AMX-10RC) and the Soviet desire to constrain future Western tank designs. The NATO proposal of 12 December 1989 created a new category of armoured vehicle, a ‘heavy-armament combat vehicle’ or HACV to address this problem. This approach began the process of successfully defining different types of tank-like vehicles. See the ViennaFax (26 January 1990) for a good discussion of this proposal and its implications. As of June 1990, the two alliance groups appear to have agreed that a tank will be any wheeled or tracked armoured vehicle with an unladen weight of 16.5 or more metric tons equipped with at least a 75 mm gun. An HACV will be any wheeled or tracked armoured vehicle between 6 and 16.5 metric tons armed with at least a 75 mm gun. The former will be limited to 20,000 per alliance group while the latter will be limited to 1,500. See the ViennaFax (14 June 1990) no. 20 for details on this compromise. 18 The ViennaFax of 8 February 1990 contains details on the NATO proposals of 7 and 8 February. 19 The resolution of differences over aircraft ceilings probably has been more difficult than the negotiation of tank and ACV definitions. This has been due to the inherent geostrategic situation of the Soviet Union (it must defend against American, British and French strategic bombers) as well as a partial product of the multi-purpose nature of many modern combat aircraft. The presence of WTO air training facilities within the ATTU region creates an additional complication. The main stumbling block has been the unwillingness of the Soviet Union to have

300 European arms control in the 1990s ‘air defence’ aircraft (interceptors) counted in the total of their CFE air holdings which, in their view, should only include ‘offensive aircraft’. The issues of maritime air (both carrier-borne and especially land-based), combat-capable trainers, and combat versus combat support helicopters have also been difficult. The NATO position of 8 February 1990 partially recognized the unique Soviet situation and, in effect, created a new category of aircraft (‘defence interceptors’) and an additional ceiling of 500 beyond the 4,700 per side total already proposed. It also permitted NATO to designate an additional 500 aircraft of its own in this manner. Primary trainers were excluded from the count. The NATO position also abandoned the ‘look-alike, count-alike’ approach for helicopters, focused only on attack helicopters, and proposed that all but single-purpose combat helicopters (such as the AH-64 Apache) could be ‘re-categorized’ as support helicopters if they were rebuilt. They would then be subject to internal examination on a challenge basis in order to verify the removal of key combat systems (primarily those used for launching missiles). 20 See The Arms Control Reporter, pp. 407. B.357, 407. B.372. 21 The WTO inspection protocol text can be found in BASIC Reports from Vienna, 12 June 1990 (no. 8). This is an excellent source of information on the CFE and CSBM negotiations in Vienna, published by the British American Security Information Council. 22 After intensive negotiating efforts throughout September, October and November, CFE negotiators initialled the Treaty on 18 November in Vienna. It was signed by the Heads of Government in Paris on 19 November 1990 during the Paris summit. During the last stages of negotiation, personnel limits on stationed forces and aerial inspection fell out of consideration along with a number of stabilizing measures. It is expected that these will be pursued in the follow-on CFE 1A negotiations in Vienna. The Treaty’s content (covering 22 pages with 88 additional pages of protocols) corresponded to that anticipated in the text of this chapter. The Treaty included comprehensive definitions of the relevant weapon systems as well as concepts such as the ‘area of application’, ‘unladen weight’, ‘designated permanent storage site’, ‘in service’, and ‘reduction site’. It also detailed counting rules. Overall ATTU ceilings (noted in the chapter’s text) were listed as were ceilings for the various reduction zones. These included the key central area (the Kingdom of Belgium, the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of Hungary, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Republic of Poland) where each group of states (a circumspect way of saying NATO and the WTO)

European arms control developments 301 was permitted 7,500 tanks, 11,250 ACVs, and 5,000 pieces of artillery. Each succeeding zone permitted more equipment. The next larger zone, for instance, added the Kingdom of Denmark, the French Republic, the Italian Republic, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and four military districts from the USSR and set ceilings of 10,300 tanks, 19,260 ACVs, and 9,100 pieces of artillery for each group of states. There was also a ‘sufficiency’ provision to ensure that no state accounted for more than approximately one third of the total, over all number of any system limited by the Treaty (for instance, no state could possess more than 13,300 tanks or 5,150 combat aircraft). The Treaty also specified in considerable detail the process of and rules for reduction (including storage and destruction) for all limited systems and equipment. As suggested in the chapter’s text, the Treaty called for a variety of inspection procedures, both during the reduction period and thereafter. It also created the Joint Consultative Group, a consultative committee designed to promote the implementation of the Treaty. In addition to the Treaty itself, there were a number of protocols, including one listing ‘Existing Types of Conventional Armaments and Equipment’ and the criteria for providing information on these system. There also were protocols covering the ‘Procedures Governing the Reclassification of Specific Models or Versions of CombatCapable Trainer Aircraft into Unarmed Trainer Aircraft’; ‘Procedures Governing the Reduction of Conventional Armaments and Equipment Limited by the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe’ (an extraordinarily detailed protocol covering every aspect of ‘reduction’); ‘Procedures Governing the Categorization of Combat Helicopters and the Recategorization of MultiPurpose Attack Helicopters’ (essentially providing a method for the physical alteration of grey area weapon systems); ‘Notification and Exchange of Information’ (including proper formats); ‘Inspection’ (also very comprehensive, including definitions, procedures, and obligations); and ‘The Joint Consultative Group’. The inspection provisions of the Treaty serve several purposes. First, they permit the signatories to verify compliance with the Treaty’s numerical limitations. They also allow the signatories to monitor the reduction of Treaty Limited Equipment (TLE). Finally, they permit the signatories to monitor the recategorisation of multi-purpose attack helicopters and the reclassification of combat-capable trainer aircraft. Recognizing the different inspection requirements for different stages of the reduction process, the Treaty specfies different quotas for passive inspections, ranging from 10 to 20 percent per year of all ‘objects of verification’ (OOVs) – effectively, a brigade/regiment

302 European arms control in the 1990s formation or its equivalent, an equipment storage site, or a reduction (destruction) site. For instance, a total of 200 distinct OOVs – barracks, storage areas, and reduction sites – would yield a passive quota of between 20 and 40 inspections and a commitment to receive that many inspection visits in a year. Inspections start after the Treaty comes into effect (for 120 days) when states verify supplied information. Additional checks are to be performed as the reduction process progresses and then a further 120-day period of verification is to occur after all reductions have ostensibly occurred. Finally, inspections are to verify that force levels remain at the specified reduced levels. The inspection protocol contains a great deal of detail on obligations and procedures.

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