The Withering of Conventional Arms Control in Europe

If incidents and buildups are dangerous, the solution would seem obvious: limit them and mitigate the risks. In Europe, this approach has a long and rich history. A wide variety of conventional arms control instruments, often termed confidence and security building measures, or CSBMs, have been developed in and applied over the years with just this intent. At present, however, all such measures that exist are defunct, inadequate to modern technologies and needs, or both.

The most far-reaching arrangement, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), limited deployments and included notification, data exchange, and inspection provisions. Decades in negotiation, it was signed in November 1990 by the then-members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. It was thus out of date within a year of its signature, having delineated limits for countries and alliances that no longer existed once the Warsaw Pact dissolved in summer of 1991 and the Soviet Union that winter. Updates in 1992 and 1996 were rendered obsolete in 1997, when the first former Warsaw Pact members joined NATO. A 1999 adjustment was never ratified by NATO members because Russia failed to withdraw its weapons and personnel from Moldova and Georgia, where they helped prop up the breakaway territories of Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia. In 2007, Russia “suspended” its participation in the treaty and in 2011 the United States cut back on its obligations vis-à-vis Russia. In 2015, Russia “halted” compliance entirely, although it never formally withdrew, citing US plans to put bases in Romania and Bulgaria as a breach.78

Another treaty that limited deployments, and not only in Europe, was the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Despite its name, it prohibited Russia and the United States from building and deploying both nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. INF formally died in 2019, when first the United States and then Russia withdrew. Prior, the United States had accused Russia of building a noncompliant new missile system. Russia complained that US missile defense systems could violate the treaty if used for other purposes. The United States has not yet deployed INF weapons in Europe, although it accuses Russia of fielding that same new system it says undermined the treaty. Russia denies having INF systems deployed in Europe.

If incidents and buildups are dangerous, the solution would seem obvious: limit them and mitigate the risks.

The Open Skies Treaty of 1992 aimed to increase transparency and accountability. It allowed for overflight and surveillance of member states’ territory. The treaty remains in place, but without US or Russian participation. Both Russia and the United States accused the other of violations for several years, and Washington announced it was pulling out of the deal in 2020, under then-President Donald Trump. The Biden administration confirmed that it would not reverse this decision, and Russian withdrawal followed that of the United States.

In addition to the treaties, several bilateral and multilateral mechanisms have historically provided a space to exchange perspectives and information. Most of those, too, have

disappeared. NATO has suspended all practical cooperation with Russia. The NATO-Russia Council, established in 2002 to give Russia and alliance members the tools to engage as a single body at both working and senior levels, was reduced to only the highest-level meetings, at the ambassadorial level and above. Even these were largely theoretical. Until January 2022, given Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine’s borders, the NATO-Russia Council had not met since 2019. Prior to 2022, NATO officials blamed Moscow for the unwillingness to engage.79 Russia indicated that the NATO-Russia Council had little value unless paired with resumption of regular military-to-military contacts.80 In fall 2021, NATO cut Russia’s mission to the alliance in half, citing espionage concerns.81 Russia responded by withdrawing it entirely.

Bilateral exchanges in the North have also shrunk. In 2014, Russia suspended its Kaliningrad inspection agreement with Lithuania, which allowed the latter to inspect Russia’s forces in the enclave, and Russia to inspect Lithuania’s armed forces.82 Some agreements, including with Finland and Norway, remain formally in force, but are not being actively implemented.83

In the Black Sea region, agreements remain on the books but have been rendered ineffective since Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Under the 2003 Document of Confidence and Security Building Measures in the Black Sea Naval Area, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine agreed to the: (1) maintenance of contacts, (2) reciprocal visits to naval bases, (3) exchanges of information of naval vessels depending on size, and (4) joint participation in Confidence Annual Naval Exercises.84 But since 2014, war in Ukraine has put an end to naval visits and joint drills.85

2014 also added a tremendous new challenge for Black Sea interaction: Russia’s claim to Crimea’s territory and adjacent waters as its own, even as Ukraine, NATO member states, and most other countries view them as Ukrainian territory. Incompatible interpretations of maritime boundaries mean that agreements and mechanisms are seen very differently by different parties.86 The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which brings together NATO member states, Russia, and non-NATO states in the broad Eurasian region, encompassing a total of fifty-seven countries, has long been a forum for risk reduction issues. However, Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine has rendered its conventional dialogues largely moribund.87 The majority of member states have openly stated that they consider Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to be, among other things, an assault on OSCE values. Russia, for its part, tends to use the OSCE as a platform to espouse its grievances about Western security assistance to Ukraine and claim that the United States and its allies have been preparing Ukraine for war.88

In the Black Sea region, agreements remain on the books but have been rendered ineffective since Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

The exception to this rule is the OSCE Structured Dialogue. This initiative was spurred by comments by then-German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank Walter Steinmeier in 2016, when he was also serving as the OSCE chairperson in office. Steinmeier called for a restart of arms control in the OSCE. He noted that Europe needed agreements that defined ceilings, minimum distances, and transparency measures that could inter alia involve the establishment of regional deployment limits, particularly in sensitive regions like that around the Baltic Sea.89 Steinmeier proposed that these agreements should also take into account new military capabilities and strategies, integrate new weapon systems, and permit effective verification that is rapidly deployable, flexible, and still function during a crisis. Finally, he said, new deals would need to be concluded in a way that

made it possible to apply them in areas where territory was disputed by member states. 90

While new agreements did not emerge, the Structured Dialogue did. Although not strictly speaking itself a confidence or security building measure, some states see the initiative as supporting the same goals by serving as a preparatory tool “to foster a greater understanding on these issues that could serve as a common solid basis for a way forward.”91 Topics on the OSCE Structured Dialogue agenda to date have included risk reduction and potential new mechanisms to prevent and manage dangerous incidents.92 Today, even since February, the OSCE and its participating states continue to view the Structured Dialogue as mechanism that at least permits informal discussions of regional security issues, although it cannot, at present, do much more.93 The OSCE also hosts the Vienna Document on Confidence and Security Measures in Europe, which is perhaps the only one of the old (adopted in 1990) security and confidence building tools that has survived the tumult, although its value is much diminished. The Vienna Document governs information exchanges and consultations between member states regarding forces, exercises, and so forth, which continue under OSCE auspices. It establishes limits for troops and equipment participating in military exercises and requires that a party holding military exercises with more than 13,000 troops invite observers from other signatory states. Since 1992, states must also notify one another of any military activity involving more than 9,000 troops.94 It also mandates and governs evaluation and observation visits, inspections, and presentations of new weapon systems.95

The Vienna Document has been updated several times, but not since 2011, in large part because Russia conditioned its modernization on changes in NATO behavior, specifically an end to force buildups and “provocations.”96 NATO members, for their part, accuse Russia of noncompliance with the agreement and of exploiting its loopholes.97

The Vienna Document requires notification only of individual activities in specific zones, only by ground forces, and only under a single operational command. Many exercises therefore go unnotified.98 For this reason, in an effort to make the arrangement a bit more relevant, the OSCE’s Forum for Security Cooperation, determined in 2012 that any state that does not carry out a notifiable military exercise in accordance with the Vienna Document in a given calendar year is required to notify one belowthreshold military exercise or activity for that year.99

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has irreparably damaged not only Moscow’s credibility, but also the spirit of the Vienna Document.

Even if the agreement itself is partly to blame, NATO has long argued that Russia’s approach to exercise notification under Vienna Document terms is opaque. Specifically, Russia frequently breaks down its large exercises into smaller components, classing them as a mix of regular and snap exercises, each of which falls under the 13,000-troop limit.100 NATO members see this as Moscow circumventing the treaty to hold very large, unobserved exercises. But Russia insists that the “snap exercises” are surprise tests of military readiness for their participants and notifying other countries would undermine their value.101

NATO members also complain about Russian unresponsiveness when asked to be more transparent and reassure others of its intentions, whether through the Vienna Document or otherwise.102 This dynamic was in sharp evidence in 2021 as Russia built up forces near Ukraine. When the buildup began in spring, the allies

The 2013 "Vienna Document" Delegation on a June visit to Baumholder, Germany. (Flickr/Craig Knapp)

supported Ukraine’s Vienna Document request that Russia clarify its military activities.103 Russia insisted that it was under no obligation to notify or inform anyone of training of its armed forces on its own territory and did not attend the scheduled meetings.104 Moscow did, however, accept a Swiss OSCE inspection under the Vienna Document framework in March, and a group of Swiss specialists conducted an inspection in the territories of Voronezh and Belgorod to determine the scope of Russia’s military activity.105

Russia, which worries about NATO capabilities near its borders, consistently described NATO members’ military exercises as provocative and has put forward its own set of concerns about the Vienna Document’s insufficiencies. Specifically, it has previously asked for a conference on military doctrines and defense policy, suggested notifications of large trans-border redeployments, requested a simplification of procedures regarding unusual military activities, proposed information exchanges on multinational rapid reaction forces, and championed the expansion of existing measures to cover naval assets.106 Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has irreparably damaged not only Moscow’s credibility, but also the spirit of the Vienna Document. Nonetheless, the agreement helped NATO members and Ukraine to see through Moscow’s excuses, document their suspicions, and raise the alarm as 2021 turned to 2022. To be fair, it was sometimes most useful in underlining Russian obfuscation.

In January, Russian and Belarus authorities announced a joint two-stage military exercise named Allied Resolve.107 The first part of the exercise, they reported, would run until February 9 and focus on regrouping and transferring troops to their operational decisions. The second part was to feature combat training drills from February 10 to 20.108 Latvia requested an OSCE inspection in line with the Vienna Document to ascertain the scope of the exercise and establish if Russia should report its activities. Although Russian news reporting indicated that the inspection would go forward, Latvian authorities reported that Russia had declined their request, citing coronavirus concerns.109 Meanwhile, Belarusian authorities pledged that the exercises would be too small to trigger either Vienna

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the frontline positions of the military in the Donetsk region. (president.gov.ua)

Document mandatory observation requirements or those of Belarus’ bilateral agreements with Poland and Ukraine.110

On February 11, 2022, Ukraine posed its own Vienna Document queries about Russia’s troop movements near its borders.111 Russia refused to attend the meeting called in response.112 Its ally Belarus was similarly tight-lipped. When Baltic states called for an OSCE session with Minsk to get clarification about Allied Resolve 2022 they found Belarus’ responses inadequate.113 Belarus did, however, agree to a mutual inspection of military activities with Ukraine, promising that a defense attaché of the Republic of Belarus would visit Ukraine to observe its planned Zametil 2022 exercise and a Ukrainian defense attaché was welcome to observe Allied Resolve 2022.114 According to Ukraine’s Minister of Defence, Oleksii Reznikov, a Ukrainian defense attaché did indeed visit Belarus the day after Belarus and Ukraine agreed to the mutual inspection.115 The defense attaché was also invited to the final events of Allied Resolve on February 19, 2022.116 Reznikov also confirmed that a Belarusian defense attaché observed Ukraine’s military exercises in the Rivne region on February 16, 2022.117 Moreover, in a move that would have been promising but for the simultaneous deterioration of overall security and the fullscale Russian invasion that soon followed, both Ukraine and Belarus agreed to establish permanent channels of communication between chiefs of staff and ministers.118