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Backgrounder: Russia's Beef with Regional Arms Control

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Lionel Beehner, Staff Writer
May 7, 2007

Introduction

The United States and Russia have clashed repeatedly over the years on arms control and other security concerns in Eastern Europe. The latest provocation was a threat by President Vladimir Putin in his annual address before the Federal Assembly to suspend Russia’s obligations under the 1990 Convention Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty. Prior to Putin’s speech, an American blueprint to deploy anti-ballistic missiles and radars in Poland and the Czech Republic drew sharp criticism from the Kremlin. Washington says the missile shield is aimed at Iran and North Korea, not Russia. But Moscow fears the missile defense plan will render its aging nuclear arsenal even more obsolete. Further, it long has opposed the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into its former sphere of influence.

Soviet-Era Acronym Soup

The CFE treaty was negotiated between NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe as a means of enhancing arms control between the two sides. Passed in 1990, the treaty established equal quotas on the number of battle tanks, heavy artillery, and combat aircraft deployed west of the Urals, and has been a cornerstone of the post-Cold War framework for European security. The trouble is that the treaty applies only to members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which is long defunct. Hence, some say the CFE is a vestige of a bygone era that has lost its relevance, and add that Russia’s conventional forces have deteriorated since its signing and fall short of the quotas set. The treaty was later revised in Istanbul in 1999 and signed by thirty states but only a few, including Russia, have ratified it; thus, the adapted CFE version has never come into force.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.