Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
WEDNESDAY 1 MARCH 2000
MR BRIAN
HAWTIN, MR
PAUL SCHULTE,
COLONEL JOHN
ELIOT AND
MR OWEN
JENKINS
40. In the rest of Russia.
(Mr Hawtin) In the whole of Russia.
41. Finally, what is the actual rationale for
the territorial ceilings? Some countries have got higher territorial
ceilings than national ceilings. Some of these countries have
traditionally hosted other countries' forces, I think you touched
on this earlier, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and so on, but why
do Italy and Spain have significantly higher territorial ceilings?
(Mr Hawtin) The key reason for the difference is the
one you have mentioned, stationed forces and reinforcement. The
second reason goes back to a point we discussed earlier. This
is an open-ended Treaty. States have to look at their potential
security requirements some years ahead and to take a judgement
on what, in terms of their particular individual national security
interests, would be an appropriate figure. That I think is something
the countries you cited have done and is the reason they have
come up with those figures.
Mr Viggers
42. I remain unclear as to how the individual
national ceilings were set. Were these based historically on what
was there or were they negotiated from scratch?
(Colonel Eliot) They were essentially derived from
the existing ceilings under the original Treaty's maximum level
of holdings. It is as simple as that. It reflected the existing
entitlements under the Treaty.
43. Take, for example, the United Kingdom. We
have a national ceiling level of 843 tanks, which we do not have.
Did we consider reducing that number? Mr Hawtin mentioned that
the ceiling might need to be higher because of repatriation. My
understanding is that there is an exemption for repatriation.
When a country repatriates equipment from outside its own territory
to its own territory, is there an exemption in the Treaty for
that?
(Colonel Eliot) Two points. Firstly, the United Kingdom,
like other NATO allies, sought, during the adaptation process,
to encourage an overall lowering of weapon limits in Europe. We
volunteered to make a reduction in our entitlements. NATO, as
a whole, reduced its entitlements by just over 14 per cent, with
that objective in mind. The United Kingdom, likewise, made reductions,
which worked out at about a level between 5 and 7 per cent of
our original entitlements.[3]
However, those reductions, as you rightly point out, are to the
entitlement ceiling which is well above our actual holdings of
equipment. As has been pointed out earlier, the Treaty is open
ended, it is long term, and we have to draw a sensible balance
between, on the one hand, gestures trying to improve stability
by reducing force levels now, while at the same time not reducing
so far that we destabilise. And we have to think to the long term
in terms of the fact that we do not know what is going to happen.
It is possible that there might, at some point in the future,
be a requirement to have more of one or more categories of equipment,
or we might wish, at some stage, to change the balance between
them. We might, for example, want less tanks and rather more armoured
combat vehicles. So it is a matter of ensuring a certain amount
of headroom to provide that flexibility. The reason for doing
so now is that for what we give up today, there will be no guarantee
that we will recover it in the future, because that would require
some other state party to co-operate with us. They would have
to go down in order for us to go up.
44. Some countries are above their ceiling figures.
Do you see steps being taken for them to reduce to within the
ceilings? Also, a supplementary question. Is it possible for one
country to pass its quota over to another country? Is that a feasible
step?
(Colonel Eliot) Yes, it is. Can I just return to your
earlier question? You mentioned, briefly, repatriation of forces.
They are not exempt, as such, from the Treaty counting rules.
It is merely that under the adaptation agreement it is necessary
to ensure that a state's territorial ceiling is not less than
its national ceiling. This is a general ruling that applies to
all states parties. That then has the effect of addressing the
situation that countries like ours find ourselves in, where we
have a significant amount of Treaty Limited Equipment abroad,
mostly in Germany. There is headroom in our territorial ceiling
in the mainland United Kingdom to, if ever the need arose, bring
back our division from Germany. Can I ask you to repeat your other
question?
45. Transference of quota?
(Colonel Eliot) The adapted Treaty, under its new
Articles IV and V allows a mechanism for state parties to exchange
limits, essentially on a one up, one down basis. For any state
party to increase its national ceiling or its territorial ceiling
that increase must be accompanied by a preceding decrease by some
other willing state party. Furthermore, limits are then set on
the extent to which that can happen, and that is again defined
in the two Articles. Essentially as far as the Treaty for ground
equipment is concerned, the increase in any five year period between
Treaty review conferences should not exceed 20 per cent of the
relevant state's ceilings. However, the Treaty goes further and
it sets a lower number—40 tanks, 60 ACVs and 20 artillery—and
a higher limit—150 tanks, 250 ACVs and 100 artillery. The
point of the lower limit is to ensure that those countries with
very low or no entitlements in particular categories are not then
precluded or not penalised by the 20 per cent rule, for example,
limiting any increase in a five year period to two or three tanks.
The higher limit is clearly aimed at the large countries with
large forces, like Russia, for example, to ensure that there is
not a disproportionate and thereby destabilising change in force
levels.
(Mr Hawtin) Could I add that please, Mr Chairman,
that as far as flank countries are concerned, one can only exchange,
as Colonel Eliot has described, between one flank country and
another. You cannot have a non flank country exchanging part of
its entitlement with a flank country.
Chairman
46. When the CFE Treaty was signed originally
our partners on the European flanks—Portugal, Turkey and
Greece—were recipients of the largesse of the more advanced
industrial defence producing countries. The Turks were seen as
one. It was used as a means of strengthening NATO. I am sure the
Soviets did likewise. Are there any inhibitions on this, or will
countries who wish to change one system for another improved system
transfer the surplus to requirement equipment to the less developed
defence industrial nations within NATO or countries we have a
sympathy with?
(Mr Hawtin) I think that the two situations that you
describe are entirely separate. The ceilings are what they are.
The gifting of or transferring of equipment to any particular
country can still take place, provided that does not breach the
ceiling.
(Colonel Eliot) That is correct, and there is transparency
of any such transfer.[4]
47. If a country is resisting our efforts of
gifting or selling to them charity ones, what is going to happen
to them when their day formally arrives or when the duty is to
be terminated?
(Colonel Eliot) If they cannot be sold through the
Defence Export Services Organisation then, under the CFE Treaty,
if it looked as though it was going to exceed our limit, they
would need to be destroyed or reduced to scrap in some way, or
converted to a different use.
48. Target practice perhaps?
(Colonel Eliot) Target practice. That is a legitimate
means of reduction.
49. Is there a policy decision on what we are
going to do with Challenger 1 or Challenger 2 if the programme
is completed?
(Mr Hawtin) Not that I am aware of.
Chairman: We would like to know what
is going to happen to them. We want to attend the farewell party.
I think it is the greatest contribution to pacifism undertaken
by this defence department since the First World War.
Mr Brazier
50. The CFE is all about controlling conventional
weapons. I have a number of points on that. The first is, is there
a worry that it could lead to instability by not addressing other
aspects of military capability such as long range cruise missiles
and UAVs? I will ask the second question with that, if I may.
Is there not, in a way, rather an illogicality in the 21st century
in comparing platforms rather than systems? I was down at RAF
Duxford looking at the strike force of B52s with my small sons
at the weekend and to pretend that the aircraft that first flew
in 1946 is even remotely comparable to the system capable of delivering
fuel air bombs now would be ridiculous, and yet under the terms
of the Treaty if such a system were included in it you would be
counting them both as one. Can I give you both of those points
together?
(Mr Hawtin) May I start and ask Mr Schulte to come
in later. I think the first point I would make is that we are
talking about the security of all 30 state parties and to a large
number of those the existing kind of conventional equipment—the
five Treaty limited items—are particularly significant.
Secondly, in terms of reducing the ability for surprise attack
and the ability to mount major offensive operations, it is still
those five areas of Treaty Limited Equipment which we believe—and,
indeed, I think it is fair to say that there was no real discussion
or dispute about this—are the ones that matter. It is possible,
under the Treaty arrangements—and there are, for example,
periodic review conferences—for any state to suggest that
there should be changes to the definition in the categories covered,
but we would not, ourselves, have any plans to do that at the
moment. The specific example of UAVs, which you mentioned, I think
is an interesting one, but it is also the kind of equipment which
is very mobile and very hard to verify and, therefore, not something
which, in terms of the credibility of the Treaty, one would necessarily,
automatically and readily want to add to a list of equipment.
If you are going to have a Treaty that means something, then you
have got to be able to verify the restrictions.
51. Just to push that point a little further,
the other instruments of conflict—something that this Committee
has made strong remarks on—the virtual absence from the
SDR and the issue of asymmetric weapons, there is a steady trend
towards asymmetric weapons in third world countries, often helped
with technology, sadly, by countries within the CFE Treaty, not
least Russia. Do you see any possibility of bringing either assets
at the asymmetric end of the scale or even factories capable of
producing those assets—whether it is pharmaceutical factories
or agricultural chemical factories and so on—into the Treaty?
(Mr Schulte) Can I clarify what you mean by asymmetrical
weapons? Do you mean chemical and biological weapons?
52. Exactly, yes. Those that can have disproportionate
effects?
(Mr Schulte) Nuclear arms control has its own forum
and there is a process there—largely a US/Russian process—which
does not need further complication. With chemical and biological,
our main objective—and most responsible countries' main
objective—is to ban the entire class of those weapons and
regimes evolving to that. I do not think that there would be any
gain that I could see in trying to get in the way of the organisation
for the prohibition of chemical weapons and its attempt to inspect
and verify the non existence of chemical munitions in the territories
that we have seen. Similarly for BWs, we are working towards that
protocol which would give some possibilities of having independent
inspectors checking on those. So, I simply think there is no gain,
and enormous potential for problems, in trying to overlap and
complicate those different spheres of action. On your general
point about other systems, I think one has to accept that in arms
control it is very difficult to get into qualitative aspects.
If you start looking at questions of performance, of what one
system can do rather than another, it is very difficult to measure
different dimensions of effectiveness. Many of those dimensions
are actually highly sensitive and classified. I really do not
see it becoming practical in any negotiation, in any part of the
world, in the foreseeable future to start looking at those parameters
that you mentioned. But nonetheless, what we are measuring are
the first line systems of the countries concerned; the ones they
chose to deploy.
53. First line platforms?
(Mr Schulte) Yes. And on top of those platforms, the
best systems they can produce. It does seem to us—and the
opinion of all the military experts in all the 30 countries—to
catch the key features of military instability in Europe. It does
not catch everything, but it catches those five Treaty limited
categories which would be critical for waging an aggressive war.
Chairman
54. What we are trying to get at is, does the
factor of stronger controls over conventional weapons provide,
for certain countries, an almost perverse incentive to develop
those weapons that are not going to be caught by existing Treaty
arrangements? Is there any evidence of that?
(Mr Schulte) Of research and development programmes
being altered by CFE Treaty limits?
55. You see, I am moving into another area.
(Mr Schulte) I have not seen any such developments,
and I have not heard of it being alleged in the defence press
or intelligence discussions.
Mr Brazier
56. Just to come back to the earlier point that
it can be applied equally to the terrace at the bottom end of
the scale, seeing what has happened in Chechnya, many people would
argue that the key to the Russian victory there did not rely particularly
on the Caucasans, but blamed the fact that they had few land bombs
but effective means of delivering flames. That is what basically
cleared the buildings, and when they started to deploy them, the
huge number of armoured vehicles actually played a relatively
peripheral role. Nonetheless, I understand your argument about
not muddying the waters with the area of overlap, but could I
just throw in one other question that is not directly related
to this? The Chairman said at the beginning—and said quite
rightly—that there is no objection in any part of the political
spectrum to this Treaty, but just to put to you, for a second,
if you like, the devil's advocate case. Alan Clark was not the
only historian, by a very long way, to identify the Warsaw Limitation
Treaty between the wars as the pivotal factor which pushed the
Japanese into the hands of the extremists and led to the naval
build up, of course, in breach of that Treaty, which plunged Japan
into the other side of the world war, just after a point at which
they quite voluntarily, without any Treaty obligation, decided
to back us for reasons of friendship. Are you satisfied that the
Russians, to take the obvious question here, are genuinely happy
and do not feel they have had their arms twisted into participating
in it?
(Mr Schulte) Mr Jenkins is the Russian expert. From
my perspective, whereas one is aware that in Russia there is a
very lively debate about START which may or may not favour Russia,
I have not detected any similar ambivalence about CFE.
(Mr Jenkins) From our point of view as well, as we
said earlier, every indication from the Russians in fora, from
NATO through CFE to OSCE, has been that the Russians are very
positive about CFE. They see their limits as satisfactory. They
believe they can conduct the military operations they need within
those limits, and they are also pleased with the elements affecting
NATO states and others.
Mr Hancock
57. Is that shared by the politicians and the
generals? Politicians do not think that, do they?
(Mr Jenkins) Many of the politicians do. One of them
signed the Treaty at Istanbul. I think across the political and
military community there is fair consensus that the CFE is a good
thing for Russia.
Dr Lewis
58. In 1992, President Yeltsin confirmed that
for 20 years the Russians had been drastically flouting the 1972
biological weapons convention. Have they stopped cheating now?
(Mr Jenkins) I am not an expert on biological weapons.
Chairman
59. I think we have the wrong team.
(Mr Schulte) Perhaps we can say that the Russians
are participating in the process in Geneva to come up with an
Implementation Protocol in which we will be able to check that
kind of activity. They are subscribing to the process of work
which would make concealed programmes of that sort much harder
to live with.
3 Note by Witness: The UK's reductions varied
between 5 per cent and 17 per cent in the five categories of Treaty
Limited Equipment. Overall the UK reduction was 7 per cent. Back
4
Note by Witness: Such transparency is in fact limited under
the original Treaty, being restricted to the reporting of aggregate
numbers of Treaty Limited Equipment removed from and/or entering
service use. The adapted Treaty requires this information to be
disaggregated and to show, inter alia, numbers imported
and awaiting export. Back
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