Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
WEDNESDAY 1 MARCH 2000
MR BRIAN
HAWTIN, MR
PAUL SCHULTE,
COLONEL JOHN
ELIOT AND
MR OWEN
JENKINS
Dr Lewis
80. I am getting a little worried Colonel Eliot's
responses. Every time we give him a scenario which he does not
like he says that it is a hypothetical situation. He said it when
I postulated a scenario that perhaps the Russians might cheat
in their hinterland about amassing weapons which they were not
declaring, just as they cheated for 20 years on the biological
weapons convention; and when Mr Cohen made the important point,
"What if we have a Kosovo-like situation amongst members
of this scheme?", again we were told that it was a hypothetical
situation. Does this not come back to the point that I tried to
make right at the very beginning: that this Treaty is a good thing
as long as the signatories to it all want to make it work, but
when relations break down, is it not rather unwise to put too
much emphasis on the Treaty to prevent conflict, whereas the reality
is that if the trust breaks down the Treaty is not going to stop
the conflict occurring. We should see the Treaty, surely, should
we not, as a handmaiden of defence, but not a substitute for defence?
(Mr Hawtin) It is not a substitute for defence in
the sense that it does not remove the right of any of the state
parties to have the forces within the ceiling they consider necessary.
81. My point is that it does not remove the
threat of things going wrong.
(Mr Hawtin) I think it reduces the threat considerably
because of the reasons we have discussed, the reduction in the
scope for surprise attack and the ability to mount a major offensive
operation. What I would emphasise is, firstly, that Kosovo and
the Balkans[6]
are outside the area and in that sense there was no breach of
the Treaty. Secondly, in terms of the temporary deployment provisions,
the main purpose of those is, indeed, to provide the necessary
protection and reassurance, for example, to the new NATO members,
should there be, despite the consent we have discussed, a threat
to their security.
82. Would you at least accept that, in principle,
long-term military planning has to be hypothetical because its
whole purpose is to anticipate certain threats that might arise
and have arrangements in place to minimise the outcome if they
do?
(Mr Hawtin) We have to look at the possible range
of options and scenarios, and we have done that, as we have tried
to emphasise, in terms of numbers and the purpose of the Treaty,
but we have the provision under the temporary deployment arrangement
to provide that two division reinforcement. We do not see, in
prospective circumstances, that that is something that we would
need to do, but should we be wrong, or should the situation change,
then we have the ability to do it.
(Mr Schulte) Can I make two observations? On the first
scenario, I think I was the one who was saying hypothetical.
83. I beg your pardon.
(Mr Schulte) To clarify your point, you spoke of the
Russians cheating in their hinterland. Well, (a) it is hypothetical,
but (b) it actually is the wrong terminology. They would not be
cheating to do that, since they would not have an obligation under
the Treaty to declare things which were outside the Treaty area.
We are not worse off by having a Treaty which requires them to
declare things in the area.
84. Fair enough, but that is a legalism because
is it not the case that the problem is that so many of the other
countries are entirely within the Treaty area and Russia has this
enormous advantage of being half in and half out?
(Mr Schulte) The Russians would also point out that
it is not ideal. But they would also say that there are American
forces on aircraft carriers rather nearer, which can exercise
quite an important impact and so, on the asymmetries which you
point to, they would point to things that we take for granted.
The second point, simply on this adequacy of the two divisions—I
think it is Julian Brazier's point—two NATO divisions is
a fairly serious force, especially when backed by all the other
high qualitative factors like electronics that NATO can bring
to bear. It is, to some extent, these qualitative factors that
increase our contribution. Accepting the two divisions is something
we can do for a range of hypothetical, or otherwise, scenarios.
Mr Gapes
85. Can I bring in another country which has
a similar problem to the Russian one that we have been talking
about, and that is Turkey? As I understand it, only part of the
territory of Turkey is covered by this agreement. Also, there
are Turkish forces in Northern Cyprus, and Cyprus is excluded
from the CFE Treaty. Clearly, if there was to be—hopefully
the Greek and Turkish Government relations are getting better—a
deterioration and Turkey started to mobilise forces for reinforcements
to go into Cyprus, presumably that would not in any way be affected
by the CFE Treaty, is that correct?
(Colonel Eliot) That is correct. The south east strip
of Turkey is outside the CFE area of application. That is no change
from the original Treaty and essentially it was excluded, very
much, due to Turkey's existence next to non CFE states—Syria,
Iraq and Iran.
86. If we are generalising this, you could basically
say that there is no way that you would have got the CFE Treaty,
or even an up date now, which dealt with those difficult areas
because the countries would not have agreed and, therefore, what
we have is a lowest common denominator. It is inevitably not dealing
with all the difficult issues?
(Mr Schulte) It is not designed to cope with specifics
like the thorny question of Turkey and Greece.
Dr Lewis
87. If a thorny question arises within the CFE
area after people have signed up, how would it deal with that?
(Mr Schulte) As part of an overall diplomatic effort
it would set some constraints, some possibilities for inspection
and clarification, but it would take its place in all the separate
things that European countries would be doing to manage that crisis.
(Mr Hawtin) As far as relations between one member
of the NATO alliance and another is concerned, that potential
problem that you have described has been with us for a long time
and it is something that falls to the alliance to manage, as it
has for a number of years, and it does so irrespective of the
CFE Treaty. So the CFE Treaty is neutral in that sense.
(Mr Jenkins) I think that is right. I think that thorny
problems will arise during the life of the Treaty and we have
tried to put in measures that will enable us to deal with such
situations, the details of which we do not yet know. Most of those
have already been mentioned, the temporary deployment provision,
and the political conference in Vienna, when certain levels are
exceeded. I think all of those would be very important tools in
managing any crisis which emerged. There would, of course, be
a need for other tools, including the political role, which I
think is your point, but the CFE Treaty has looked to the long
term and does provide measures and tools which we would be able
to use very effectively in crisis management.
Mr Gapes
88. Would you accept that it is the lowest common
denominator agreement?
(Mr Hawtin) No. Lowest common denominator implies
that one has to compromise at very low levels, which I think is
an unfortunate way of describing it.
89. It is certainly not the highest common factor,
is it?
(Mr Schulte) Perhaps one might say it is a long term
generic agreement. It cannot be designed to deal with the specifics
of each crisis area. It would be impossible.
(Mr Jenkins) If I may, I think the highest common
factor is exactly what it is, it is the most that people can agree
on rather than the least. In particular I draw attention to the
two protocols on inspection and verification which actually go
into a huge amount of detail, much more than the minimum that
everybody accepted.
Mr Hancock
90. You mention the amount of detail, I have
read the detail and I think it is bizarre. It could be a Monty
Python sketch, could it not? On the verification by helicopters
over sites, it says as many flights as you like as long as they
do not exceed an hour in total. Some of these sites cover hundreds
of square miles. If you are told you can fly your helicopters
as often as you like with as great a visual view as you like as
long as all of those flights in any one inspection do not exceed
in total one hour in the air, that is a pretty meaningless inspection,
would you not agree?
(Mr Hawtin) Just to check the relevant clause—
91. I have seen the report, so if it is not
true, somebody is—
(Mr Schulte) Just on a general point, experience in
other arms control arrangements has shown that if you do not codify
these things at length which may seem excessive to people new
to the subject, that is a recipe for trouble and dispute later.
92. Of course, but then it makes the whole
thing pointless, does it not? I have read also in this report
that you have been near Rostov, if you go South East of Rostov—it
is outside, I would imagine, your area—there is a huge Russian
military complex which is their main central base but I would
guarantee it was not in your area of search. It is a very strange
line they have drawn. The Urals, as somebody else said, can hide
an awful lot, can they not?
Chairman: Can I ask you to give some
thought on that and drop us a line? We are going to go on until
1 o'clock but I am afraid I am leaving. My colleague, Peter Viggers,
will take the chair. Before I leave, if I may abuse my privileged
status, can I ask you to prepare something for us? It might be
classified but it is on the role of intelligence in supporting,
monitoring and inspection. That would be quite helpful. Secondly,
where do we get our inspectors from? What is the stratagem? How
are the personnel chosen? How are they trained? Where do they
derive from? How do you co-ordinate with NATO? You said earlier
there is a division of labour, where would that co-ordination
be to ensure that each country which we are concerned about is
properly inspected? Where does the strategy come from? I would
also like to ask you about the Bible which you will have, the
SIPRI Yearbook 1999, which discusses some of the issues Dr Lewis
raised about the Russians cheating, and on pages 614, 615, 616
and 617 there is an elaboration of the role of the Joint Consultative
Group in monitoring implementation and what it does, and then
it goes on looking at where the Russians have been less than fair
and it says that the Russians comply with the letter but not always
the spirit of the Treaty. It lists cases which Dr Lewis would
be interested in—Russia stayed within its maximum entitlement
but the following concerns remain, and then it lists (a), (b),
(c), (d) and (e), and I will not go into them. What I would ask
you is, this was written a few months ago I suspect, is this the
totality of what is available to this Committee in terms of where
the Russians prevaricated, attempted to, if not deceive, not tell
the whole truth, to be economical with the truth, tried to redesignate
equipment to their advantage? I think that would be helpful. Lastly,
perhaps you can tell us, and this may be confidential but it would
be quite helpful, what we have gleaned from the Russian negotiating
strategy during the first Treaty with those who participated initially
on their side but who have subsequently transferred allegiance
to our side? Have they been de-briefed? I can think of a number
of people I know—in fact I had one of them to dinner a couple
of weeks ago, a Hungarian—who no doubt were involved in
the Warsaw Treaty negotiations. I am sure there is more to be
told but how much can you tell us in terms of what went through
the Warsaw Treaty Organisation during the late 1980s and early
1990s which will give us some idea? I know the personalities are
different but it would give us some idea as to what their objectives
were and how they shared that information with their Hungarian,
Czech and Polish colleagues. I would not want you to answer those
questions now, and forgive me for departing. When we paid our
tribute to Michael Colvin I omitted to welcome back Peter Viggers,
who was on our Committee until he was purged after the last election,
and I am delighted he has been re-incorporated into the mainstream
of the defence elite within the Conservative Party and I am delighted
he will help me out of a hole by chairing the rest of the session.
Thank you for coming. We will carry on until 1 o'clock if that
is all right.
In the absence of the Chairman, Mr Viggers
took the chair
Mr Viggers
93. Yes, Mr Hawtin?
(Mr Hawtin) May I respond, Chairman, to some of the
points Mr George made? He gave us a very daunting list of further
information and we will obviously look at what we can provide
and try and be as helpful as possible. On Russian compliance we
have provided information in our memorandum in response to his
particular questions but on this broader question of trust or
mistrust of Russia, we have had an extensive debate about this
but I think a number of key points are worth reiterating, if I
may. The first is that the Treaty covers the Atlantic to the Urals
area and that is a fact, it does not cover the United States or
Canada which, from the Russian perception, raises problems. One
I think needs to be careful about criticising an agreement that
has limitations in terms of its scope, that it does not, as it
were, look at the total global picture, that is not the purpose.
Secondly, what it does, as we have sought to explain, is reduce
the ability for surprise attack and massive offensive operations.
It does, under the existing Treaty and even more under the Adapted
Treaty, move as it were the mass of military force away from the
critical area, originally the inner German border, eastwards,
and that is an important factor in terms of reducing the Russian
hypothetical threat. But the third point which again I think we
need to keep in mind is the massive reduction in Russian capability
and in the threat being posed to Western Europe. We are not suggesting
in any sense that the Russian engagement in the negotiations has
been anything other than positive and constructive and designed
to achieve, like the rest of us, an improvement in overall European
security. But leaving that on one side what is equally clear and
transparent is the massive reduction in the size of the Russian
capability which is now of an order of magnitude different from
what it was at the height of the Cold War. So when it comes to
suggestions of "cheating", we do need to look very much
at the broader picture and indeed the Russian objectives and intentions
throughout the negotiation.
Dr Lewis
94. Would you not accept that what we are doing
is putting in place mechanisms which are not tied to the situation
as we see it now, but have to cope with the situation as it might
deteriorate in the future? We are not doing this to be destructive
critics, we are doing it because we do not want to get into another
situation when we adopt perhaps a scaled-down version of what
I am sure you have heard of, the infamous ten year "no war
rule". It became the planning assumption between World War
I and World War II, when it was possible at any time to look forward
and say, "We think there will be no major threat—strategic
threat—to British security interests in the next decade".
At any point at which you look forward, the likelihood of something
like that happening is small; but it is also true that when a
threat does arise it arises suddenly and usually unexpectedly.
So, if you are trying to reassure us we should not worry about
these mechanisms because the Russians are in a good frame of mind
now, which is of course debatable, that does not reassure us as
much as you might think it would.
(Mr Hawtin) We have sought to explain that in terms
of the Treaty and the temporary deployment capability, NATO and
individual NATO nations have looked ahead and we do take account
of the changes in the circumstances. But, secondly, I think the
point I would emphasise is that even were Russian intentions to
change rapidly, what they do not have at the moment or in prospect—and
we are talking about a matter of years and even then a much more
limited Russian capacity than they had in the Cold War—is
the ability to back up that change of intentions with actual capabilities.
That is the major change.
95. I would again have drawn more confidence
from that assessment if when I asked you earlier about biological
weapons' cheating earlier. Accepting that you are not a CBW team,
nevertheless—given that it is so well known that in 1992,
after the end of the Cold War, President Yeltsin confirmed the
massive cheating on the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, and
given that the intelligence services of America and Britain were
so worried even a couple of years after this that they were aiding
Newsnight programmes to expose the workings of Biopreperat
and all the rest of the secret infrastructure, and even though
you are not experts but given that you are involved in this whole
area of to what extent do we trust the Russians to observe complicated
treaties and conventions of this sort—you seemed to have
no answer when I asked you point-blank if we believe now that
they have abandoned this secret programme of violation of the
1972 BW Convention, or if in fact they are still cheating—and
that was cheating.
(Mr Hawtin) But the major difference between that
area and conventional capabilities is the time it takes to regenerate
and reconstitute one's forces. Given the major decrease in Russian
conventional capability in the last ten years, what we are talking
about is a regeneration which is not something which can be done
secretly, covertly or rapidly; it really is a matter of years
and years.
Mr Hancock: Just a couple of points and
then I want to move on to the Baltic States and the Balkan countries.
As somebody who was in Chechnya with a Council of Europe delegation,
at the same time we were talking about peace on one side of the
hill, the Russians were bombing and shelling quite extensively
on the other side of the hill, I do not think it was quite as
Julian Brazier depicted as to why the Russians were able to do
it, they were able to it because they were able to use worn-out
tanks which they would not have used in any other situation. You
only had to see the trouble they had in getting a lot of the equipment
there and the time it took them to get the stuff there. If any
of you were in Russia at that time you would have seen the logistical
problems of getting it round and they were able to bomb with impunity
because there was no effective force coming up against them. So
there are lessons to learn there. But when you look at this list,
most of these countries, I think with the exception of six, are
all either in NATO or wanting to join NATO or they are involved
in one way or another with Partnership for Peace, so you would
question whether or not you would want to verify any of those
countries. I read with interest that we have been involved in
69 inspections as a nation but we have supplied inspectors for
another 143 inspections carried out by other countries, and I
wonder quite why we are effectively putting the brains behind
other countries' inspections. What do we get out of that or what
do they get out of that? I also have not heard any of you suggest
why continue with this. We know how difficult it was to get mobilisation,
to get 40,000 people to Kosovo or close to it, and we know that
the Russians had an enormous task shipping stuff around in their
own country to get to Chechnya. One wonders about these sorts
of conventional scenarios, particularly when the figures are so
hopelessly wrong—the ceiling figures are probably in every
case either unrealistic or completely meaningless in the totals
which are down here, they were put on paper for reasons best known
to yourselves but in reality mean nothing because if these countries
had most of these tanks I suspect very few of them could ever
be moved effectively or quickly enough to be used in a threatening
situation which could not be repulsed by air attacks by NATO or
elsewhere. So I think we need some justification as to why to
continue this. You attempted to do that just now I think slightly
but not effectively. Then I want to go on to the question of the
Baltic countries and the Balkans and why they are excluded from
CFE and why we have not attempted to negotiate them in because
without them a lot of this will be meaningless. If the Balkans
are not going to be a threat, then probably if Russia ever get
very suspicious of what NATO was up to the countries on the Baltic—Estonia,
Lithuania and Latvia—would be the obvious next flashpoint
as far as they were concerned, and they are extremely sensitive
to it. To go back to the point, I was in Russia at the weekend
and if you listen to Russian radio or television you will hear
that there are some very strange things being said about treaties
they have signed up to and they do see what the Americans are
trying to do with their anti-ballistic screen as a good reason
for why all what they have signed up to now being put to one side.
Mr Viggers
96. That question actually took five minutes.
Can I ask in reply if you would tell us what the chances are,
or what your expectation is, of the important countries which
are not included in the Treaty area—the Baltic States, the
neutrals, some smaller countries and OSCE countries outside the
Atlantic-Urals area and indeed Yugoslavia—being included
in the Treaty in the medium term?
(Mr Hawtin) At the moment under the existing Treaty,
there is no provision for additional members. One of the ways
in which the Adapted Treaty changes that is that it does allow
European countries to apply for membership and were they to do
so there would be a process of negotiation with the existing states'
parties about the terms of the application and what should be
done with it. But it would require unanimous agreement by all
the existing states' parties before a new member could be admitted.
That is what a new Treaty allows you to do. There is one other
important caveat, namely that does not happen until it actually
enters into force, which takes us back to the debate we had at
the outset on the ratification process. Assuming it is ratified
and enters into force, there will be a mechanism for allowing
new members or potential members to apply.
Mr Gapes
97. Could I ask you about the Russian reaction
to the increasing size of NATO? The Russians must have had a view
when Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO, particularly
in the context of what followed from it. What measures were put
in this Adaptation Agreement to reassure them about NATO's non-aggressive
intentions and, in the light of the fact that the bombing of Kosovo
started the day after the three new countries joined NATO, how
do you think they perceive it at the moment?
(Mr Hawtin) I think I would make three points. Firstly,
yes, the Russians did express a lot of concern about the enlargement
and there has been very considerable discussion with them on that.
I would defer to my Foreign Office colleague but I think they
now accept—they may not like it—that enlargement has
taken place for the three countries. Secondly, in terms of the
protection and the collective Article 5 security guarantee, the
arrangements are covered by the exceptional temporary deployment.
We have discussed those and Russia accepted those and from their
point of view that is a plus in the Treaty. Finally, as far as
the Russians' overall approach to the Treaty is concerned, I think
it is worth pointing out that they actually came to closure, as
it were, on the key points following the start of the Kosovo bombing
campaign, and whereas there was a freeze in the relations between
NATO and Russia more or less across the board, they were still
continuing to engage in the CFE negotiations.
98. Does this Adaptation Agreement limit NATO's
ability to reinforce these three new member states in a crisis?
Do we also have some kind of acceptance implicitly or not that
the Russians can move their own forces in a potentially destabilising
way as a kind of quid pro quo for us being able to do the
same to our new members?
(Mr Hawtin) No, in terms of the quid pro quo
point. In terms of the ability to reinforce, that is covered by
the exceptional temporary deployment provision which we have already
discussed.
99. But the Russians have the same procedures
open to them as well, do they not?
(Mr Hawtin) But there is no Warsaw Pact now.
6 Note by Witness: specifically, in this context,
the former Yugoslavia and Albania. Back
|
