House of Commons - Defence

Select Committee on Defence Twelfth Report

Compliance with the CFE Treaty

13. Commentators have consistently noted breaches of the CFE Treaty by Russia, and the evidence suggests some degree of obfuscation on its part, if not outright cheating, from the very start of the Treaty's implementation. Even Russia's first equipment data submission of November 1990 contained errors, and considerably understated the figures estimated by Western intelligence assessments.[37] There had also been widespread concern over the transfer by the Soviet Union of equipment east of the Urals prior to the Treaty's signature, and between 1990 and 1992, in an attempt to bypass its CFE limits, the Soviet Union/Russia moved 50,000 treaty-limited equipments east of the Urals, and thereby outside the Treaty's area of application. This was not a treaty violation, but for some it represented a breach of the spirit of the Treaty. Soviet officials suggested that the transfers were intended effectively to diminish the substantial Soviet equipment reduction requirement. According to them, most of the equipment was from operational units withdrawn from Europe, and was taken east and 'dumped'.[38]

14. Following protests from NATO, Russia gave a commitment [39] to 'reduce' 16,000 of these equipments by 31 December 1995—later extended at the first CFE Review Conference (in May 1996) to 31 December 1999. This comprised a legal agreement to destroy 1,492 pieces of equipment[40] which Russia honoured before the original 1995 deadline,[41] and a non-binding undertaking to destroy an additional 14,500 pieces of equipment.[42] Against this latter obligation, Russia was still 2,000 short of the target by the December 1999 extended deadline, although the MoD told us that Russia was expected to have completed this reduction by March 2000.[43]

15. Examples of clear non-compliance by Russia have also been consistently reported over the last decade. To get an up-to-date perspective on this we sought the MoD's views on the specific areas of non-compliance raised in the 1999 Yearbook (the most recently published) of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).[44] The Yearbook's analysis relates to the situation in 1998 and, as events have moved on since then, the MoD was able to give us the more recent situation in some areas.

16. Excess holdings of equipment classified as 'decommissioned' and 'awaiting export'. The MoD told us that in the past Russia had abused the exemption from the equipment limits for items awaiting export (Article III of the existing Treaty) to 'hide' equipment excesses,[45] although such holdings have now fallen to more 'reasonable' levels. However, Russia continues to exceed its decommissioning (Article IX) allowance. NATO does not accept Russia's exclusion of certain tanks and ACVs as 'non-combat capable', and if the equipment were properly declared, the MoD told us, Russia would still be exceeding its decommissioning ceiling by 410 pieces of equipment.[46]

17. Improper designation of armoured combat vehicles as 'ambulances'. The MoD told us that NATO, suspecting Russia of trying to mask an excess of treaty-limited ACVs in the flank zone, had challenged Russia about its 'ambulances' on the grounds that some of the vehicles in question[47] were incapable of carrying stretchers internally. NATO had thought that the problem had been resolved when Russia's January 1999 data return had been submitted, showing an increase in declared Russian flank holdings which matched the number of 'ambulances' previously observed. But a German inspection team subsequently found another 28 undeclared armoured combat 'ambulances' which the Russians declined to acknowledge as treaty-limited equipment. The adapted CFE Treaty will partly address this issue, we were told, by requiring notification of any site containing 18 or more armoured ambulances in the annual data exchanges.[48]

18. Forces stationed in other countries without their consent. Russia still has forces and treaty-limited equipment in Georgia and Moldova without the consent of those countries[49] (paragraph 47). The Russian armed forces have also transferred equipment—perhaps between 250 and 1000 pieces—to Armenia without either official notification to the other treaty signatories or, it appears, the Russian government's approval (and Armenia itself denies any such transfer).[50]

19. Non-disclosure of certain armoured personnel carriers. Russia does not include 'MT-LBu' armoured personnel carriers in its data submissions, though required by the Treaty, because Russia regarded their inclusion in the Treaty as 'an error'.[51]

20. A failure to dispose of treaty-limited equipment attached to naval and rocket forces. Remarkably, the Russians excluded from its initial data submission in 1990 some 5,400 items of treaty-limited equipment, including nearly a thousand tanks, on the grounds that they did not form part of the land and air forces covered by the CFE Treaty. These were items of equipment held by its 'naval infantry', items transferred from the Army Command to 'coastal defence' units and ACVs attached to the Strategic Rocket Force. All of the then 21 other CFE signatories disputed Russia's interpretation of the Treaty that such forces were not intended to be covered by it. Romania and Poland, for example, which also had naval infantry forces, had included those holdings in their equipment submissions.[52] The Russian Defence Minister at that time[53] pointed to the Treaty's explicit exclusion of 'naval forces' and claimed that this would include all naval forces, not just those at sea.[54] This potential loophole would have permitted equipment numbers to be increased simply by painting them a different colour.

21. US and Russian officials subsequently negotiated bilaterally a compromise that involved Russia being able to exclude the then current number of naval infantry and rocket force equipments, provided that it moved an equivalent number of other similar equipments, within the Treaty's ceilings, east of the Urals.[55] Separately, Russia had to decommission its share of excess Black Sea Fleet equipment which the MoD told us was still incomplete at the end of 1999, although it had plans to meet this obligation by the end of March 2000.[56] (Ukraine, however, with more than half the treaty-limited land equipment of the Black Sea Fleet, has taken no action to reduce its share of the excess holdings.)[57]

22. The original CFE ceilings presented Russia with a particularly large reduction in the forces that it could hold west of the Urals, with a cut of about a third in the number of its tanks and ACVs.[58] Russia has now destroyed 10,000 items of treaty-limited equipment.[59] It has been suggested that Russian misgivings about these large cuts, and the perceived diminution of Russia's influence and power more generally at the end of the Cold War, lay behind the dubious exclusion of some equipment from Russia's data submissions after it signed the Treaty. Some commentators have suggested in particular that Russia's obstructiveness was the product of internal disputes amongst the various Russian authorities, including concerns within the armed forces about the military capability being forfeited. As a result it appears that Russia's treaty negotiators were reluctant to allow the explicit inclusion of naval infantry and rocket forces in the Treaty documentation, for fear of annoying an already antagonistic military, and the subsequent misinterpretation of the provisions of the Treaty was deliberately engineered by the Russian military authorities without the agreement of the Foreign Ministry.[60] Simon Lunn, the Secretary General of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, has commented that the Russian military's behaviour stemmed from—

... their profound dissatisfaction with the Treaty. With the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact and of 'parity' [of NATO and Warsaw Pact limits], its provisions are seen as highly adverse to Soviet security. ... They had hoped that Soviet withdrawals and the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact would be matched by the demise of NATO. Instead they saw the Atlantic Alliance alive and kicking. Finally, the outcome of the Gulf War exacerbated concerns about NATO superiority.[61]

23. The result is that, as of January 2000, only Russia remains in breach of its equipment ceiling obligations under the current CFE Treaty. (Although Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine are not meeting all of the various obligations of the Treaty, and Bulgaria may also not be.[62]) The MoD told us that since the end of the reduction period (November 1995) Russia has been 'broadly' compliant with its equipment limits in most of the Treaty's zones (though not in its flank areas—see below).[63] While its returns show it to be within its overall equipment ceilings, the UK MoD's assessment is that it holds 21 too many treaty-limited artillery pieces. (The lower ceilings of the Adaptation Agreement—discussed below—will put Russia a further 100 artillery pieces beyond its allowance [64]).

24. In Russia's incomplete compliance with the CFE Treaty, there are aspects for the other signatories to welcome as well as criticise. Russia has not kept fully to its obligations under the Treaty, but (outside the Caucasus at least, which we discuss below) it has reduced its equipment holdings by tens of thousands, bringing a significant easing in its capacity for aggression. Although Russia's incomplete compliance is a cause for concern, it is also a symptom of how painful it has found the required cuts in its forces. The other parties to the Treaty must now impress on Russia the importance they attach to Russia's future good faith and compliance, without which the foundation of the Adaptation Agreement may also be undermined.

37 See eg The CFE Treaty, Simon Lunn, Jane's NATO Handbook 1991-92, ed. Bruce George MP Back

38 ibid Back

39 In a side agreement of 14 June 1991 to the CFE Treaty Back

40 466 tanks, 486 ACVs, and 540 artillery pieces Back

41 FCO 'Background Brief', September 1997 Back

42 6,000 tanks, 1,500 ACVs and 7,000 artillery pieces Back

43 Ev p 26, para 38 Back

44 pp 614-633 Back

45 Ev p 30, para 16(a) Back

46 ibid Back

47 'BTR-series' armoured personnel carriers Back

48 Ev p 31, para 16(b): Article 26, Section XIX of the Adaptation Agreement Back