The Russian Foreign
Ministry announced on Tuesday that Russia would
suspend its participation in the joint consultative group of the Treaty on
Conventional Armed Force in Europe (CFE), thereby all but formally pulling out
of the agreement. The application of the treaty had already been suspended by Russia in 2007,
a move justified by Putin in view of 'exceptional
circumstances that affect the security of the Russian federation'. Until now,
however, Russia had continued work in the joint consultative group.
Signed in 1990 and
generally referred to as a cornerstone of European security, the CFE
Treaty imposed parity on NATO and the Warsaw Pact regarding the
amount of conventional key arms such as tanks, artillery, and combat aircrafts,
while also providing for mutual inspections. Through a reduction of forces, the
treaty sought to prevent any large-scale surprise attacks, which in turn would
diminish the likeliness of either military bloc resorting to nuclear weapons.
While the suspension of the
treaty has been pitched as an attempt by the Kremlin to put pressure on the
West, Russia has argued time and again that the treaty failed to take into
account fundamental changes in circumstances since 1990.
As the director of the
department for non-proliferation and arms control at the Russian Foreign
Ministry explained on 11 March: 'I don’t think we
will return to the CFE under any circumstances. It is absolutely out of sync
with the present realities. It is totally anachronistic. This Treaty was worked
out way back when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Treaty were still around and
set equal ceilings for each bloc (NATO and the Warsaw Treaty) on key armaments.
Under this Treaty, together with the East European countries, which are now
NATO members, we are representatives of the same group, which politically is
utter nonsense'. The official added that Russia was 'willing to consider the
possibility and hold corresponding talks on a new agreement'.
Russia’s exasperation stems
primarily from the continued reluctance of NATO members to ratify the
Adapted CFE Treaty (1999), which was to replace bloc-by-bloc by
national-territorial ceilings precisely in order to take into account NATO
enlargements. Furthermore, the alliance members agreed to withhold their
ratification of the adapted treaty until Russia fulfilled its ‘Istanbul
commitments’ - the withdrawal of its military forces from the territory of
Georgia and Moldova - in spite of the fact that this linkage does not appear in
the text of the treaty itself.
As a result, for instance,
the Baltic states have been barred from joining the CFE due to the fact that
the revised treaty never entered into force. This logically means that they are
exempt from its limitations. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the US Operation Atlantic Resolve, aimed at
reinforcing the American military presence in Europe, has focused precisely on
the territory of the Baltics. While commentators have dwelled upon the largely
fictitious military build-up on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border, this
considerable operation taking place right next to Russia has been completely
ignored.
While it may be tempting to
see Russia’s withdrawal from the CFE Treaty as a consequence of the recent
breakdown in relations over Ukraine, in reality its underlying causes are more
profound and can be charted back to the 1990s -much like the current crisis
itself. This period saw NATO expand into the territory of the former Warsaw
Pact, a move some commentators argue has been at the root of Russian
'revanchism'. But while it is no secret that Russia has never been happy with the
idea of NATO enlargement, it was rather the fact that these enlargements were
not embedded in a corresponding security framework that, together with the
unilateral turn in US foreign policy and its accompanying assault on the
principles of international law, explains the current grievances of Russian
policymakers against the West.
It also explains the
considerable and consistent efforts of the Russian leadership put into renewing
the dialogue on a new European security architecture. Perhaps the most ambitious
proposal was put forward in 2009 by Medvedev. It foresaw the signing of a new
European Security Treaty, which was to formalise the principle of
indivisible security and create a 'common undivided space' 'from Vancouver to
Vladivostok'. It was politely ignored by Western leaders, however.
Russia now stands accused of undermining a key confidence-building
mechanism between Russia and the West. This hardly seems fair, given
the fact that the CFE Treaty had long ceased to be such a source of trust for
Moscow. Meanwhile, repeated failures to adapt the treaty to the new realities
have convinced the Kremlin of the West's unwillingness to take what it sees as
its legitimate security concerns seriously. The return of nuclear saber-rattling to Europe
is therefore all the more tragic in its predictability. The reappearance of the
'asymmetric response'-doctrine is indeed a logical consequence of the current
weakening of arms control regimes. It is telling of the distance travelled
since the end of the Cold War and its main hopes, in particular regarding a
world without the ubiquitous threat of a nuclear armageddon.
The CFE Treaty joins a list
of international fora between Russia and the West that have been closed down
recently.
In January, Russia saw its
voting rights in the Parliamentary Assemble of the Council of Europe suspended
for the second year in a row, which prompted the Russian delegation to boycott
the assembly’s sessions for the whole of 2015. Sergey Naryshkin, the speaker of
the Duma, moreover stated that Russia would reconsider its membership of
the Council of Europe. Moreover, co-operation with NATO has been suspended since April 2014,
although channels for political dialogue at the highest levels are kept open.
Likewise, the EU has frozen talks on a visa-free regime with Russia in March
2014. Even the OSCE, one of the last forums for dialogue between Russia and the
West, has not been free of controversies: in February, its parliamentary
assembly rejected the nomination of a Russian
delegate representing Crimea.
Camille
is a PhD Candidate in International Relations and an Assistant Lecturer at the
University of Kent, Canterbury. Previously, he studied European Politics (MA),
History (BA, cum laude), French (BA, cum laude), and
Russian (undergraduate) at the University of Amsterdam, Sciences Po
Paris, and Lomonosov Moscow State University. He
completed internships at the Centre d’études et de recherches
internationales (Paris) and the Political Affairs and Public Diplomacy section
of the Dutch Embassy in France and worked at two leading Dutch publishing
houses. His research focuses on Russian traditions of constitutionalism and
Russia's engagement with international law.
