DESTRUCTION COMMITMENTS EAST OF THE URALS

In 1990, during the final months of CFE Treaty negotiations, the Soviet Union transferred more than 50,000 pieces of TLE to military bases and depots east of the Ural Mountains. This was a legal movement of military equipment, since neither the Soviet Union nor any other nation had signed the unfinished treaty. Nevertheless, once the treaty was signed in Paris in November 1990, the Soviet Union's initial TLE figures disturbed the other treaty states. They were concerned with the sheer size of the transfers, and some observers concluded that the Soviet military might be trying to circumvent the treaty, since no other nation had transferred any conventional weapons or equipment outside its borders. At the time of the treaty's signature in Paris, the Soviet Union's data revealed a transfer of 6,289 CFE Treaty TLE items to units of the naval infantry, coastal defense, civil defense, and Strategic Rocket Forces. This transfer was considered a serious breach of the treaty-so serious that many nations, including the United States, suspended ratification actions until the Soviet Union pledged to account for and destroy a large portion of the transferred equipment.

As explained in Chapter 3, "Ratification Delayed," intense diplomatic negotiations led the Soviet Union to pledge in a legal declaration to the Joint Consultative Group in June 1991 that it would destroy or convert 6,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 1,500 ACVs (14,500 total) located east of the Urals by December 31, 1995. At the same time, the Soviet Union obligated itself to remove from the treaty's territorial zones 1,492 pieces of naval-related equipment. This equipment would also be destroyed by the end of 1995. None of the reductions would be subject to inspection; however, Moscow pledged to provide sufficient visible evidence to indicate that the equipment had been destroyed or converted.²⁸

Kharchenko discounted military threat...weather rendered equipment useless.

Russia's request was discussed in the JCG in Vienna, but there was no agreement. However, in May 1996, at the CFE Treaty Review Conference, all the signatory states accepted a new Russian declaration on the issue. In that conference's Final Document (see Appendix D), Russia declared that it would proceed with reductions of all the committed weapons and equipment and would provide documentary evidence of its destruction and conversion. All battle tanks and armored combat vehicles that had been exposed to the weather would be displayed with the "hatches and covers of engines" opened. A group of experts, at their own expense, would be invited to the reduction sites to examine the equipment prior to its final disposal through scrapping. Finally, Russia established the year 2000 as the new deadline for completing all reductions east of the Urals.³¹

REDEFINING THE TREATY'S FLANK LIMITS

The problem of the treaty's flank limits was both consequential and controversial.³² During negotiations the treaty states accepted a two-part flank zone that contained limits on the number of active and stored conventional weapons. In the diplomatic end game leading to treaty signature, President Gorbachev and the Soviet Union accepted these zone limits and restrictions. The CFE Treaty's Article V stipulated that each group of states could possess no more than 4,700 tanks, 6,000 artillery pieces, and 5,900 ACVs in the flank zones. Originally, the flank zones included the following national territories: Iceland, Norway, Greece, and parts of Turkey (NATO flanks) and Romania, Bulgaria, and four military districts in the Soviet Union (WTO flanks). For the Warsaw Treaty Organization, these military districts were located on the northern and southern flanks of the alliance (see table 8-1). The intent of treaty negotiators was to limit, through absolute numerical ceilings and storage and active sublimits, the number of offensive weapons in these military districts.