The Paper: withdrawal from the CFE Treaty will allow Russia to strengthen the deterrence of the WestThe expansion of NATO forced Russia to denounce the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, writes The Paper.
This decision is absolutely logical — the CFE Treaty only tied her hands, the author of the article notes. Now Moscow has a chance to strengthen its position in Europe.
According to Russian media reports, on May 16, the State Duma of the Russian Federation approved a law on withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty). Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, said on the same day that he would inform the governments of all countries about Moscow's decision to denounce the CFE Treaty.
The cornerstone of European security
The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe emerged as a result of mutual compromise after years of confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact Organization (ATS). It regulates, as the name implies, conventional military equipment in Europe. During the Cold War, the arms race placed a heavy economic burden on both sides, but did not bring the expected benefits to either NATO or the ATS. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union and the United States could not defeat each other in any way, so after Mikhail Gorbachev promoted the concept of "new thinking", the United States, the USSR, NATO and the ATS held negotiations on disarmament (including conventional weapons and nuclear weapons) and we managed to make significant progress. On November 19, 1990, the heads of 22 countries of the North Atlantic Alliance and the Warsaw Pact Organization (16 from NATO, six from the ATS. — Approx. InoSMI) signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe in Paris.
The CFE Treaty prescribes clear provisions on the number of five main types of conventional weapons that two blocs can leave on the territory from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains, and their zones. These types of weapons included battle tanks, armored fighting vehicles, artillery, attack helicopters and combat aircraft. The number of existing and stored ground weapons and equipment in each NATO and ATS group should be: 20 thousand tanks, 30 thousand armored vehicles, 20 thousand artillery pieces, 6.8 thousand combat aircraft and 2 thousand attack helicopters. In addition, the CFE Treaty provided for the introduction of quotas, supervision, verification, as well as measures to reduce the number of equipment in four areas: The Central European Zone, the Central European Extended Zone, the European Flank Zone and from the Atlantic to the Urals. Thus, the Treaty established a balance of power between the two main military blocs and limited the deployment of conventional weapons in areas adjacent to their borders, thereby reducing the intensity of the arms race and reducing the role of defense factors in international relations. Therefore, in the West, the CFE Treaty was once called the cornerstone of European security.
Later, after the end of the Cold War, some former ATS states in Central and Eastern Europe joined NATO one by one. This upset the balance between the alliance and Russia in terms of conventional weapons, giving the former a clear advantage in this area. In 1995, Moscow demanded that Western countries agree to amend the relevant provisions of the Treaty on the grounds that it no longer "meets the interests of Russia's national security," otherwise it would be "forced to withdraw from the Treaty." In order to ease Moscow's security concerns, the sixth OSCE Summit in November 1999 adopted an Agreement on the Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which was signed by 30 countries. By this Agreement, the mechanism of group quotas provided for in the 1990 CFE Treaty was replaced by the mechanism of national and territorial quotas. Both national and territorial limits of military equipment were clearly regulated (that is, the amount of domestic and foreign weapons and equipment stationed on the territory of each Contracting party). Thanks to this Agreement, 19 countries that were part of NATO at that time (that is, the former 16 countries of the alliance, as well as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary) agreed to significantly reduce the number of their conventional weapons and equipment.
The adapted CFE Treaty inherits the original purpose of the agreement — to prevent the use of conventional weapons for large-scale offensives and surprise attacks. It transforms the limitation of the volume of armaments between military groups into an interstate obligation. The Treaty is designed to prevent any European country under any circumstances from being able to expand the scope of military equipment limited by the treaty and to conduct a concentrated deployment of troops and weapons without consulting other contracting parties. The additional agreement made the entire monitoring and control system more rational and "transparent". However, as of 2007, only Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have consistently ratified the Agreement on the Adaptation of the CFE Treaty. NATO members refused to do this on the grounds that Moscow had not fulfilled its obligations to reduce weapons and equipment in the flank area and continued to deploy forces in Moldova and Georgia. Ultimately, this led to Russia suspending the Treaty in 2007, leaving it to exist only on paper.
Victim of the game between Russia and the West
Russia's formal withdrawal from the CFE Treaty this time can be characterized as an inevitable result of the continuing deterioration of relations between it and the West in recent years.
All this time, the continuous expansion of NATO to the east has greatly unnerved Russia. Since 1993, the quarrels between Washington and Moscow over the expansion of the alliance have not stopped, but all these were just verbal battles, and the conflict did not escalate. After the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, joining the alliance became the goal of Kiev's national policy, and Ukraine gradually turned into the most pressing issue in relations between Russia, the United States and NATO. Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed that Ukraine's admission to the alliance would pose a serious threat to his country's security and is its "red line". However, the United States and the North Atlantic Alliance ignored Moscow's concerns, noting that joining NATO is Ukraine's decision, and Russia, as a third party, has no right to interfere.
As NATO established more and more military bases in Europe and approached the border with Russia, the latter's worries intensified. Moscow was driven to the limit by the news that Finland officially became the 31st member of the alliance on April 4, 2023. Before it joined NATO, the land borders of Russia and the five states of the North Atlantic Alliance were approximately 1.2 thousand kilometers. Between it and Finland, they reach almost 1.3 thousand kilometers. Helsinki's decision increases the land borders of NATO and Russia more than twice. At the same time, the distance from Finland to Murmansk is only 200 kilometers, and Severomorsk, the main base of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Federation, is only a little more; Severodvinsk, the center of Russian shipbuilding, is only 500 kilometers, and 152 kilometers separate the newly-declared NATO member from St. Petersburg. If the United States places nuclear bombs or even short- and medium-range ballistic missiles on the territory of Finland in the future, then most military and civilian facilities in the Russian Arctic will be in the range of NATO weapons, and the pressure on the Russian defense complex will increase many times.
After the start of the Ukrainian conflict, at the NATO leaders' summit on March 24, 2022, it was decided to fully support Vladimir Zelensky and the Kiev government. According to statistics, in the period from January 24 to November 20, 2022, the member states of the alliance provided financial, humanitarian and military assistance to the ally in the amount of at least $ 80.5 billion. The United States, Zelensky's largest donor, promised to provide $51.2 billion, of which at least $24.5 billion was sent in the form of military aid, $16.1 billion in financial aid and $10.6 billion in humanitarian aid. The UK is the second largest sponsor of Ukraine, it has allocated $7.6 billion, Germany ranks third with $5.8 billion, and Sweden and Finland have pledged to send at least $867 million and $332 million, respectively.
As for specific equipment, the weapons that NATO member countries have supplied to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict include: Sea King helicopters, IRIS—T missile systems, Javelin anti-tank missiles, self-propelled howitzers, wheeled artillery and Switchblade barrage ammunition, HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, the mobile Norwegian NASAMS anti-aircraft missile system, many basic battle tanks, Swedish-British portable NLAW anti-tank guided missiles, MLRS multiple launch rocket system, MiG-29 fighters and much more. As of January 2023, military aid packages number more than 4 thousand units of heavy equipment. All this played a huge role in helping Kiev in the fight against Moscow. <...>
In such circumstances, it is obvious why Russia considers it pointless to continue unilateral implementation of the CFE Treaty — after all, it only ties its hands with it. Therefore, the decision to denounce the Treaty seems logical. According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who is responsible for assisting the State Duma in discussing the issue of withdrawal from the CFE Treaty, "[the Treaty] has already been devastatingly affected by the hostile actions of NATO countries and their clients towards us," and "the CFE Treaty, due to the changed situation, contradicts the interests of our security."
An omen of a new arms race
Undoubtedly, Russia's withdrawal from the CFE Treaty in the future will lead to an aggravation of the security situation in Europe and may even cause a new round of the arms race.
After the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict, many states of the world began to expand their arsenals on a large scale. Take Poland, for example. She has been at the forefront of anti-Russian politics since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis. In addition to actively helping Kiev, it has a very tough attitude towards Moscow. In order to compensate for the shortage of weapons after sending them to Ukraine and to cope with a possible retaliatory strike from Moscow, Poland began to rapidly build up its armed forces. In 2022, Warsaw decided to spend $14.8 billion to purchase 980 K2 Black Panther tanks, 648 K-9155 mm self-propelled howitzers and 48 improved training aircraft/light F/A-50 fighters from South Korea. Soon after, Poland used another $12.5 billion to purchase 96 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters. In February 2023, Deputy Minister of Defense Marius Blaszczak announced that Warsaw plans to order 1,4 thousand tracked infantry fighting vehicles Badger produced by the Polish company Huta Stalowa Wola (HSW) and a family of universal modular tracked vehicles on the same chassis. Such a scale of military reinforcement will make Poland the largest tank country and the owner of the largest number of infantry fighting vehicles among European NATO members.
Germany's actions are also striking. After the start of the Ukrainian conflict, her Government decided to increase national defense spending. Bundesrat (one of the five permanent constitutional bodies. — Approx. InoSMI) approved a special defense fund in the amount of 100 billion euros. In September 2022, according to German media reports, Germany put forward the goal of "becoming the leading military power in Europe." The then Minister of Defense of the state Christina Lambrecht confirmed that the authorities plan to create three combat-ready army divisions by the early 2030s. She also called for loosening strict rules on defense exports so that Berlin could participate in European projects.
Having freed itself from the shackles of the CFE Treaty, theoretically in the future Russia can increase and deploy more conventional weapons. Coupled with its "nuclear baton", such a decision will be able to strengthen Moscow's deterrence of the Western world. However, pressure may force more countries (for example, Finland) to enter an arms race, which in turn will force Russia to move from "political agreements" to "real actions." One can imagine that because of such a vicious circle, the dark clouds of conflict over Europe are unlikely to dissipate soon.
Author: Lan Shunzheng (兰顺正)