Prospects for Further Constraints in the Conventional Field: Regional and Global Approaches

Pál Dunay

• 1. Driving Factors
• 2. The Pospects of European Arms Control
  • 2.1. The Perspective od the CFE Process
  • 2.2. The Fragmented System of Arms Reductions in Europe
• 3. Global Arms Control in the Conventional Field?

The first decade of the post East-West conflict era is about to come to an end. Terminology that calls the time we live in as: the "post East-West conflict", or the "post Cold War" period, seems to indicate that no positive definition has yet developed to describe our era. One may say the world is missing the genius who could give an adequate description of the state current international relations. The sudden changes seen in the first years of the decade were followed by slower and more evolutionary processes, while the evolution of arms control has shown a different, one may say opposite, trend. When the political agenda of the major players of international relations was dominated by issues other than arms control, European conventional arms control took a pause and focused exclusively on the unfinished business that had been left over from the previous era (CFE IA, Open Skies, further CSBMs). Today, arms control, in the broad sense of the word, has regained its relevance - yet, under different conditions than in the previous era.

As long as the two so-called superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, played their global zero-sum game relying on the combination of the deterrence of nuclear forces and their formidable conventional arsenals, the cohesion of the two blocs opposing each other was guaranteed. The arms control agenda was dominated by the single most important concern of the two countries, that of nuclear war. Stability, in different senses of the term, had to be provided through nuclear deterrence and nuclear arms control. A wide range of measures could contribute to it: from the reduction of arsenals to testing limitations, to confidence-building measures as well as the establishment of sophisticated communication systems. Further measures aimed at freezing the long-term privileged role of the leading nuclear powers in the form of nuclear non-proliferation.

Non-nuclear arms control, at least until the mid-1980s, remained a secondary corollary to the European arms control agenda. This remained the case throughout the East-West conflict in spite of the fact that the focal point of the global conflict was Europe throughout that period. This was another reflection of the domination of those nuclear powers in Europe, themselves only partly European states. At best, the negotiations conducted until the mid-1980s were useful to understand the threat perceptions of the parties and, at worst, were entirely irrelevant for European security. The change occurred following the ascension to power of Mikhail Gorbachev. The redefinition of Soviet security interests, the readiness to recognise the security concerns of other countries ("the other side"), and the increased emphasis on the limitation of weapons categories, other than nuclear, were results of this change. I believe three main factors need to be taken into account when dealing with the change of Soviet thinking on conventional arms:

• the political concept of a common European home is impossible to put into practice while the highest peacetime concentration of conventional weapons in Europe contributed to the threat perception of most countries of the continent;
• the military ideology about the danger of a "totally destructive conventional war", bearing in mind the number of nuclear reactors and the density of factories producing hyper-toxic chemicals in Europe, could soon reach the devastation of a nuclear exchange; and
• the change in the subjective component of Soviet security policy ranging from the new foreign minister to the opening of the structures of influence to the "institutchiki" that resulted in the adoption of new ideas which had earlier been alien to the Soviet leadership.

• the move from bi-polarity to a more democratic international system did not compensate for the weight, size and strength of countries. Thus, the world has embarked upon a system of limited multipolarity where a concert of great powers possesses a decisive say. In the current situation it is impossible to make any major decision on European security without the active support, or at least the toleration, of some major powers;
• the only country with globally defined interests is the United States. For the United States, Europe is only one of the theatres of military operations and, on its own right, not the most important. It is frequently mentioned that Europe is important as a springboard for US forces to the Middle East, and the southern littoral of the Mediterranean and Africa;
• the centre of confrontation has moved away from Europe as far as global security is concerned. The predominant problems of Europe are no longer of a traditional security character;
• the longest era of peace in modern European history came to an end not much after the East-West conflict had finished and nonetheless the importance of the continent in international security declined. As the traditional military risks are confined to certain sub-regions and do not carry the danger of large-scale horizontal escalation, the security risks remain limited and confined to some countries; and
• in light of the general improvement of the security situation on the continent, the public interest in security matters has declined steadily and, together with it, the interest in arms control.

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