II. European arms control

Chapter:

11. Conventional arms control

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2010

Author(s):

Zdzislaw Lachowski

The 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe is the most elaborate conventional arms control regime worldwide. Its implementation

has resulted in more than a 50 per cent decrease in the aggregate holdings of the treaty-limited equipment (TLE)—battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, artillery of at least 100-mm calibre, combat aircraft and attack helicopters—of the parties (see table 11.1). However, it is built on an outdated bipolar concept: an equilibrium of major categories of heavy conventional armaments and equipment between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the now defunct Warsaw Treaty Organization in its Atlantic-to-the-Urals area of application. The 1999 Agreement on Adaptation of the CFE Treaty would better respond to geopolitical shifts and new security circumstances and requirements.⁴ The agreement has not entered into force because the NATO members and other states parties refuse to ratify it until Russia complies with the commitments it made at the 1999 OSCE Istanbul Summit.⁵ The 1990 CFE Treaty and the associated agreed documents and decisions therefore remain binding on all parties, although Russia has ‘suspended’ its implementation of the CFE Treaty.