Striving for Military Stability in Europe: Negotiation, Implementation and Adaptation of the CFE Treaty

This new book traces the changing relationship between Russia and NATO through the prism of conventional arms control, focusing on the negotiation, implementation and adaptation of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty.

The author shows that arms control agreements reflect relations between parties and how the CFE Treaty codified parity between NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) in November 1990. Although still widely viewed in the West as the cornerstone of security and stability in post-Cold War Europe, from the Russian perspective the treaty was soon overtaken by events. With the collapse of the WTO and the Soviet Union in 1991, it became impossible to talk of a military balance between East and West in Europe, especially as all the former WTO states opted for membership in NATO. This study details how the other state parties worked hard to adjust and adapt the treaty to meet Russian concerns about its new weakness relative to NATO, and the issues that complicated Russian acceptance of CFE limits.

This book will be of great interest to all students of NATO, European politics, international relations and strategic studies in general.

Jane M. O. Sharp is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies in the International Policy Institute, Kings College London. She was formerly Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and from 1998–2003 served as the British representative on the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.