Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO.pdf - Program on Strategic ...

Most of the attempted adaptation <strong>and</strong> further
elaboration of the CFE construct has represented a
struggle to morph from its bloc-to-bloc origins to a
truly multilateral character, in which imbalances <strong>and</strong>
disparities are Sisyphean realities that can never be
absolutely resolved but only continuously managed
by collaborative effort.
The VDoc has emerged in some thinking as an
azimuth for future conventional arms control efforts,
with its principal orientation on military activities
rather than military equipment holdings. Like CFE,
the VDoc includes an extensive annual exchange
of military information. But while CFE seeks to account
for the entire military force structure (including
higher headquarters, combat service support units,
storage <strong>and</strong> maintenance depots, training establishments,
airfields, <strong>and</strong> any other organization or facility
holding, or likely to hold, equipment subject to the
Treaty), VDoc focuses on field formations <strong>and</strong> combat
units. By the same token, CFE verification provisions
aim principally at intrusively inspecting military garrisons
<strong>and</strong> their occupants; VDoc, while including
limited opportunities to “evaluate” units in peacetime
locations, has prominent components for inspection
<strong>and</strong> observation of specified military activities in the
field—<strong>and</strong> requirements to provide advance notification
of such activities to other parties.
The Open Skies Treaty, while oriented on neither
military facilities nor activities per se, still provides
additional opportunities to observe such facilities
<strong>and</strong> activities through the conduct of quota-based
overflights of treaty parties’ territories with sensorequipped
aircraft.
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