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

It seems fair to observe that whereas CFE’s main
aim is limitation, <strong>and</strong> verification of compliance with
limits, VDoc <strong>and</strong> Open Skies instead emphasize transparency
<strong>and</strong> predictability. The distinction is important—although
similarities in the mechanics of the
regimes, particularly between CFE <strong>and</strong> VDoc, have
sometimes served to inhibit rather than promote the
further development of one or the other. In the early
days of their implementation, for example, the specter
of “harmonization” was an all-too-convenient bogeyman
for keeping a bright line between the two—not
least by the couple of dozen participants in VDoc who
are not party to CFE. In turn, after CFE adaptation became
mired in unfulfilled Istanbul commitments, circa
2002, <strong>and</strong> particularly after Russia’s 2007 “suspension”
of its fulfillment of Treaty obligations, prospects for
enhancing the VDoc regime were repeatedly derailed
by fears of making it a substitute for CFE. Conversely,
after the United States <strong>and</strong> most other Treaty parties
took reciprocal CFE measures against Russia in late
2011, Russian officials prominently pronounced their
satisfaction with relying on VDoc instead.
There may indeed be some fungibility at work here;
but collateral efforts to revive CFE, on the one h<strong>and</strong>,
<strong>and</strong> enhance VDoc <strong>and</strong> Open Skies, on the other, suggest
that more fundamental environmental shifts may
be in play as well. Some hypotheses derived from observing
these processes:
• For a variety of reasons, st<strong>and</strong>ing force levels
have declined so much that limits may be less
important in enhancing security.
• Doctrine <strong>and</strong> force structure have changed
enough that, even if legal limits remain useful,
holdings of heavy equipment may not be the
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