ABSTRACT
The North Atlantic Alliance, as the security focus for most West European states since 1949 has almost inevitably played an important part in the evolution of conventional arms control negotiations. The May 1986 Halifax North Atlantic Council meeting created a 'High Level Task Force' in response to Gorbachev's 'Budapest Appeal' of the previous March. The Verification Co-ordinating Committee (VCC) was established by the North Atlantic Council in 1990 to co-ordinate the verification activities of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) members, to address to planned Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) inspections. As interest in arms control – particularly that of the United States – waned and new issues advanced up the NATO agenda the pressure to maintain an active arms control agenda naturally declined too. One of the biggest problems in undertaking a transfer of responsibility from the margins of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to NATO is Russian objections.
