ABSTRACT
NATO interest in conventional arms control is at its highest point in more than a decade. The Intermediate-range nuclear forces agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union has rekindled public preoccupation with the conventional military balance in Europe. In the end the Soviets went along to secure US agreement to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, but the USSR has never tangibly demonstrated at the Mutual and balanced force reductions (MBFR) negotiating table its professed interest in fairly reducing conventional forces. Soviet officials could well have decided that no plausible MBFR counterproposal attractive to Western publics could be developed by the East, especially with respect to verification. Attempts to achieve a conventional arms control agreement in MBFR have faltered in part because of the some alliances' differing assertions on the current military balance on the continent.
