ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the long history of efforts to control conventional arms in Europe. On February 2, the fruitless fifteen-year negotiations between North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) in Central Europe ended at the 493rd plenary in Vienna. They were replaced on March 9 by new negotiations covering the whole of Europe termed the Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) that included all twenty-three NATO and WTO countries. Negotiations on a follow-on agreement are likely to take place shortly thereafter, as may US-Soviet negotiations on short-range nuclear forces in Europe. Even though conventional arms control negotiations today capture less public attention than does political evolution in the East, they remain relevant and central to the future European order. The mandate for the CFE negotiations, adopted on January 10, 1989, after almost two years of negotiations, is far more specific than that for MBFR.
