Key steps towards arms control in Europe

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze and prepare specific recommendations on key, but still unresolved, topical issues of arms control in Europe. The recommendations, in particular, include the further prevention of the deployment of new medium- and shorter-range missiles, non-strategic ("tactical") nuclear weapons, as well as the identification of prospects for limiting the conventional arms race and issues of means to prevent dangerous military incidents. In this regard, the article analyzes a promising set of measures for creating a mutual system of European security and resolving a number of key problems in this area through the prism of the issues of the INF Treaty, TNW and other international documents and treaties, suggests concrete steps and ways of effective implementation in this direction. The article used systematic, retrospective, comparative, hermeneutic methods of scientific research. The novelty of the approach lies in the fact that the article does this in the context of an analysis of the aggravation of the situation around Ukraine, its attempts to join NATO and Russian demands to the United States and NATO on the need for legally binding guarantees of mutual security made in November-December 2021. The six concrete steps proposed by the authors towards arms control in Europe, as well as a set of measures in the field of limitation and reduction of conventional weapons in Europe, consisting of twelve points, are also innovative. The authors focus on the need to reduce the number of non-strategic nuclear warheads and their placement, eliminate certain classes of non-strategic nuclear weapons, exchange information on the types and number of delivery systems of non-strategic nuclear warheads, formalize obligations not to dock non-strategic nuclear warheads with their delivery systems, as well as obligations not to exceed the aggregate limit on non-strategic and non-deployed strategic warheads, conduct periodic mutual on-site inspections. The authors see promising measures to create a flexible and constructive security architecture in the European region in the intensification of both diplomatic and military dialogue between Russia and NATO, in the formation of legally fixed measures to prevent the threat of mutual military clashes, in the resumption of joint work on cooperation in airspace and in marine areas, in the development of new procedures for de-escalation military incidents and conflicts. The practical and theoretical significance of the work lies in the systematic analysis of a set of important security measures on the European continent after a fundamental change in the world security system, including the termination of almost all international arms control agreements. This was especially relevant already at the beginning of 2022 in the situation of Russia conducting a special military operation on the territory of Ukraine and increasing the likelihood of a military nuclear conflict between Russia and NATO.