Verifying the CFE Treaty: Any Role for Technology?

As recently as 1989, it was generally expected that arms control would provide vast opportunities for technologists to exercise their ingenuity in adapting the tried and true concepts of materials control to this novel regime. When the first phase of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (the CFE Treaty) was finally agreed upon in October 1990, and signed on November 19, 1990, it became obvious that verification was less important than consensus. Aside from NTM, which receives only passing mention, technology, even at the level of what is commonly accepted practice in materials control, not to speak of advanced concepts, had no meaningful role. In this paper the non-existent role for "new" technology in the Phase I CFE verification process is explained. The explanation relies on (1) the perception that the benefits of having a treaty in place are far greater than the risk from possible violations, (2) the political liabilities that accompany the identification of insignificant violations and (3) the very large dimensions of a significant violation.