4 Conventional Weapon Regimes

Abstract

This chapter describes the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty as a creature of the Cold War. It compiles the content and effect of the 1992 Open Skies Treaty and the soft-law 2011 Vienna Document, which are both adopted within the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). It also examines arms control during the Cold War, which focused on the relative numbers of certain conventional weapons between the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and those of the Warsaw Pact. The chapter elaborates the disarmament by individual States of injurious or indiscriminate conventional weapons, which was not high on the policy agenda of the military bloc. It mentions the achievement of consensus on the elimination of any conventional weapons category, which proved elusive within the United Nations framework.