Public Policy Research Works
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1619
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Item Tags(Westview Press, The Perseus Books Group, 1990) Fetter, Steve; Garwin, ThomasAn agreement on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) may place numerical and geographical limits on more than 140,000 treaty-limited items (TLIs)1 in 21 countries. Monitoring limits on such huge numbers of TLIs would be extremely difficult, as well as expensive and intrusive, with human inspectors alone. This chapter examines a promising way to effectively monitor limits while reducing cost and intrusiveness: the tagging of TLIs. The use of tags transforms a numerical limit into a ban on untagged items. The result is that many of the verification advantages of a complete ban can be retained for a numerical limit. Tagging works by certifying that every TLI observed is one of those permitted under a numerical limit. A tagging system would involve the manufacture of a number of tags equal to the number of TLI, which would then be affixed to an essential part of each allowed TLI. If even one untagged TLI were ever seen—during on-site inspections (OSI), by national technical means (NTM), or even by nationals of the inspected party loyal to the treaty regime—then there would be prima facie evidence of a treaty violation. If properly designed, tags could also identify a TLI as belonging to a particular nation or as normally deployed in a particular region, which would make it easier to verify CFE sub-limits on national and regional deployments.Item Using Tags to Monitor Numerical Limits in Arms Control Agreements(The Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, 1989) Fetter, Steve; Garwin, ThomasThe treaty on intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) has sanctified the “zero option.” It has long been understood that it is easier to verify a complete ban on a weapon system than it is to verify a numerical limit. A complete prohibition is easier to verify because a single sighting of a banned weapon would constitute clear evidence of a violation. Moreover, a complete ban would eliminate training, testing, and repair activities that could serve as a cover for clandestine weapon deployments or could support a sudden breakout from a treaty. Although a total ban may be the best option from the standpoint of verification, this is not realistic for many weapon system. In the past, numerical limits could be verified adequately because the weapon systems in question—missile silos, bombers, and ballistic-missile submarines— were hard to conceal from national technical means (NTM) of verification (primarily reconnaissance and electronic intelligence satellites). Unfortunately, changes in technology and in the strategic environment are giving rise to new weapons whose deployment will be difficult to verify using current techniques. Mobile land-based ballistic missiles, for example, are gaining increased prominence in the strategic forces of both sides, primarily because they are less vulnerable to preemptive destruction than immobile silo-based missiles. But mobile missiles are much more difficult to count since they are designed to move around the countryside and are often hidden from view. Limits on nuclear cruise missiles would also be difficult to verify using NTM because they are small and because the conventional- and nuclear-armed versions are nearly indistinguishable. In addition, the INF Treaty is giving new impetus to the search for cooperative restrictions on the military confrontation in Central Europe, where numerical limits have been hard to agree on in part because of verification difficulties.