The INF Treaty of 1987: A Re-Appraisal
Projektleiterin: Prof. Dr. Bernd Greiner und Prof. Dr. Elke Seefried, Berliner Kolleg Kalter Krieg
Projekttyp: Tagungsförderung
Fördersumme: 8 Tsd. Euro
Veranstaltung: Berlin, 30.11. bis 02.12.2017
Publikation
weitere Informationen
Öffentliche Podiumsdiskussion.
Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Stiftung (2017, 11. Dezember): Der INF-Vertrag von 1987: Warum Abrüstung kein Hirngespinst ist. Youtube, Web, 24.06.19. In: Zum Video.
Zusammenfassung
Anlass der Tagung war der 30. Jahrestag des INF-Vertrags vom 8. Dezember 1987, durch den erstmals alle landgestützten nuklearen Mittelstreckensysteme (500 – 5.500 km Reichweite) der beiden Supermächte USA und UdSSR abgeschafft wurden. Die Tagung verfolgte folgende Ziele: Gestützt auf neue Quellenfunde und Archiverkenntnisse, galt es erstens, eine internationale, multiperspektivische Zusammenschau und Analyse des „Wegs“ zum INF-Vertrag, seiner Durch- und Umsetzung sowie seiner Perzeption in den betroffenen Ländern in der NATO und im Warschauer Pakt in ihrem interaktiven Wechselbeziehungen des Ost-West- bzw. Bündniskontextes und der politisch-diplomatischen Rückkoppelung an gesellschaftliche Strömungen aufzuzeigen. Zweitens sollte durch die gegenwartsnahe Zeitgeschichtsschreibung eine Brücke zur aktuellen Entwicklung geschlagen werden, um so drittens in der Geschichtswissenschaft wie in einer historisch-politisch interessierten Öffentlichkeit das Bewusstsein für Fragen von Abrüstung und Rüstungskontrolle zu schärfen.
Diese Ziele wurden aus Sicht der Veranstalter mit der Tagung erreicht: Führende Wissenschaftler aus der Community der „nuclear history“ aus Deutschland, den USA, Kanada, Russland, Italien, Großbritannien, Frankreich, Polen und Finnland diskutierten an drei Tagen intensiv in sechs Sektionen über den INF-Vertrag und damit zusammenhängende Fragen. Neue Erkenntnisse erbrachten vor allem die Beiträge zur US-amerikanischen und sowjetischen Vorgeschichte des INF-Vertrags, zu den Reaktionen der westlichen und östlichen Alliierten der beiden Supermächte sowie zu den Friedensbewegungen in den USA, der Bundesrepublik sowie in Nordeuropa. Erstmals wurden darüber hinaus die Zerstörung der Mittelstreckenwaffen und die Überwachung dieses Vorgangs eingehend geschildert. In der Podiumsdiskussion „Der INF-Vertrag von 1987: Warum Abrüstung kein Hirngespinst ist“ am Abend des 30. November 2017 wurde über die gefährdete Zukunft des INF-Vertrags diskutiert.
Abstract
On December 8, 1987, President Ronald Reagan and General-Secretary Michail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). The document expressed the surprising mid-decade rapprochement between the United States and the Soviet Union and ended the arms race that had once again intensified during the 1970s and 1980s. Today, the INF-Treaty is widely considered a milestone in superpower nuclear arms reduction talks. Whereas limiting the production of nuclear weapons to a mutually agreed maximum had been central to earlier talks, the INF-Treaty for the first time assured the complete destruction of an entire category of weapons, also terminating their future development. According to the terms of the treaty, almost 2,700 long-range ballistic missiles were destroyed over the course of three years. The treaty has also been hailed as a driving force behind the surprising end of the Cold War and Europe’s unification after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Most recently, the INF-Treaty has again received public attention. Due to growing tensions between the United States and Russia, the agreement’s future is far from undisputed. During the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time publicly announced the option to retreat from the INF-Treaty, calling U.S. plans to install a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic an unacceptable act of aggression in violation of the treaty. Simultaneously, the United States accused (and keeps accusing) Russia of not keeping to the terms of the treaty by producing and testing a new generation of ground based cruise missiles. Since diplomatic relations between the two nuclear powers have deteriorated considerably in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, a renewed arms race and a retreat from the 1987 agreement seem possible. In June 2016, then German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warned that risking the major achievements of arms reduction would make for an unstable international community. As these examples show, the future of the INF-Treaty is in question.
Considering these challenges to the INF-Treaty, the forthcoming 30th anniversary of the agreement raises the opportunity to reassess its content from a scholarly perspective. Over the course of our three-day conference (which will be held in English), European and American experts will discuss the origins of the treaty, its terms, and implications based on newly accessible sources. Despite the undisputed far-reaching consequences of the agreement, the archival blocking period has precluded a source-based analysis. The conference will serve as a kick-start in order to discuss newly formulated ideas and modified views on the subject. Central topics of the conference revolve around the question of why and how the parties involved successfully launched this novel agreement, how changing foreign and domestic policy issues and public discourse affected the interests and goals of the protagonists, and which immediate and long-term effects of the treaty can be identified.
Programm:
Convened by the Berlin Center for Cold War Studies, the Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin (IfZ) and the History Department at the University of Mannheim
Date: November 30 – December 2, 2017
Venue: European Academy Berlin
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Welcome and opening talk
2.30 – 4.00 p.m.
The INF-Treaty in Perspective
Speaker: Bernd Greiner, Berlin Center for Cold War Studies
Session I:
Turning Points until 1985
4.00 – 6.00 p.m.
1) At the Nadir: The Breakdown of the Geneva Talks and the Deployment of the Missiles in East and West, 1979–1983
Speaker: Leopoldo Nuti, Roma Tré
2) The “Reagan Reversal”: The U.S. Dealing with Disarmament 1984–1986
Speaker: Beth A. Fisher, University of Toronto
3) Turn of the tide: Gorbachev and the Change in the USSR’s Nuclear Policy, 1984/5–1986
Speaker: Tom Blanton, National Security Archive, Washington D.C
Chair: Jan Hansen, Humboldt University of Berlin
Open Forum:
The Future of Disarmament and the INF-Treaty: A Contested Debate
(Venue: Humboldt University of Berlin)
Participants:
Otfried Nassauer, BITS Berlin
Oliver Meier, SWP Berlin
Patricia Flor, Representative of the German Federal Government for Disarmament
Andreas Wirsching, Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin
Chair: Bernd Greiner, Berlin Center for Cold War Studies
Friday, December 1, 2017
Session II:
Breakthrough to Disarmament: From Reykjavik to Washington 1986–1987
9.00 – 10.30 a.m.
1) The American Road to INF, 1986/87
Speaker: Ronald J. Granieri, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia
2) The Soviet Road to INF 1986/87
Speaker: Svetlana Savranskaya, National Security Archive, Washington, D.C.
Chair: Elke Seefried, Institut of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin
10.30-11.00 a.m. Coffee Break
Session III:
Socio-Political Dynamics, Peace Protests and Public Debates
11.00 a.m. – 1.00 p.m.
1) The United States of America
Speaker: Claudia Kemper, Hamburg Institute for Social Research
2) West Germany
Speaker: Philipp Gassert, University of Mannheim
3) Scandinavia
Speaker: Tapio Juntunen, University of Tampere
Chair: Julia Angster, University of Mannheim
1.00 – 2.30 p.m. Lunch
Session IV: Reactions of the Western Allies
2.30 – 4.30 p.m.
1) Special no More? Britain and the INF treaty
Speaker: Oliver Barton, Ministry of Defense, London
2) Ostpolitik à la française? France and the INF treaty
Speaker: Christian Wenkel, SIRICE, Paris
3) The Controversy About the Double-Zero Option: The Federal Republic of Germany and the INF treaty
Speaker: Tim Geiger, IfZ, Berlin
Chair: Hélène Miard-Delacroix, Sorbonne, Paris
4.30 – 5.00 p.m. Coffee Break
Session V:
Reactions of the Eastern Allies
5.00 – 6.30 p.m.
1) Poland and the INF Treaty
Speaker: Wanda Jarząbek, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
2) The GDR, Gorbachev and the INF Treaty
Speaker: Hermann Wentker, Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin
Chair: Agnes von Bressensdorf, Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin
7.00 p.m. Dinner
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Session VI: Realization of the Treaty
10.00 – 11.30 a.m.
1) Implementing the Treaty, Dismantling the Missiles: When, Where and How?
Speaker: William Alberque, Head of NATO Arms Control and Coordination Section, Brussels
2) “The Left-Overs”: From INF to START and CSE
Speaker: Oliver Bange, ZMSBw, Potsdam
Chair: Bernd Rother, Bundeskanzler Willy-Brandt-Stiftung, Berlin
11.30 – 12.00 a.m. Coffee Break
Final Discussion
12.00 – 1.00 p.m.
Participants:
Elke Seefried, Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin
Philipp Gassert, University of Mannheim
Bernd Greiner, Berlin Center for Cold War Studies
Tim Geiger, Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin
Hermann Wentker, Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin
Chair: Claudia Kemper, Hamburg Institute for Social Research