PROGRAM ON STRATEGIC STABILITY EVALUATION (POSSE)

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1 PROGRAM ON STRATEGIC STABILITY EVALUATION (POSSE) Creating a Framework to Assess Military Transparency Anya Loukianova (CISSM/UMD SPP) January I. Introduction. Scholars and practitioners argue that military transparency will play an important role in promoting confidence on the road to zero. But, the conceptual definitions and implied meanings of transparency vary among the many disciplines and communities involved in the study and practice of international security. Moreover, there is little to no consensus on the origins, mechanics, or dynamics of this phenomenon. Thirty years ago, the expansion of transparency enabled the implementation of bilateral nuclear arms reductions. Today, however, nuclear reductions are coinciding with potentially negative shifts in nuclear transparency. Under New START, Russia no longer makes public the declarations of its nuclear forces, and instead only exchanges this information with the United States, as their bilateral treaty obligations require. 1 Moreover, as it moves to modernize its delivery vehicles, Moscow is also set to discontinue Nunn-Lugar projects next year a development that worries U.S. observers who have come to rely on the transparency complement to arms control monitoring that had been offered by threat reduction projects. 2 These developments suggests that transparency at lower numbers of nuclear weapons will be difficult. Thus, the present time is crucial to working out common definitions of transparency, understanding its sources, and outlining its contours. This paper is a preliminary study that discusses theories informing the debates about military transparency, proposes an analytical framework for the expansion and decline of transparency, and develops mini-case-studies to examine the phenomenon in U.S.-NATO-Russian (the Euro-Atlantic) security relations. The paper begins with a conceptualization of transparency and a discussion of how it is measured. It then introduces an analytical framework that includes normative, realist, institutionalist, technology-based, and policy analysis dimensions to assessing the reasons behind, the timing of, and the processes underlying transparency s expansion and decline. The mini-cases that follow vary across the dimensions of security policy (conventional forces, strategic nuclear forces, missile defense, and nuclear weapons complex) and along the spectrum in levels of transparency. The conclusion offers a summary. II. Definitions. 1 Hans Kristensen, "New START Data Exchange: Will it Increase or Decrease International Nuclear Transparency?" FAS Blog, March 22, 2012; Pavel Podvig, "Where is the New START Data?" Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces blog, March 28, Jeffrey Lewis, Bar Nunn, Foreign Policy, October 17, 2012.

2 Transparency s conceptual definitions and implied meanings vary greatly. 3 Two decades ago, scholars contrasted a new transparency involving the voluntary reciprocal disclosures of security information between adversarial and/or competitor states with old transparency that relied on the procurement of this information through espionage activities. 4 Today, transparency is recognized as having a variety of forms. These include, among others, cooperative (the subject of this study), ambient (provided by mass media, for example), coerced (by weapons inspectors in Iraq, for example), and unilateral (which comes in three types: intelligence, confrontational, and proffered). 5 The focus of this paper is on cooperative transparency in the Euro-Atlantic region. For the purposes of this study, transparency is defined as the systematic provision of information on specific aspects of activities in the military field under informal or formal international arrangements. 6 In addition to traditional cases such as (formal) arms control verification and (informal) military confidence-building, cooperative transparency also may include less structured exchanges of intelligence information. These could revolve around common threats such as missile proliferation. Studies suggest that changes in transparency can be viewed as a function of (1) coverage and (2) reliability. 7 Coverage deals with the scope of activities in the information exchange (narrow or wide) and the level of their intrusiveness (shallow or deep). Reliability, in turn, involves accessibility, which is the mechanism used to exchange information, and timeliness, which is both frequency and verifiability (access). 8 Transparency is at its greatest when the inclusiveness of coverage (wide/deep) and reliability (timely/accessible) are both high. Cooperative transparency has several other important aspects. First, it operates primarily through government-to-government channels, which are very sensitive to the disclosure of information to third parties. Second, certain transparency measures require the disclosure of proprietary (which is distinctly different from traditionally classified) information about new and emerging military technologies. Such proprietary disclosures, in turn, are impossible without legal agreements facilitating industrial cooperation between governments. 9 In sum, cooperative transparency is facilitated by formal and informal information exchange arrangements and active intelligence cooperation in areas of common and immediate security concern. The level of transparency varies from low to high (and in between) depending on the 3 In nuclear policy analyses, transparency measures are generally seen as different from (or less formal than) and supplementary to verification efforts. This paper views transparency as encompassing both formal verification and informal transparency measures. This paper steps away from transparency as a function of government disclosures of bilateral information exchanges to the public. It also does not consider transparency as a function of political governance indicators (corruption and democracy). 4 Ann Florini, Transparency: A New Norm of International Relations, University of California, Los Angeles dissertation, 1995; James Marquardt, Why Transparency is Not What it Appears to Be: Defensive Realism and the Origins of Institutionalized Openness, University of Chicago dissertation, August Apropos unilateral transparency, (a) intelligence is state-level intelligence gathering, [b]confrontational is information revealed to coerce or deter during a confrontation, standoff, or competition, while [c] proffered is information offered to de-spiral or reassure. All definitions from are from Dan Lindley, Promoting Peace with Information (Princeton University Press, 2007), pg This definition is used in Florini, pg. 2. and Marquardt. 7 This measurement approach is adopted from Marquardt, pp Marquardt, pp Legal vehicles such as the 123 Agreement and the Defense Technical Cooperation Agreement.

3 degrees of coverage and reliability. Transparency is also sensitive to external disclosures and may involve proprietary information exchanges. III. Approaches to Studying Transparency. Beginning in the 1970s, policy literature that tracked the evolution of military confidencebuilding measures posited that increases in transparency resulted in security gains for the states involved. Some analysts even held out hopes for the construction of a cooperative security order in the Euro-Atlantic. Subsequently, more careful observations and studies of how it was practiced suggested that transparency could also be costly, coercive, unsatisfying, and fleeting. Today, there is broad agreement that transparency increases can carry positive or negative implications for the states involved in the exchange as well as third parties. 10 The following six approaches offer ways to understanding the origins, mechanics, and dynamics of transparency. They also provide the structure for the mini-cases in the section of the paper that follows. 1. Normative explanations. The widespread optimism about the power of ideas after the end of the Cold War highlighted normative explanations to the expansion of Euro-Atlantic military transparency. Transparency could work as an instrumental norm (to buttress deterrence), as a moral norm (the right thing to do), and as a standard of behavior (a proxy for intentions if a state deviated from it), these explanations posited. 11 Thus, a norm-driven spread of transparency in the security realm (via arms control verification mechanisms and military confidence-building measures) began to catch on among states beginning in the 1970s. And, as both the cause and the consequence of the events leading to the end of the Cold War, transparency ultimately resulted in an increase in Euro-Atlantic security Realist explanations. After a re-examination of the conditions under which states assented to transparency, defensive realism challenged the causality of normative explanations. Defensive realists posited that the acceptance of transparency by states was essentially a barometer of external threats rather than a solution to the problem of insecurity. 13 An increase in transparency was the outcome of the assessments states ma[d]e about external threats based on the offense-defense balance whether offense or defense is advantaged and the distinguishability of offensive forces from defensive forces and the strategies states employ to provide for their security. 14 Thus, the degree of transparency depended on the state s perception of its external threat environment. 3. Institutionalist explanations. The focus of institutionalist scholars is on the ways in which institutions, as facilitators of information, reduce uncertainty. Toward this end, the nature and the structure of regimes and 10 See a good summary in Kristin Lord, The Perils and Promise of Global Transparency: Why the Information Revolution May Not Lead to Security, Democracy, or Peace (State University of New York Press, 2006). 11 Florini, pp. 3-4 and Florini, pp Marquardt, pg Marquardt, pg. 3.

4 international organizations can explain shifts in the security strategies of states. Institutionfacilitated transparency can reduce transaction costs, increase the shadow of the future, offer a mechanism to resolve collective action problems and improve enforcement, as well as promote path-dependence (and learning). 15 At the same time, however, ineffective or interblocking institutions can frustrate multilateral solutions and promote misunderstandings Technological development explanations. Technological development explanations suggest that transparency originates from developments in information acquisition and processing technology. Simply put, the evolution and innovation of technology (e.g. high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, satellite observation, computers, social networks) promote transparency in international security. 17 The diffusion of these technologies also gradually erodes the governments traditional monopoly on security information, allowing access to other states, civil society, and international organizations Policy analysis explanations. Finally, policy analysis explanations suggest that transparency emerges out of a state s internal policy process. Transparency proposals arise from the initiative of individuals in the executive branch, the legislative branch, or interest groups. They are adopted as official policy after a lengthy process that includes agenda-setting, a specification of alternatives, and an authoritative choice. 19 The success of any policy is based on decisions made by risk-averse career bureaucrats in security agencies that make decisions on the interagency, managerial, and budgetary aspects of a policy s implementation. 20 Thus, the government actors most immediately involved in a policy s implementation determine the rise and the fall of transparency in a specific area. IV. The Mini-Cases. The four cases below first detail the transparency mechanism and highlight its current status: its coverage (scope of the exchange and intrusiveness) and reliability (accessibility and timeliness). They then assess how transparency came to be adopted and assess its expansion and decline through the prism of the theories outlined above. (1) Conventional forces. The Euro-Atlantic structure features a handful of transparency mechanisms that function through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). These include the Vienna Document (its most recent 2011 iteration), the Open Skies treaty, a Code of Conduct (on military control), and various military information exchanges (military budgets, defense 15 Celeste A. Wallander, Mortal Friends, Best Enemies: German-Russian Cooperation after the Cold War (Cornell University Press, 1999). 16 Helga Haftendorn, Robert O. Keohane, and Celeste Wallander, editors, Imperfect Unions: Security Institutions over Time and Space (Oxford University Press, 1999). 17 Rose Gottemoeller, Arms Control in the Information Age, remarks at Stanford University, October 27, See Lord. 19 John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Longman, 1984). 20 Richard L. Kugler, Policy Analysis in National Security Affairs (National Defense University Press, 2006), pg. 7.

5 strategy, major weapons and personnel, conventional arms transfers, including small arms and light weapons and landmines, defense planning, major exercises). The level of coverage has become progressively higher (with a widening scope of information exchanges and substantial intrusiveness). However key several states in the region remain excluded from some of the framework s elements. In terms of reliability, the data exchange mechanism through the OSCE varies from basic notifications to the transmission of raw aerial photography and includes a forum for discussion; the timing of information exchanges and reciprocal military visits varies (from once a year to once a month). Norm: Beginning in 1972, Euro-Atlantic states met to discuss regional security improvements that culminated in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and the creation of the OSCE. The information exchanges based on the Act were buttressed in 1987, when the Soviet Union accepted on-site inspections (OSI) without a right of refusal as part of the Stockholm Accord. In 1990, the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty was negotiated in order to reduce the overhang of conventional systems accumulated during the Cold War. The Open Skies treaty that was negotiated in 1992 and came into force in 2002, adding aerial photography to the data exchange portfolio. Euro-Atlantic states have repeatedly met to revise these frameworks and increased the levels of coverage and reliability. Threat perception: By all accounts, with the reduction in conventional armaments due to the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, the spectrum of a NATO-Russia conflict in the region has receded. However, historical grievances have persisted and states retain concerns about the use of force, especially in regional conflicts. These concerns, in turn, play into current NATO-Russia security relations and drive conventional weapons acquisition policies. Institutions: While the OSCE is an effective mechanism, its function as a regional security institution is marginalized vis-à-vis NATO. Technology: The cooperative use of technologies has enabled transparency. However, the historical experience suggests that transparency technologies have facilitated coercion before they were able to facilitate cooperation. For example, Open Skies cooperative overflights were preceded by coercive intelligence-gathering operations by U.S. and U.K. reconnaissance flights over Soviet borders and territory during the Cold War. In addition, some have begun to question the relevance of the Open Skies mechanism due to the low resolution of its photo sensors and the availability of commercial satellite imagery. Policy: All of the decisions on transparency policy in the region runs into NATO, which relies on closed-door consensus-based decision-making processes. The NATO angle also makes negotiations with Russia difficult. (2) Strategic nuclear forces. The transparency mechanisms in this area are structured around the legacy U.S.-Soviet and the current U.S.-Russian agreements on data exchanges, crisis communication, and arms control, which are facilitated by treaty consultation bodies and, in practice, implemented by the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers (NRRC) as well as treaty inspectors from the Department of Defense and Ministry of Defense, respectively.

6 The coverage has become progressively higher (with a widening scope of information exchange) and increasingly more reliable with the frequent data exchanges through the NRCCs and intrusive verification provisions (in addition to Nunn-Lugar projects, as noted below). Norm: The first symbolic recognition of transparency in nuclear policy dates back to the U.S.- USSR Hotline agreement signed after the Cuban Missile Crisis. In turn, the acceptance of satellite observation (NTM) noninterference by both sides during the 1970s enabled the first limitations on nuclear systems development. In turn, the 1987 acceptance of OSI by the Soviet Union in the context of conventional weapons enabled the conclusion of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement. Threat perception: Concerns about breakout, surprise attack, or escalation are quite low at present. Institutions: While the NRRCs are designed to be similar in their data exchange functions, the Bilateral Consultative Commissions are designed specifically to assist in resolving disagreements regarding implementations. Technology: While it has been argued that the USSR accepted NTM noninterference because it had the technological edge at the time, the experience has been an overall positive one (unlike aerial reconnaissance in the conventional weapons context). Policy: The source of transparency initiatives in strategic arms control has varied. However, the cohesion between the executive branch and the legislative branch as well as the bipartisan consensus in the legislature has supported arms control and transparency initiatives for decades. The development of special bureaucracies for arms control has aided in promoting cooperative transparency. (3) Missile defense. The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty limited the deployment of facilities associated with missile defense, but the agreement was abrogated in In the bilateral U.S.-Russian context, there are measures prescribing notifications of missile defense tests and the exchange of some relevant data. A U.S.-Russian DTCA that would allow a more significant exchange of information is awaiting approval. Norm: A norm of transparency in this area does not exist. There have been proposals to provide additional information regarding interceptors, establish Russian presence at European sites, jointly develop and share system components, invite Russian observers to missile defense exercises, and open intelligence fusion centers. Threat perception: Threat perception is arguably far from being perceived as benign on either the U.S. or the Russian side. Institutions: No coordinating institution exists today. Technology: To date, technology has not been able to aid in promoting transparency despite proposals to use common radar technology and jointly develop systems. Arguably, the

7 advanced state of U.S. and Western technology vis-à-vis Russian technology has hindered the serious consideration and adoption of these proposals. Policy: In the case of the United States, the legislature and some of the bureaucracies have arguably been against cooperative transparency with Russia. In the Russian case, while attitudes have varied, bureaucracies have conditioned cooperative transparency on political commitments or joint system development. (4) Nuclear weapons complex. The Limited and Threshold Test Ban Treaties (LTBT and TTBT) offered the sides some transparency In 1988, the Joint Verification Experiments (JVE) paved the way for technical cooperation that facilitated transparency in the nuclear weapons complex area. Since the 1990s, transparency in this area has been provided through Nunn-Lugar and related threat reduction efforts. There are ongoing partnerships between U.S. laboratories and Russian research institutions dealing with issues such as material control and accounting. For two decades beginning in 1992, coverage and reliability were substantial to the extent that U.S. project managers had access to and reports from facilities handling fissile materials and warheads. This is expected to decrease, however, with Russia signaling its move away from donor-recipient nuclear cooperation projects in Norm: Nunn-Lugar and threat reduction projects arguably promoted transparency norms. However, more intrusive and reciprocal efforts such as visits to storage facilities and warhead assembly and disassembly sites, though discussed in the early-1990s, have not advanced. Threat perception: Despite the absence of an immediate threat, the United States and Russia are in agreement on maintaining advanced development and production capabilities (of their respective complexes). Institutions: Some critics of threat reduction projects have argued that they provided an unequal degree of transparency and were established based a donor-recipient approach that was not conducive to establishing true partnerships. Technology: Arguably, the implementation of somewhat similar technological solutions as far as nuclear facility management is concerned has enabled some transparency. Policy: Threat reduction projects were proposed by actors in the U.S. legislative branch and acquired widespread support in the executive branch and the bureaucracies. Arguably, the ability to use these programs to buttress arms control verification aided their adoption. V. Conclusion: Remaining Gaps. This paper reviewed understanding of transparency and examined how theoretical approaches view its origins, mechanics, and dynamics. It then assessed the present nature of transparency in several contexts of Euro-Atlantic security. This section offers some concluding remarks. Military transparency is best understood as a phenomenon with diverse origins and contextbased outcomes. The five analytical dimensions offer at best a very rough attempt at building a

8 comprehensive framework to understand why transparency expands and contracts. Moreover, the discussion of conventional and nuclear forces transparency, missile defense, and the nuclear weapons complex was far from complete (or satisfying) and critical issues such as tactical nuclear weapons and fissile material stocks was also omitted from the scope of this paper. In the Euro-Atlantic, the regional transparency context has historically been deeply linked with the bilateral transparency context. Several important milestones in transparency included the 1972 NTM noninterference agreement, the 1975 Helsinki Accord (that laid out basic information exchanges), the 1987 Stockholm Accord (that enabled the first on-site inspections of Soviet territory without the right of refusal), and the 1989 Nuclear Risk Reduction Agreement (that developed common data exchange bureaucracies). Thus, transparency of nuclear weapons was closely related to transparency of conventional weapons. Historically, transparency in both the conventional and nuclear contexts has been moving toward more frequent notification as well as the decrease on inspection limits. The scope of activities and their intrusiveness have also progressively increased. To be sure, the verification of nuclear warheads will be closely linked to much higher transparency standards for conventional weapons activities. Normative approaches suggest the importance of precedents for establishing and pushing the boundaries of transparency. For example, the 1987 Stockholm accord (a conventional weaponsrelated confidence-building measure that featured on-site inspections) paved the way for on-site inspections in nuclear accords, beginning with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. Moreover, a state s or, in the case of NATO, a grouping of states, attitude toward transparency can serve as a barometer of its external threats. It s difficult to push for an increase in transparency, especially in a regional context, if states have diverging threat perceptions. For instance, despite the decline of the role of military force in Europe, conventional transparency between NATO and Russia remains a difficult feat due to historical grievances between new NATO members and Russia. In turn, the existence of institutions is important, but they can only be successful in promoting cooperative transparency if their mandate, stature, and resources allow them to do so. For example, in the case of strategic nuclear forces, the NRRCs originally a mere facilitator of data exchanges in the crisis communication area have played a crucial role in facilitating bilateral arms control. Further, technology is an important, but a problematic enabler of transparency. At times, technologies that were previously used for coercion are eventually adopted for use in cooperative transparency (but this progress takes time). In addition, states are not comfortable accepting technological transparency solutions unless there is a parity on the offensive systems that these solutions will be used to monitor or unless these technological solutions were the product of co-development. Finally, understanding the attitudes and behavior of bureaucratic actors is useful for assessing the potential for success and the boundaries of transparency measures. As noted above, we ve already seen a decrease in certain types of transparency with the decline in the numbers of nuclear weapons. Toward this end, the move away from donor-recipient threat reduction programs suggests the importance of pushing bureaucracies toward implementing much more intrusive cooperative approaches such as reciprocal warhead facility visits and joint warhead

9 verification experiments. Further, if the release of detailed information on nuclear deployments will trickle to a near-naught as numbers continue to move downward, there is an importance in discussing the role of third parties or international organizations in providing public accountability on the reductions process. VI. Summary Table. U.S.-NATO- Russia Transparency norm existence External threat perception Coordinating institution(s) Technology as transparencyenabler Bureaucratic attitudes twd transparency Conventional forces (increase in coverage and reliability todate) 1975 Helsinki 1987 Stockholm 1990 Vienna 1990 CFE 1992 Open Skies 1992, 1994, 2011 Vienna Varies Role of force has declined OSCE marginalized vis-à-vis NATO But facilitated coercion initially e.g. aerial reconnaissance Complex NATO closeddoor decisionmaking Strategic nuclear forces (increase in coverage and reliability todate) 1972 NTM 1987 OSI 1989 NRRC 1991 START 1992 Nunn-Lugar 2010 New START Benign But hedging NRRC and Treaty Consultative Commissions Positive experience with acceptance of NTM Straightforward Existence of dedicated bureaucracies Missile defense (nearly nonexistent coverage and reliability) Not really ABM 1988 Launch notification 1991 START (telemetry) MTCR? Varies Concerns about missile proliferat. No institutions or vehicles Defense Trade Cooperation Agreement? Maybe Joint radar proposals or fusion centers Complex Domestic political and legislative actors Nuclear weapons complex (medium coverage and reliability todate, but ) Some 1963 LTBT 1974 TTBT 1988 JVE 1992 Nunn-Lugar 1996 Trilateral Init. CTBT? RERTR/GTRI? Varies Concerns about nuclear proliferat. Few institutions or vehicles 123 Agreement? Maybe NTM (testing) MPC&A & other lab-lab Straightforward Existence of dedicated bureaucracies; third parties