Building Confidence and Security in Europe: The Potential Role of Confidence and Security-Building Measures

摘要

This study addresses the potential contribution of confidence- and security-building measures (CSBMs) toward their goal of building confidence and security in Europe. First, the report surveys and discusses various publicly stated U.S. or NATO objectives for CSBMs, distilling these to three core objectives: inhibiting political intimidation, reducing misunderstanding/miscalculation, and making surprise attack less likely. It then describes the current NATO package, which consists of six measures presented in January 1984 at the Conference on Disarmament in Europe (CDE), analyzing and evaluating it in the context of U.S./NATO objectives for CSBMs. Finally, it identifies several potential options available to the West for the future development of CSBM packages within the CDE. A key finding is that for most of the NATO-proposed measures there is a critically important, inherent ambiguity that arises when CSBMs are expected to lessen miscalculation and misunderstanding, on one hand, as well as complicate surprise attack possibilities on the other.