Abstract
On May 31, Bulgarian De-fense Minister Nikolay Sv-inarov and James Pardew, the U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria, signed a memorandum in Sofia calling for the dismantlement of Bulgaria's SS-23, Scud, and FROG missiles, removing one of the remaining impediments to Bulgaria's quest for membership in both NATO and the European Union.
According to Dimitar Peichev, a member of the Bulgarian parliamentary committee on foreign policy and defense, the missiles will be disassembled rather than blown up. The decommissioning project, which is estimated to cost several million dollars, will be funded by the U.S. State Department's Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund. It will probably take place at the military complex in Sopot.
The initial call for the destruction of Bulgaria's missiles came in 1997, when the Clinton administration pressed two former Warsaw Pact allies, Bulgaria and Slovakia, to eliminate their Soviet-supplied surface-to-surface missiles. The two states reacted sharply, citing national security concerns as reasons not to destroy their missile stockpiles. However, when Slovakia confirmed on October 27, 2000, that it had destroyed its missiles, Bulgaria was left as the only country in the world still possessing SS-23s.
As NATO membership became a priority, the Bulgarian government became increasingly willing to conform to Western expectations, so it came as no surprise when, in December of last year, Parliament voted almost unanimously (178-3, with two abstentions) to destroy the SS-23s. Bulgarian politicians insisted, however, that their decision was not the result of foreign pressure, but reflected the political consensus after the presidential elections in November.
The controversy over SS-23 Missiles remaining in former Warsaw Pact countries began in the late 1980s when the United States discovered that the Soviet Union had secretly transferred 73 SS-23 missiles— without nuclear warheads—to East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria, two years before it signed the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Unlike the 300-kilometer-range Scud missiles Moscow had previous supplied within the Warsaw Pact, these 500-kilometer-range SS-23 s were accurate to within 100 meters and were capable of destroying many targets in “Western Europe.
According to a congressional researcher writing in 1988, these missiles, armed with powerful conventional warheads and deployed in Eastern Europe, could have played an important strategic role in the event of a European conflict. If fired from East European countries, their warheads could have reached many important NATO military installations—airfields, command-and-control centers, nuclear storage centers, and air defense systems.
At the time, Eastern Europe was still dominated by the Soviet military. So there was also a possibility that the real plan behind the missile transfers might have been to permit the reconstitution of Soviet intermediate-range nuclear forces after the conclusion of an INF treaty—the transfers having taken place at a time when Moscow and Washington had just agreed to renew treaty negotiations. Even though the transferred missiles were equipped with conventional warheads only, it would not have been hard for the Soviet military to resume custody of the systems and re-equip them with nuclear warheads.
Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the long-exiled king of Bulgaria, became prime minster last year.
To put the transfers in context, in 1977 the Soviet Union had deployed a number of SS-20s—missiles with a 4,400-kilometer range—in the Western part of Soviet territory. Western Europe was concerned about these long-range weapons, and the NATO partners made plans to neutralize the threat by deploying 464 single-warhead U.S. ground-launched cruise missiles and 108 single-warhead U.S. Pershing II ballistic missiles (with 650-1,800-kilometer ranges) in Western Europe.
Seeking to ease the growing tension between Western Europe and the Soviet Union, in 1981 President Ronald Reagan proposed the “zero option,” which called for the elimination of longer-range Soviet missiles in exchange for the cancellation of the planned deployment of the Pershings and ground-launched cruise missiles. This proposal was rejected by the Soviet Union.
No serious negotiations were initiated until March 1985, when the new leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, resumed talks. It was approximately at this time that Moscow transferred SS-23s to other “Warsaw Pact countries.
During the Reykjavik summit in 1986, the United States and Soviet Union agreed to eliminate longer-range nuclear missiles in Europe, but no specific agreement regarding intermediate-range missiles was reached. Not until July 1987, just months before the INF Treaty was signed, did the two countries agree to the “double zero option”—the total elimination of all U.S. and Soviet shorter- and longer-range missile systems.
The INF Treaty was signed by Reagan and Gorbachev on December 8, 1987, and entered into force on June 1, 1988. In its final form, it required the elimination of all missiles with ranges of 1,000-5,500 kilometers, as well as all missiles with ranges between 500-1,000 kilometers, and their associated launchers, equipment, support facilities, and operating bases worldwide. The Soviet SS-23s were therefore covered by the treaty and were expected to be destroyed by May 31, 1991.
In implementing the treaty, the Soviet Union declared 200 deployed and non-deployed SS-23s, five SS-23 missile operating bases in the Soviet Union, and two in East Germany. All of these missiles and bases were subsequently destroyed according to the provisions of the treaty.
By 1990, however, a report emerged about the SS-23 transfers to the three Warsaw Pact allies. The 1990-1991 volume of The Military Balance stated that East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria had SS-23 missile launchers. It listed East Germany as having received four launchers and 24 missiles; Bulgaria, eight SS-23s; and Czechoslovakia, an unknown number.
Because the treaty was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union, and covered systems owned and operated only by those two states, it would be difficult to prove any claim that the transfers were in direct violation of the treaty. Nonetheless, the treaty clearly implied that all systems were to be eliminated for the agreement to be effective and to achieve its major objectives.
The Soviets had consciously concealed information about the transfers of the missiles, which undermined their commitment to actual arms reduction and peace. According to the April 1990 Arms Control Reporter, when the United States analyzed the INF negotiating record to see whether the issue of missile transfers had been discussed, officials discovered that the Soviet Union had denied having any SS-23s in Czechoslovakia, and did not report any transfers to East Germany or Bulgaria. Also, according to a Pentagon official, the United States had asked the Soviet Union several times during the negotiations whether any intermediaterange missiles had been transferred to other countries, and the Soviet Union had repeatedly said no.
Because of the Soviet failure to report the transfers, in 1990 the annual U.S. “Report on Soviet Noncompli-ance with Arms Control Agreements,” accused the Soviet Union of “negotiating fraud” during the INF talks. The act was described as in “bad faith,” but it was not deemed an outright violation of the treaty.
Bulgaria's geographic proximity to NATO allies Greece and Turkey was probably the main reason behind the transfers of SS-23 missiles to its territory. In 1990, Lt. Gen. Radnyu Min-chev, then-spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, explained: “The unfavorable balance of forces on our southern flank dictated the deployment of the SS-23s…. No nuclear warheads for these missiles have existed in Bulgaria, they do not exist now, nor is it foreseen that they will exist.”
As one of the Soviet's closest allies during the Cold War, Bulgaria had some of the most advanced weapons and technologies of the time. Equipping it with powerful Soviet missiles not only strengthened Bulgaria's military, it also provided a buffer between the Soviet Union and southern Europe's NATO members. Since the Soviet Union had to give up its intermediate-range nuclear forces under INF, positioning SS-23s in Bulgaria increased the chances for success for the Warsaw Pact in case of conflict.
After the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the missiles remained in Eastern Europe. “While East Germany and the newly formed Czech Republic quickly rid themselves of their SS-23 launchers and missiles, Bulgaria and Slovakia did not follow suit.
According to The Military Balance, Bulgaria claimed it had never concealed its possession of SS-23 missiles, and stated the missiles were included in the total of 72 surface-to-surface missiles listed in Warsaw Pact data published in January 1989. One Bulgarian foreign ministry official argued in 1990 that “the eight missiles were bought and received in 1986; they are Bulgaria's property and are under exclusive Bulgarian control. There have never been and there are not at the moment any missiles in Bulgaria which should be declared and destroyed on the strength of the INF Treaty signed between the [Soviet Union] and the United States in 1987.”
Long after the death of the Soviet empire, the United States continued seeking the destruction of the missiles in order to fulfill the broad objectives of the INF Treaty, as well as those of the Missile Technology Control Regime, to which both Bulgaria and Slovakia agreed to adhere. The missile control treaty considers SS-23s “Category I” systems that play a direct role in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Fearing unstable regimes in the region, as well as increasing corruption among customs and border security officials, the United States believed these Soviet missiles could pose a serious risk. After years of negotiations, Slovakia destroyed its surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.
In July 2001, the exiled Bulgarian king, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, unexpectedly won the general elections in Bulgaria, and became prime minister. Under his leadership, the new administration began to press even harder than the previous administration had for Bulgarian membership in both NATO and the European Union.
According to the new prime minister, about 70 percent of Bulgarians favor NATO membership, which has further strengthened his administration's desire to ensure a successful accession campaign.
By agreeing to destroy its SS-23s, Bulgaria hopes to prove to the international community its commitment to international peace and security, and therefore be invited to join NATO at its fall summit in Prague.
Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov has said that Bulgaria's SS-23s “no longer correspond with the missions and the tasks of our armed forces, which have a defensive character,” a statement that further underlines Bulgaria's desire for regional integration.
During the Soviet era, Bulgaria was used as a buffer zone between the Soviet Union and NATO allies Greece and Turkey, but today the country is viewed as an important actor in increasing regional security, providing a “land bridge” to those neighbors, both of which have officially expressed support for Bulgaria's bid for NATO membership. •