Treaty On The Final Settlement With Respect To Germany - Implementation and Claimed Violations of The Treaty

Implementation and Claimed Violations of The Treaty

After the Soviet Union dissolved itself in December 1991, the command unit of the Soviet Group of Soviet Forces in Germany devolved to the Russian Federation. The German government subsequently recognized the Russian Federation's claim to be the successor state of the Soviet Union, including the right to maintain troops in Germany until the end of 1994. However with post-Soviet Russia facing severe economic hardship, President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troop deployment in Germany to be reduced to levels significantly below those permitted in the Treaty. The last Russian troops left Germany at the end of August in 1994, four months before the treaty deadline.

In the 2000s (decade), the Bundeswehr underwent a gradual transformation to a fully professional force, eventually suspending conscription in 2011. As of 2011 the Bundeswehr had retained fewer than 250,000 active duty personnel - barely two thirds of the country's treaty limit of 370,000.

"The Americans promised that NATO wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted."

However, the treaty has been allegedly violated on a number of occasions. German News Information Services has argued that "an international lawsuit should be initiated against the development of installations at Leipzig Airport in preparation for service in NATO and EU combat missions". Similarly, manoeuvres including NATO-troops in Trollenhagen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the area of the former East Germany have also been questioned. Under the treaty, only German forces may be deployed in the area of the former East Germany.

The scholar Stephen F. Cohen asserted in 2005 that a commitment was given that NATO would never expand further east, but according to Robert Zoellick, then a US State Department official involved in the Two Plus Four negotiating process, this appears to be a misperception; no formal commitment of the sort was made. On May 7, 2008, the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in an interview with the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, repeated his view that such a commitment had been made.