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CFE was a major step in arms control between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact. Whereas previous arms control agreements had focused on weapons of mass destruction, including the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, the CFE marked the most significant conventional arms control initiative between the rival superpower blocs.

The original initiative for the accord came from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who proposed unilateral reductions in conventional arms and then ordered some withdrawals of forces from Eastern Europe. Gorbachev hoped that the reductions would allow Moscow to shift resources away from military spending into his efforts to restructure the Soviet economy. The NATO allies endorsed negotiations to achieve mutual conventional reductions as a way to reduce tensions and limit the offensive capabilities of the Soviet Union. Direct talks between Gorbachev and U.S. president George H. W. Bush at the 1989 Malta Summit facilitated the start of negotiations.

The CFE agreement was signed on 19 November 1990 by the members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. It went into effect in 1992 and gave the member states within each military alliance four years to complete the reductions. The treaty was designed to reduce conventional weapons in Europe so that there would be parity between the Western and Eastern blocs. The agreement covered the entire transatlantic area, from the Ural Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, but excluded the entire area of the United States and Canada. The CFE treaty also called on both sides to issue notification prior to large-scale troop deployments or military exercises. It specifically limited weapons in five major categories: main battle tanks, artillery, armored combat vehicles, attack helicopters, and combat aircraft.  The agreement limited each bloc to 20,000 main battle tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces, and 6,800 combat aircraft. By the end of the initial four-year period, the signatories had either destroyed or converted some 52,000 tanks. In addition, around 4,000 verification inspections had been conducted.

With the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the successor states, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Ukraine, agreed to abide by the terms of the treaty. The 1996 Flank Agreement adapted the limits on regional arms numbers. In 1999, the treaty was adapted to allow new states to join the CFE process and created national and territorial limitations on arms and personnel. The adapted treaty was signed on 10 November 1999, but has not been ratified by all of the parties, or their successor states, to the original CFE Treaty (a precondition for the revised treaty to go into force).

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