Trump to Exit Open Skies Treaty, Citing Russian Flight Violations
Tomorrow, the U.S. will formally submit its intent to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty. The Treaty was meant to contribute to international security. Russia’s approach to the Treaty fatally undermined it as a confidence & transparency-building measureSecretary of State Pompeo reported.
NATO Will be holding a meeting to discuss President Trump Administration’s recent announcement that the United States will be withdrawing from the open skies treaty due to recent Russian flight violations. In addition the Trump administration charges Russia was interfering with US flights over the Baltic that are allowable under the treaty, RFE reported.
All the member parties to the treaty have been notified that the United States will give six months notice to withdraw from the treaty.
Some critics claim that the Trump administration has taken this move to benefit President Putin of Russia, while others claim that it is to the detriment of Russia. The Arms Control Association claims the withdrawal is a national security misstep that will promote further lawlessness over the skies.
Read the Highlights of the treaty summary below from the Arms Control Association to decide for yourself the possible implications of withdrawal from the treaty. Following the summary, read the official Press release from the Arms Comtrol Organization.
THE TREATY: Signed March 24, 1992, the Open Skies Treaty permits each state-party to conduct short-notice, unarmed, reconnaissance flights over the others’ entire territories to collect data on military forces and activities. Observation aircraft used to fly the missions must be equipped with sensors that enable the observing party to identify significant military equipment, such as artillery, fighter aircraft, and armored combat vehicles.
President Dwight Eisenhower first proposed that the United States and the Soviet Union allow aerial reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory in July 1955. Moscow rejected Eisenhower’s proposal. President George H.W. Bush revived the idea.
Treaty Status: The treaty entered into force on January 1, 2002, and currently 34 states are party to the treaty.
Territory: All of a state-party’s territory can be overflown. No territory can be declared off-limits by the host nation.
Flight Quotas: Every state-party is obligated to accept a certain number of overflights each year, referred to as its passive quota, which is loosely determined by its geographic size.2
The treaty allows for multiple states-parties to take part in an overflight.
Russia conducted the first observation flight under the treaty in August 2002, while the United States carried out its first official flight in December 2002. In 2008, states-parties celebrated the 500th overflight. Between 2002 and 2019, more than 1,500flights have taken place.
Process: An observing state-party must provide at least 72 hours’ advance notice before arriving in the host country to conduct an overflight. The host country has 24 hours to acknowledge the request and to inform the observing party if it may use its own observation plane or if it must use a plane supplied by the host. At least 24 hours before the start of the flight, the observing party will supply its flight plan, which the host has four hours to review..3
Aircraft: Aircraft may be equipped with four types of sensors: optical panoramic and framing cameras, video cameras with real-time display, infra-red line-scanning devices, and sideways-looking synthetic aperture radar.
Data: A copy of all data collected will be supplied to the host country. All states-parties will receive a mission report and have the option of purchasing the data collected by the observing state-party.
For Immediate Release: May 21, 2020
(Washington, D.C.)—The Trump administration reportedly will announce that it intends to pull the United States out of the 1992 Open Skies Treaty, a valuable arms control and security agreement intended to reduce risks to the United States and its European allies.
“The Open Skies Treaty has helped preserve the post-Cold War peace. It allows the 34 participating nations, including the United States and Russia, to fly unarmed observation aircraft over one another’s territory. This helps preserve a measure of transparency and trust, thereby enhancing stability and reducing the risk of conflict,” says Thomas Countryman, the former U.S. acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, and now chair of the board of the Arms Control Association.
“A unilateral U.S. exit from Open Skies would undermine our security and that of our European allies, all of whom strongly support the treaty,” Countryman added. “It has the effect—and perhaps this is the intention—of signaling a diminished U.S. commitment to its NATO allies.”
“U.S. and allied treaty flights over Russia provide valuable information about Russian military activities, thereby enhancing stability and reducing the risk of conflict in Europe,” says Kingston Reif, Arms Control Association director for disarmament and threat reduction policy. “The treaty has been an especially important tool in responding to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”
“There is strong bipartisan support in Congress for maintaining U.S. participation in Open Skies,” Reif notes. “The administration’s announcement of withdrawal is a slap in the face to Congress as it violates notification requirements written into law last year.”
The administration told reporters the formal notification of withdrawal would be effective immediately and the withdrawal itself will take effect in six months. However, such action violates Sec. 1234 of the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which requires the administration to notify Congress 120 days ahead of a U.S. notification of an intent to withdraw.
The Trump administration cites Russian noncompliance as a motivating factor for its decision. Disputes have arisen because Russia has imposed a sublimit of 500 kilometers over the Kaliningrad Oblast for treaty flights, refused access to observation flights along its border with the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and denied planned U.S.-Canadian flights over a Russian military exercise in September 2019.
However, Russia recently approved and allowed a joint U.S.-Estonian-Latvian treaty flight over Kaliningrad this year that was not subjected to the earlier Russian restrictions. In addition, Jim Gilmore, U.S. representative to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said March 2 that Russia will no longer raise an “objection” for the United States and its allies to “fly over one of their major exercises.”
As President Reagan’s former Secretary of State, George Shultz, former Senator Sam Nunn, and former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry wrote in October 2019 in the Wall Street Journal: “As with any treaty, implementation disputes arise. Current disagreements are related to underlying territorial and political issues between Russia and some of its neighbors. But these problems can be solved through professional, pragmatic diplomacy, not by abandoning treaty commitments.”
“Today’s announcement is part of a troubling pattern. The Open Skies Treaty is not the first, and may not be the last, nuclear or conflict risk reduction agreement this administration has withdrawn from without a viable strategy for replacement,” observes Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
“Failure to take up Russia’s offer to extend by five years the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which the administration has threatened to do, would compound the damage and further heighten the risk of unconstrained military and nuclear competition between the United States and Russia at a time when the world can ill afford it,” he warns.
For more detailed analysis visit the Arms Control Association.
Images of Open Skies flights are available here.