Open skies to remain closed. This article is a follow-up on the previously released The Danger That Leaving The Open Skies Treaty Brings.
Open Skies To Remain Closed
On May 27, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States would not be returning to the Open Skies treaty.
The exact reason as reported by CNN was:
Biden administration won’t seek to rejoin Open Skies Treaty after 2020 exit
Excerpt “The United States regrets that the Treaty on Open Skies has been undermined by Russia’s violations. In concluding its review of the treaty, the United States therefore does not intend to seek to rejoin it, given Russia’s failure to take any actions to return to compliance. Further, Russia’s behavior, including its recent actions with respect to Ukraine, is not that of a partner committed to confidence-building,” the State Department spokesperson said.
In truth, the US is within its rights to refuse to be in a treaty with Russia, but its actions affect more than Russia.
As stated in my previous article Open Skies was a benefit to our allies. Lacking the sophisticated satellites that the United States has, our allies relied on the treaty to keep a tab on Russia. Now that precious step is gone.
Because the US will not return to the treaty, Russia is pulling out of it. And with it goes the ability to keep tabs on Russia’s military movements, at least for our allies. As stated, the United States has satellites to replace the planes that gathered intelligence on Russia.
So What Of Our Allies?
It would appear that the only recourse is the sharing of intelligence gathered by our satellites with our allies. For this to work, information sharing would have to be in real-time. But is that something we would do?
Not much has been said about this, so there is no telling what will happen next. But it is a good guess that less surveillance of Putin’s Russia will not be a good thing.
Russia cannot be allowed to rewrite the rules of the treaty in any way it wants. But to let it run free means that there are no rules at all, and anything goes. In essence, Putin broke the rules and was not punished for it. There are ways to make Russia pay for its acts, but none are forthcoming. Off the tip of my head, giving Putin a taste of his own medicine comes to mind.
Russia Doesn’t Play Fair. Did We Think It Would?
Arms Control Association
U.S. Will Not Rejoin Open Skies Treaty
Excerpt: Washington had raised concerns that Moscow is in violation of the treaty because it has limited the distance for observation flights over the Kaliningrad region to no more than 500 kilometers from the border and prohibited missions over Russia from flying within 10 kilometers of its border with the conflicted Georgian border regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russia restricts flyovers of its territories but has no problem doing this to others. So, should other members of the treaty respond in kind to Russia’s actions? But more so. It is doubtful that Russia would down an Open Skies plane. But Putin would get the message, two can play at your game.
Time will tell if staying out of the Open Skies Treaty helped us and our allies or Russia.
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