Share
UPDATE: Trump Obeys Putin With Withdrawal From Open Skies Treaty
An update to our October 18, 2019 post linked here when it was heavily rumored that Trump would withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty.
The Open Skies Treaty is not something you have ever heard of most likely. It is a post-Cold War agreement that allows countries to operate reconnaissance flights over other nations and collect data on military activities with the aim of building trust between countries. Since coming into force in 2002, the treaty has become a key tool for the U.S. and its European allies to monitor Russian military deployments to former Soviet satellite countries, including Russian aggression in Ukraine.
The treaty, which was signed in 1992 and entered into force in 2002, permits each of the nations that are parties to it to carry out short-notice, unarmed surveillance flights over the entire territory of the other parties.
The purpose of the treaty, which allows nations to collect information on each other's military forces, is to increase transparency and to build confidence among the states that are party to it, including the United States, Russia and Ukraine.
In late May 2020, it became official. Trump decided to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, negotiated three decades ago to allow nations to fly over each other’s territory with elaborate sensor equipment to assure they are not preparing for military action.
Trump has decided to withdraw from another major arms control accord, he and other officials said Thursday [5/21/20], and will inform Russia that the United States is pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty, negotiated three decades ago to allow nations to fly over each other’s territory with elaborate sensor equipment to assure that they are not preparing for military action.
"Pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty, an important multilateral arms control agreement, would be yet another gift from the Trump administration to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin," the Democrats on the House and Senate foreign relations and armed services committees wrote in a letter to the U.S. secretaries of state and defense.
Losing Open Skies is a major blow to international arms control efforts. One more critical line of communication with Russia closed. One less opportunity to prevent disaster before it happens. They will come for New START next, opening the floodgates to a new nuclear arms race.
Trump’s decision, rumored for some time, is bound to further aggravate European allies, including those in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, who are also signatories to the treaty. European nations regard the regular flights — conducted by the United States, Britain and smaller powers — as an important continuing engagement with Russia, even if Moscow has increasingly blocked flight plans that seem permissible under the treaty.
They are likely to remain in the accord, which has nearly three dozen signatories, but have warned that with Washington’s exit, Russia will almost certainly respond by also cutting off their flights, which the allies use to monitor troop movements on their borders — especially important to the Baltic nations.
Trump is trashing another treaty. The decision to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty with no replacement makes America less safe.
....the decision is the third time he has renounced a major arms control treaty. Two years ago, he abandoned the Iran nuclear accord negotiated by President Barack Obama. Last year he left the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, again saying that he would not participate in a treaty that he said Russia was violating. When he announced his intention to withdraw, he said, as he did today, that he thought the Russians would seek a new deal; they did not.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/us/politics/trump-open-skies-treaty-arms-control.html
http://smartdissent.com/article/trump-plans-another-gift-putin-us-withdrawal-open-skies-treaty