Open Skies: Difficult times for arms control

With the US withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty, the agreement on military reconnaissance flights, another pillar of European security is being destroyed. Trump’s isolationist policy will continue to have an impact even after he is voted out of office. Joe Biden will struggle to minimize the collateral damage caused by Trump. Europe is once again called upon to take responsibility. While the world is currently being gripped by a second coronavirus wave and national governments are busy weighing up the economic damage of a lockdown against the protection of human lives, the erosion of the European security order is progressing almost unnoticed. The euphoria that spread in Brussels following the election of Joe Biden as the 46th US President is now being dampened by the legacy of Trump’s isolationist foreign policy. The withdrawal of the USA from the Open Skies Treaty announced by Trump in May, Military News reported) is now a reality after a notice period of six months. Following the withdrawal from the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran, the Paris Climate Agreement and the INF Treaty banning land-based medium-range nuclear weapons, another multilateral agreement could soon be history.

A sign of rapprochement after the East-West confrontation The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in 1992 on the margins of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and came into force in 2002. In addition to the NATO countries – with the exception of Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia – Finland and Sweden as well as Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are among the 34 contracting parties. The treaty allows the participating states to conduct reciprocal military observation flights over their territory. The flights are carried out with unarmed military aircraft; the data is collected with the certified sensors and cameras installed in them for photo, infrared and radar imaging. The findings are made available to all contracting parties. The instruments and the number of observation flights to be authorized and carried out annually are regulated by contract. The Open Skies Consultative Commission meets once a month at the OSCE headquarters in Vienna to discuss issues relating to the implementation of the treaty. The treaty is an important achievement of the period immediately after the Cold War, which laid the foundations for building trust between the formerly distrustful and hostile power blocs. After the end of the Cold War, closely guarded military-technological activities and potentials were to be released to the former enemy for observation from the air. The idea: transparency strengthens mutual trust. Ronald Reagan’s famous phrase, “Trust, but verify” reflects the essence of arms control: arms control agreements can only be effective if compliance can be verified.

The basic principle is still the same today, but the geopolitical environment has changed. Its increasing complexity, the growing number of trouble spots and uncertainties have significantly shaped the relationship between the West and Russia over the last two decades. Unlike immediately after the end of the Cold War, when there was still – albeit briefly – hope of creating a cooperative security order encompassing the transatlantic community and Russia, today the former superpowers are increasingly suspicious of each other. Rivalries over zones of influence, uncertainty about each other’s intentions, differing political interests and values have since deepened the rifts between the two sides. An eye for an eye Washington justifies its withdrawal with Moscow’s violation of the treaty. One point of contention is Russia’s refusal to allow observation flights over its territory closer than ten kilometers to the Georgian breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow, which recognizes the independence of these territories, is invoking a provision of the treaty which stipulates that such a distance must be maintained on the border with non-contracting states. Another accusation concerns Russia’s restriction of the flight distance over the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to 500 km since 2014. Washington clearly sees this as an attempt by Moscow to conceal its activities there, especially as it is a strategic military area where NATO believes short-range nuclear-capable Iskander missiles are stationed. https://militaeraktuell.at/welche-ziele-wollen-wir-mit-der-gsvp-erreichen/ In response to Moscow’s actions, Washington no longer allows Russian observation flights over Hawaii and the other Pacific islands. In addition, US politicians have repeatedly accused Russia of using the observation flights for espionage and to undermine American security. However, this accusation is unfounded. Russian observation flights over US territory within the framework of the treaty are not an unauthorized intrusion into US national airspace, but rather a treaty-based and jointly agreed measure. In addition, the sensors for data collection are certified and are checked by a team on site before the observation flights. Furthermore, both sides are on board the aircraft – both Russian and American officers. The short-sighted tit-for-tat approach ultimately harms the US itself, but especially its European allies. Apart from the value of the observation flights for European security in general, the flights are of particular value for those states that are in a particularly tense relationship with Russia, as well as those that, due to a lack of their own satellite reconnaissance, can rely on the observation flights of other contracting parties. Will Biden save the treaty? With the election of Joe Biden as US President, there is at least still hope that the US exit is only temporary. Biden will certainly steer a change of course in foreign policy – away from isolationism and unilateralism. The first visible sign of this is the nomination of Antony Blinken, an advocate of multilateralism and co-architect of the Iran agreement, as Secretary of State.

“America is back, you can count on us”, said Joe Biden as his election victory began to take shape. The message sounds like a commitment by Biden to the USA’s claim to global leadership and suggests that Biden will also seek a return to arms control negotiations. However, a revision of the US withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty will not happen overnight and is not up to the US President alone. The American political scientist Steven Pifer sees the need to win over Republicans in the Senate for such a step is a hurdle that should not be underestimated. All eyes on Russia For the time being, the decisive factor remains how Russia will react to the USA’s withdrawal and whether it will leave the treaty. From Moscow’s point of view, staying would create an asymmetrical relationship between the contracting parties. The argument: Russia itself would no longer be able to fly over the USA, while the USA would continue to receive information about its NATO partners from flights over Russian territory. Moscow’s concerns are not unfounded, especially as it is not unusual for the USA to exchange information with friendly intelligence services. To counteract the occurrence of such a scenario, demanded Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently demanded that the remaining NATO contracting parties commit themselves in writing, firstly, not to pass on any data from observation flights over Russia to the USA and, secondly, to continue to allow Russian observation flights over American military bases on the territory of European countries. The Treaty on Open Skies already prohibits contracting parties from passing on data obtained from reconnaissance flights to non-members. The question therefore arises as to what other additional form of obligation Moscow has in mind. On the other hand, the question arises as to the feasibility and verification of such an obligation. What control mechanisms does Moscow intend to use? And how would it react if it were to discover a breach of the agreement? Russia’s withdrawal would make the continued existence of the treaty de facto obsolete. The basic idea of the treaty, i.e. the exchange of information to promote transparency and trust between the West and Russia, can only be fully effective if both Russia and the USA are part of it.

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