PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
17 July 2008
Open Skies Concept Builds Security; Could Be Used for Disasters
Sensors need to be updated to ensure the treaty remains relevant
Washington -- For more than six years aircraft have been flying across the territory of dozens of European nations, Russia and the United States collecting information about military activities to be shared by the members of the Open Skies Treaty.
The bywords of the 2002 international arms-control treaty are openness, transparency and cooperation.
Open Skies is designed to enhance mutual understanding and confidence by offering all 34 participants the right to gather information over the territory of all members through short-notice, unrestricted aerial observation of military and other activities of concern to them.
The photo imagery is collected with the consent and participation of the observed nation and then shared among all interested treaty members.
Hugh Neighbour, the chief U.S. arms control delegate, says the aerial inspection teams always display a cooperative attitude as they complete their mission, from the pre-flight aircraft inspection, to negotiating the flight plan, to monitoring sensor operations.
Speaking at a July 14 commemoration ceremony in Vienna, Austria, celebrating the planned 500th flight, Neighbour said there is no doubt the treaty “has made a significant contribution toward security and stability in the European area and beyond.”
Neighbour, who just completed service as chairman of the plenary meeting of the Open Skies Consultative Commission (OSCC), said the hundreds of flights that have taken place since the treaty entered into force have “collectively built more confidence … than the treaty’s authors could have envisioned.”
The treaty specifies the maximum number of flights each country must accept annually. Typically around 100 flights are conducted each year, with four or five occurring weekly over territory extending from Vancouver, Canada, east all the way to Vladivostok, Russia.
The treaty is of unlimited duration and open to any interested nation. Its members are Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Turkey, Spain, Slovakia, Romania, Portugal, Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Iceland, Hungary, Greece, Germany, Georgia, France, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Canada, Bulgaria, Belgium, Belarus, Bosnia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Croatia, Estonia and Slovenia. Kyrgyzstan has signed the treaty but not yet ratified it. (See “Milestone of 500 Open Skies Flights Celebrated.”)
OPEN SKIES CAN BE ADAPTED FOR NEW USES
“No satellite imagery can compete with an Open Skies flight when it comes to the element of openness and cooperation,” Hungarian diplomat Marton Krasznai said.
Diana Marvin told America.gov that it has evolved from a pure arms-control treaty to more of a confidence- and security-building measure. It is a way for all participants to conduct military-to-military cooperation, especially with new NATO members.
Marvin, the senior adviser to the U.S. secretary of state on Open Skies, said a number of unanticipated issues have cropped up since the treaty was written. Originally, no one envisioned that aircraft would be used by other nations for observation to the extent that they are now.
Today, Sweden’s aircraft are used by Germany, Finland, the United States and a number of Baltic nations. “There has been more pooling of resources,” Marvin said. Countries have been “very creative about leasing arrangements,” she said, and even the United States has reaped the economic benefits of renting certified aircraft from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Sweden and Hungary.
In the early days, she said, no one expected that more than two countries (the observing country and the country receiving the flight) would share a flight. Now that is done routinely.
She offered a recent example of Russia and the United Kingdom sharing a flight over Georgia. Sweden and Russia also recently shared a flight over the United States; that was the first time any nation besides Russia flew over U.S. territory for a mission rather than training.
As the treaty evolves, Krasznai said, he envisions using it to assess threats arising from natural disasters, and he can imagine the World Bank and the five United Nations regional commissions as potential partners. He also sees Open Skies as a way to dispel fears associated with “frozen conflicts” affecting Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh. (See “Rice Urges End to Separatist Violence in Georgia.”)
Open Skies permits observation aircraft to carry optical panoramic and nondigital cameras, video cameras, infrared line-scanning devices and sideways-looking synthetic aperture radar. The sensors are of sufficient quality to enable a photo expert to distinguish a truck from an armored tank. Krasnai and Marvin see the need to modernize.
Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter told America.gov that the United States must make some investment decisions soon. One factor driving the need to modernize is the current use of “wet” film that soon will be obsolete.
Providing good optical and infrared resolution will keep the treaty on a roll toward its 1000th flight and ensure its effectiveness far into the future.
A list of all Open Skies flights since 2002 is available on the Web site of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. That site hosts the text of the Open Skies Treaty in French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, English, and German.
A video of President Dwight Eisenhower promoting the Open Skies for Peace concept in 1955 is available at Youtube.com.
