Open Skies Treaty – The United States Starts Withdrawing

By: John Washburn

President Trump announced on May 22 that the United States would withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty after the 60 day delay it requires. The Treaty (OST) establishes rights and arrangements for its 34 States Parties to fly unarmed aircraft to observe each other’s territory. It is intended to promote disarmament by assisting direct observation of the development of new weapons and related activities.

The creation of the treaty has a long history beginning with an unsuccessful proposal by President Eisenhower in 1955. Interest in the open skies concept renewed strongly after the end of the Cold War. President George Herbert Walker Bush restarted action on the treaty in a speech in 1989. The United States and 24 other countries signed it on March 1, 1992. It entered into force on January 1, 2002 following 20 ratifications.

The OST calls for specific and detailed active cooperation by all  of its parties. Much more than almost all other treaties of its kind, it describes this with very technical provisions and requirements. These apply in very great detail to observation flights including the nature of the aircraft, its sensors, and the determination of routes and timings. There have been more than a thousand such flights by most of the treaty’s state parties. 

The Open Skies Consultative Commission (OSCC), an international body, oversees compliance with these requirements, resolves disputes, and decides on application of substantive provisions of the treaty such as questions of sovereignty. Its weakness is that it must decide by consensus and cannot act without it. It was created by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, is closely associated with it and meets at its headquarters in Europe. The United States proposed the treaty and led its negotiations. European countries which make up the majority of the treaty’s members and thus they have heavily influenced its implementation.

Explanations of the American withdrawal have been somewhat diffuse and have not been entirely consistent. In announcing the withdrawal, President Trump made clear his intention to renegotiate the OST. He said of the treaty’s other parties, “We’re going to pull out and they’re going to come back and make a deal.” 

Senior US officials cited circumstances that they claim have made the OST obsolete: the Russian refusal in 2019 to allow American overflights of Kaliningrad and Russian occupied areas on the border with Georgia, sites in the US with critical infrastructure Russia should not be allowed to see and Russian hostility and aggression. Department of Defense concerns have also included the added power of new Russian digital sensors. At the same time, the 2019 Defense budget includes $41.5 million for two new observation airplanes and yet its officials have said also that satellite imagery has made the OST unnecessary. 

None of the treaty’s other parties supports the US withdrawal. Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden in a joint statement expressed profound regret over the withdrawal. They affirmed that they would continue to implement the OST which has clear and important added value and remains functioning and useful. The foreign ministers of Germany, France, Poland and the United Kingdom collectively told the United States that Russian noncompliance did not justify the American withdrawal. An EU statement urged reconsideration of the withdrawal. Several months before announcing the withdrawal as part of consultations about it, the United States sent a questionnaire to OST parties and other allies. All told the US to stay in.

The Russian foreign ministry in an official statement before the withdrawal said that the United State would blame other countries for it. It emphasized that the US is dismantling strategic security and disarmament treaties including the Open Skies Treaty.  

An examination of the Treaty text makes clear that it needs revision. New observation devices and equipment should be included. There should be sharp penalties for violators and a way to impose them not blocked by a consensus requirement. A review conference in 2020 that the treaty requires could adopt such improvements negotiated in the interim. However, none of these suggested improvements nor the Russian violations justify an American withdrawal.