Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination

Topic: Russia’s Exit From Open Skies Treaty

Why in News?

• Recently, Russia announced that it was pulling out of the Open Skies treaty, saying that the pact, which allows unarmed surveillance flights over member countries, had been seriously compromised by the withdrawal of the United States.

Open Skies Treaty (OST)

• It was first proposed in 1955 by former US President Dwight Eisenhower as a means to deescalate tensions during the Cold War.
• The landmark treaty was eventually signed in 1992 between NATO members and former Warsaw Pact countries following the demise of the Soviet Union.
• It went into effect in 2002 and had 35 signatories, including key players US and Russia, along with one non-ratifying member (Kyrgyzstan).
• The OST aims at building confidence among members through mutual openness, thus reducing the chances of accidental war.
• Under the treaty, a member state can “spy” on any part of the host nation, with the latter’s consent. A country can undertake aerial imaging over the host state after giving notice 72 hours before, and sharing its exact flight path 24 hours before.

Usefulness of the Treaty

• The treaty is one of the few remaining avenues for arms control compliance verification that doesn’t rely on “national technical means”—a country’s unilateral ability to spy or observe from afar.
• Arms control is a cheaper and safer alternative to military competition.
• The information gathered, such as on troop movements, military exercises and missile deployments, has to be shared with all member states.
• Open Skies is remarkable in that, by expressly facilitating overflights between the two countries, it overcame the “intrusive inspection” barrier.
• If any country believes that the treaty does, or should, prohibit the observation of certain things, that country has the right—and normative obligation—to raise the issue with the treaty’s consultative committee. Under Article XVI, state parties may also propose amendments to Open Skies and, with the support of at least two other state parties, convene a conference to discuss the proposal. If a state feels that some element of the
  treaty is inadequate, Article XVI provides the means to amend it.

Rationale Behind US Pulling Out

• While it was envisaged as a key arms control agreement, many in Washington had for over a decade accused Russia of non-compliance with OST protocols, blaming Moscow of obstructing surveillance flights on its territory, while misusing its own missions for gathering key tactical data.
• In May 2020, the Trump administration announced its intention of withdrawing from the OST, accusing Russia of “flagrantly and continuously violating the Treaty in various ways for years”, and left it in November that year.

Rationale Behind Russia Pulling Out

• A contentious issue regarding Russia’s compliance with the OST was its alleged reluctance to allow flights over Kaliningrad, its exclave in Eastern Europe that sits between NATO allies Lithuania and Poland.
• Russia defended its position by saying that the restrictions were permissible under treaty rules, and gave the example of the US imposing similar limits on flights over Alaska.
• After the US left the OST, Russia sought assurances from NATO allies who continued to remain on the treaty that they would not transfer data collected by their flights over Russia to Washington. In its statement, Russia said that these requests were not backed by the NATO members, prompting it to leave the treaty.

Major Concerns

• The failure of the Open Skies Treaty follows the demise of another significant arms control accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, after both the US and Russia left it in 2019.

• The INF Treaty was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987, in which both powers agreed to destroy two categories of lethal missile systems from their own stocks as a means to decelerate the nuclear arms race.

• Experts now worry about the fate of the much larger US-Russia ‘New START’ nuclear arms control agreement, which is slated to expire on February 5, 2021.