Open Skies Treaty

The Open Skies Treaty, which was signed on 24th March 1992, allows each national party to undertake unrestricted and unarmed surveillance flights across the whole territory of the other to gather information on army personnel and operations. Instruments should be installed on the surveillance plane used to perform the operations, allowing the watching party to detect major military weapons such as cannons, jet fighters, and armoured war troops. Although satellites may offer the very same, if not even more comprehensive, data, not all convention provinces have them.

The purpose of the open skies treaty was to increase trust and understanding among the province parties by allowing them to participate in air operations. As well as it aims to promote openness, transparency, military activities, and the enhancement of mutual understanding among the member states.

Current Status of the treaty

In 2002, on 1st Jan. the Treaty of open skies went into effect. The US resigned from the pact in Nov 2020, while Russia exited in Dec 2021, leaving the agreement with the rest 32 signatories. 26 of the agreement’s original 27 participants have signed the agreement, making them states-parties. Since it was signed, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Sweden, Slovenia, Bosnia, Finland, and Herzegovina have joined the pact.

On November 22, Trump made the United States departure from the pact public and ordered the open skies treaty plane’s destruction, which is involved in the investigation, a duo of particularly configured OC-135Bs. They will not only be retired but will also be smelted or smashed into cutting chunks, rendering them useless.

Flights under open skies treaty

In Aug 2002, Russian aircraft made the first formal surveillance flight under the pact, whereas the U.s made the first-ever authorized trip in Dec 2002. Provinces commemorated the 500 aircraft flying in 2008. And over 1,500 trips have been undertaken from 2002 through 2019.

How the open skies policy started and came to effect

In 1955, the US Eisenhower Administration proposed a system of disarmed aircraft surveillance missions to enhance trust, dependability, and security. President George H.W. Bush suggested the development of such a policy of open skies in 1989, may 12, expanding on the vision of president Eisenhower. Parties in this system will willingly expose their skies on a comparable basis, allowing aircraft to fly in their area to expand trust and openness in their troop deployment.

The basic elements of open skies indicate that the research by the attendees of the Committee Meet up of North Atlantic in the city of Brussels in Dec1989 named for the founding of such an Open Skies system for NATO members as well as Warsaw Pact representatives to encourage honesty and accountability, gain trust, and enable confirmation of nuclear disarmament and ceasefire contracts.

Hungary and Canada initiated a similar endeavor during the NATO-Warsaw Pact summit in the city of Ottawa on Feb 12, 1990. This Agreement on Open Skies Treaty was signed on 1992, 24th March, in the city of Vienna, under the auspices of the OCSE (Organization for Security and Cooperation) Convention Secretariat, with the involvement of NATO members including the Warsaw Pact international bodies.

Open Skies Treaty Members

As per the current data, the open skies treaty members are Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Belarus, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, Portugal, Slovakia, United Kingdom, and Ukraine.  In Nov 2020, the United States retreated, while Russia decided to withdraw in Dec 2021. Kyrgyzstan had accepted the pact and has yet to ratify it.

Conclusion

To sum up, the open skies treaty was signed on 24th March 1992 and the first surveillance flight under this treaty was done by Russia in august 2002. The purpose of the treaty was to increase the mutual understanding among the countries, transparency, increase openness and trust among the countries and each country should be developing under this treaty.

Recently on Nov 22nd of 2020, the US withdrew its agreement with the treaty and Russia did the same in Dec, 2021 as the US claims that Russia has misused the advantage of this treaty regarding the member country’s critical information and data during wartime. However, Russia had denied this obligation.

Today there are a total of 33 participating countries under the treaty after we take out the listing of Russia and the United states. And Kyrgyzstan has also accepted the treaty but it is still pending for Kyrgyzstan to clarify the agreement.