Senior Policy Director Alexandra Bell co-authored an op-ed in Responsible Statecraft about the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty.
In a now painfully familiar exercise, the Trump administration said this past week that it would leave yet another international agreement. This time it is the Open Skies Treaty, which the United States, Russia, and 32 other Euro-Atlantic countries — most of whom are U.S. allies — have been quietly using for years to help keep the tensions troubling the region focused on facts instead of false assumptions and blind fears.
Open Skies Treaty parties let each other fly short-notice observation flights over their territories. Everything is done through prior agreement and treaty rules. Countries agree on image resolution, sensor equipment, annual flight plans, flight routes, and even the observation planes themselves. Images collected are available to all parties. The intensive cooperation and coordination demanded by the treaty produces knock-on benefits of confidence-building. Read more
