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1 1 (October 11, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbbjb0001 and id is 1 raw text is: ~Congressional Sa Research Service - - Informing the Iegislatve debate since 1914 _ The Open Skies Treaty: Background and Issues Updated October 11, 2019 The United States, Canada, and 22 European nations signed the Treaty on Open Skies on March 24, 1992. It entered into force on January 1, 2002, and now has 34 members. Each participant must permit unarmed observation aircraft to fly over its entire territory to observe military forces and activities. The treaty is designed to increase transparency, build confidence, and encourage cooperation among European nations. The parties to the Open Skies Treaty have conducted 1,500 flights through early October 2019. Some parties provide their own aircraft, but the parties can also join on overflights on aircraft provided by other nations. Both the observing nation and observed nation have access to the data from each flight; other parties can purchase copies of the data, so all can share information collected during all flights. The United States and Russia have both conducted numerous observation flights over the other's territory, although, according to the State Department, the United States conducted nearly three times as many flights over Russia as Russia did over the United States. Further, the parties can invite flights over their territories in special circumstances, as Ukraine did in 2014, when Open Skies flights helped monitor activities along the Ukraine-Russian border. Background President Eisenhower proposed an Open Skies agreement in 1955 to reduce the risk of war. Before satellites existed, aerial overflights provided information for both intelligence and confidence-building purposes. The Soviet Union rejected the proposal because it considered overflights equal to espionage and believed the United States had more to gain than it did. President George H. W. Bush revived the proposal in May 1989. By this time, both the United States and Soviet Union collected intelligence with satellites and remote sensors. As Europe emerged from the East-West divide of the Cold War, the United States supported increased transparency to reduce the chances of military confrontation. The Open Skies Treaty was one of three arms control arrangements-including the Vienna Document and the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE)-which could serve, as then-Secretary of State Baker noted, as the most direct path to greater predictability and reduced risk of inadvertent war. Key Provisions Open Skies participants make all their territory accessible to overflights by unarmed fixed-wing observation aircraft. They can restrict flights for safety concerns, but cannot impede or prohibit flights over areas, including military installations that would otherwise be off-limits. In most cases, the nation conducting the observation flight provides the aircraft and sensors; officials from the host nation participate in the flight. CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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