Saving the Open Skies Treaty: Challenges and possible scenarios after the U.S. withdrawal EURO-ATLANTIC SECURITY POLICY BRIEF Dr. Alexander Graef September 2020 The European Leadership Network (ELN) is an independent, non-partisan, pan-European NGO with a network of nearly 200 past, present and future European leaders working to provide practical real-world solutions to political and security challenges. About the author Alexander Graef is a researcher in the project „Arms Control and Emerging Technologies at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH). He received his PhD in 2019 from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) for a thesis on the network of Russian foreign policy experts and think tanks. His current research focuses on conventional arms control and Russian security and defense policy. Support for this publication was provided by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York Published by the European Leadership Network, September 2020 European Leadership Network (ELN) 100 Black Prince Road London, UK, SE1 7SJ @theELN europeanleadershipnetwork.org Published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 © The ELN 2020 The opinions articulated in this report represent the views of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELN’s aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address pressing foreign, defence, and security challenges. Contents Introduction 1 1. Technical Challenges 2 2. Treaty Implementation and Quotas 9 3. Four Future Scenarios 13 4. Recommendations 15 Introduction expressed at the obligatory state con- ference that convened to discuss the implications of the U.S. decision for the Signed in March 1992, the Open Skies Treaty. Treaty (herein thereafter referred to as the Treaty) has been in force since The current situation is unprecedented. January 2002. It allows 34 states to The United States is the political and conduct joint, unarmed observation philosophical founding father of the flights over each other’s territory using Treaty,3 and with 42 flights has the larg- sensors with a predefined resolution. est annual flight quota.4 Washington Besides providing valuable intelligence, also frequently conducts shared flights regular engagement between military with European NATO allies on U.S. air- officers from different states, particu- craft, provides much needed technical larly those in NATO and Russia, contrib- expertise within the Open Skies Con- utes to trust- and confidence-building. sultative Commission (OSCC) – the im- plementing body of the treaty – and ac- On 21 May 2020, the Trump administra- counts for more than 12% of its budget. tion announced that it would leave the Without U.S. flights and access to U.S. Treaty, pointing to Russian noncompli- territory, states will need to re-distribute ance as the main reason.1 The following flight quotas. Responding to technical day the U.S. submitted an official with- challenges will be important to adapt drawal notice to the Treaty depositaries, the Treaty after the U.S. withdrawal. Canada and Hungary. The withdrawal will take effect on 21 November 2020. Ensuring Russia’s continued participa- tion, however, is essential for the Trea- Given the benefits of the Treaty, most ty’s survival. members publicly have regretted the U.S. withdrawal decision and reaffirmed their own commitment to the Treaty. In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of 12 states argued that the Treaty “re- 3 For a history of the Open Skies treaty nego- tiations see for example, Tucker, Jonathan, “Ne- mains functioning and useful” and that gotiating Open Skies: A Diplomatic History,” in they would “continue to implement” it.2 Krepon, M. and A. Smithson (eds.), Open Skies, Open Control and Cooperative Security, (New On 6 July 2020, similar positions were York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992) and Jones, Peter, Open Skies: Transparency, Confidence-Building and the End of the Cold War (Palo Alto: Stanford 1 Pompeo, Michael R, “On the Treaty on Open University Press, 2014). Skies”, Press Release, May 21, 2020, https:// 4 The treaty sets a fixed passive quota for www.state.gov/on-the-treaty-on-open-skies/. each member state. This is the maximum num- 2 Federal Foreign Office, “Statement of the ber of flights each state has to allow over its Foreign Ministries of Belgium, Czech Republic, own territory. The number of flights a state can Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxem- conduct is its active quota and cannot exceed burg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden its own passive quota. The distribution of treaty on the announcement by the US to withdraw quotas roughly corresponds to the territorial from the Open Skies Treaty”, May 22, 2020, htt- size of the states. The state party Russia- ps://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/newsroom/ Belarus and the United States need to allow 42 news/joint-declaration-open-skies/2343892. flights each. 1 The ELN / Saving the Open Skies Treaty: Challenges and possible scenarios after the U.S. withdrawal Historically, the Treaty has been an in- Treaty depends on finding agreement strument for improving military trans- in all three areas: technical challenges, parency between NATO states and treaty implementation, and quota distri- members of the former Warsaw Pact. bution. Flight practice still reflects this ap- proach. Since 2002, while NATO mem- The long-term future bers agreed not to overfly each other, almost one third of the more than 1,500 of the Open Skies flights conducted went over Russia and Treaty depends on Belarus.5 At the same time, European member states and Canada remain finding agreement in all concerned about Russia’s compliance three areas: technical with the Treaty. Russia, in turn, has re- cently voiced its discontent with the challenges, treaty flight practice of several Western states, including the UK, France, and Norway.6 implementation, and quota distribution. The member states will address the technical challenges primarily within the OSCC. In July 2020, they created a special informal working group for this Technical Challenges purpose chaired by Finland that is pre- paring proposals on the future of the Aircraft Capacity Treaty. Questions about Treaty imple- mentation will be raised at the upcom- The U.S. withdrawal will end all flights ing review conference of the Treaty, on U.S. aircraft. This affects several which will take place from 7-9 October member states who do not possess 7 2020. Before this, member states will their own certified aircraft. They either need to decide the distribution of ac- lease aircraft from other member states tive flight quotas for 2021 at the annual or conduct shared flights. From 2002 to quota conference scheduled for 5-6 Oc- 2019, European states and Canada con- tober 2020. The long-term future of the ducted 57 overflights onboard the U.S. 7 Only nine states currently possess certi- 5 Graef, Alexander & Moritz Kütt, “Visualizing fied aircraft equipped with sensors. In addition the Open Skies Treaty”, April 27, 2020, https:// to the United States and Russia, these are openskies.flights/. Bulgaria, Canada, Hungary, Sweden, Romania, 6 Ryzhkov, Sergey, “Vystupleniye na Konfer- Turkey, and Ukraine. Bulgaria, however, has entsii Gosudarstv-uchastnikov Dogovora po stopped flying and is unlikely to resume. The otkrytomu nebu po rassmotreniyu posledstviy United Kingdom dismantled its former HS An- vykhoda SShA iz Dogovora” [Statement at the dover aircraft in 2008. Moreover, the so-called Conference of member states to the Treaty on Pod-group (Belgium, Canada, France, Greece, Open Skies to review the consequences of the Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, U.S. withdrawal from the Treaty], July 6, 2020, Portugal, and Spain) that had operated a com- https://www.mid.ru/foreign_policy/news// mon “SAMSON” sensor pod attached to the asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/ Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft dissolved in id/4212382. 2013. It now consists of France and Canada. The ELN / Saving the Open Skies Treaty: Challenges and possible scenarios after the U.S. withdrawal 2 OC-135B. In the same period, however, In the future, the the U.S. also made use of European air- craft capacity and conducted 89 shared remaining member quota flights over Russia-Belarus and states will have to Ukraine. either reduce the In the future, these places will become available to other parties and would be number and range compensation for the loss of shared of missions over flights on U.S. aircraft. In 2021, member states are expected to certify the new Siberia, negotiate new German Open Skies aircraft, which is currently undergoing testing. This will options with Russia for likely improve the situation further. refuelling, or use the Nevertheless, without the U.S. OC-135B so-called taxi option. it will be difficult to conduct some of the missions, particularly those over Unauthorized data sharing the vast Russian Siberian territories. In contrast to U.S. aircraft, which can In principle, data collected by sensors conduct long-range flights of more than during observation flights are only avail- 6,000 kilometres, European aircraft, for able to member states of the Treaty.8 example, the Swedish Saab-340 and Nevertheless, Russian officials have ex- the Romanian An-30, are multi-engine pressed concerns that NATO members turboprop aircraft with a flight range of could continue to provide the U.S. with less than 3,000 kilometres. imagery from Russia even after its with- drawal. 9 According to the Head of the Correspondingly, in the past, most of Conventional Arms Control Division at the flights over Siberia that took off at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Baikal International Airport in Ulan- Oleg Bushuev, Russia will put this issue Ude used the U.S. OC-135B aircraft and on the OSCC agenda after the U.S.