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US to Fix, Not Scrap Open Skies Treaty

Oksana Bedratenko

   WASHINGTON - Washington residents were startled in April 2017 to see a
   low-flying aircraft transit directly through the normally restricted
   airspace at the center of the U.S. capital, with all its monuments and
   iconic government buildings.

   Many were more surprised to learn that the aircraft in question was a
   Russian Tupolev Tu-154 spy plane and that the mission was approved in
   advance by U.S. authorities.

   The incident called attention to the Open Skies Treaty, a 1992 pact in
   which the United States, Russia and 32 other countries agree to permit
   such unarmed missions under strictly controlled conditions.

   The idea, first put forward in the 1950s, is that everyone is safer if
   they know what everyone else is doing. Hundreds of such flights are
   conducted each year.

   The confidence-building treaty has come in for harsh criticism of late,
   with influential members of Congress and others arguing the United
   States should quit the treaty because Russian cheating has given that
   country an unfair advantage.

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