WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd May, 2020) The US decision to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty may bring some fleeting political advantage to the Trump administration but will be disastrous for the long term security of the United States and its allies, analysts told Sputnik.
On Friday, the US government officially notified Russia of its withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said Washington would pull out of the treaty in six months unless Russia started adhering to the pact, which allows reconnaissance flights over some 34 participating countries. Russia has denied breaching its terms.
"More of Washington's short-term gain for long-term pain," former Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong told Sputnik. "The ABM [Anti Ballistic Missile] Treaty and the CFE [Conventional Forces in Europe] Treaty were already dead and the Trump Administration seems to be determined to kill off every remaining Cold War arms control treaty.".
President Donald Trump and Pompeo were acting in ways consistent with their documented determination to wipe out every vestige of international arms control that has been built up over the past 60 years, Armstrong, the former Canadian charge daffaires in Moscow said.
Abrogating the Open Skies Treaty was just the latest example in this pattern of behavior, Armstrong observed.
"Russia will, of course, be blamed: it's been 'cheating,'" he said.
Although the Trump administration was being expressly criticized for the most recent moves, its behavior was consistent with the track record of both Republican and Democratic administrations over the past quarter century, Armstrong recalled.
"What's driving this? I suspect it's the post Cold War triumphalism that we have seen in every previous administration: We won, we're Number One, suck it up Russia, you're unimportant. The difference is that the Trump Administration makes no attempt to sugar-coat," he said.
Trump appeared oblivious to the fact that he was scrapping a treaty that had been a proud diplomatic achievement of a previous Republican president he often claimed to admire, Armstrong noted.
"The irony of course is that the whole thing was President Eisenhower's idea in the first place," he added.
Professor Edward Lozansky, a former nuclear physicist, director of Russia House in Washington and president of the American University in Moscow said scrapping the Open Skies Treaty was also a victory for a man Trump fired in September 2019 after only a year and a half as his national security adviser, super-hawk John Bolton.
"It was former national security adviser John Bolton who urged Trump to withdraw from the Open Sky agreement. Bolton is out, but his ideas are alive," Lozansky said.
The US government could and should have handled any problems it had with the way Russia observed the Open Skies Treaty through established negotiating processes rather than simply unilaterally exiting the agreement, Lozansky recommended.
"If Moscow, as the United States claims, has violated this agreement, for example, by imposing restrictions on its flights near Kaliningrad or any other provisions of this treaty the way to resolve this problem is to call for negotiation," he said.
The US government could have reinforced that call by requesting its European allies to do the same thing, since practically all of them are in favor of preserving the treaty, Lozanksy observed.
"Abrogating Open Sky and letting New START [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] to expire is a sure way to make one step further towards 'sleepwalking' into nuclear catastrophe," he said.
Anton Konev, a New York State based consultant to Democratic Party candidates, told Sputnik the Trump administration had not even bothered to provide any truly convincing explanation for its decision to leave the Open Skies Treaty at this moment.
"I really do not understand why the US decided to withdraw. It's a wrong move," he said. "This treaty is a mutual check for Russia and the United States."
The treaty was also a barrier on moves to shoot down a plane that somehow entered a neighboring territory. Now the scrapping of the treaty could escalate conflict, Konev warned.
Moscow deeply regretted the US intention to quit the treaty as a serious blow to European security, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday. It cautioned Washington that its "destructive course" could undermine allies' trust in its ability to compromise and stick to its commitments.
