Global Security Newswire

The Obama administration last week indicated it would seek a number of revisions to a 2002 treaty that permits its 34 member nations to conduct surveillance flights in each other's airspace (see GSN, June 7).

“The results of continued observation flights will contribute toward our security and stability as a group of nations,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller said Wednesday at the end of the three-day Open Skies Treaty review conference. The pact helps member countries -- including nuclear powers France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- monitor other signatories' compliance with arms control and other military agreements.

Actions under consideration included transitioning from film cameras to digital monitoring equipment, updating surveillance aircraft, organizing additional joint monitoring missions, expanding treaty membership, and evaluating whether information being gathered under the agreement was sufficient for changing security demands.

Washington hopes to cooperate with other members of the decade-old pact to develop a five-year road map for instituting changes ahead of the next review conference, Gottemoeller said.

Treaty members were seeking to determine the pact's efficacy as needs change for maintaining stability in Europe, U.S. Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Celeste Wallander said earlier.

“This is reflected in the reset in U.S.-Russian relations, the New START (arms reduction) treaty (between the United States and Russia), discussions about a new NATO Strategic Concept, and our collective efforts to respond to a new global security environment that focuses largely on transnational threats rather than conflict among states,” the official said.

“Apart from the up-front investment with upgrading to digital sensors, making that change will also require us to think through new implementation mechanisms and the costs associated with them,” she said (U.S. State Department release, June 11).