Russian surveillance aircraft to fly over US
Our buddy, Susan Katz Keating writes about how the Obama Administration is allowing Russian aircraft, a Tupolev-154 nicknamed “Careless” to fly over the continental United States with it’s special, advanced cameras.
The flight will be held under the auspices of the Open Skies Treaty, a 2002 international agreement that allows 34 signatory nations to fly over one another’s territory and monitor military installations.
The decision comes in the wake of a strongly worded letter to President Barack Obama from three key national security lawmakers who urged the White House to refuse Russia’s request to install upgraded sensors on its Open Skies overflight aircraft.
“In recent years, instead of using the Treaty for its intended purpose, Russia has been using its Open Skies flights to expand its espionage capabilities,” stated the June 14 letter, which was signed by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA), Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX).
“Given the threat to U.S. national security and Russia’s continued failure to uphold both the spirit and letter of its commitments under the agreement, we urge you to deny this request and explore whether commercially available satellite imagery can better fulfill the goals of this Treaty,” the lawmakers wrote.
The State Department claims that the intent of the treaty is “confidence building”. It’s working – I’m now confident that the Obama Administration is a bunch of incompetent boobs.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
If they’re going to let this happen, that plane better be tracked. At each facility, line up everybody to give the Russians the finger as they fly by. I mean that literally: every man and woman at every base should be giving them the finger with both hands.
Yes, but what’s the flyover schedule? It’s not going to work if there’s no schedule available.
I work for the FAA. These flights very closely and they cannot deviate from their flight route except under very unusual circumstances.
I wrote: “These flights very closely…”
I SHOULD have written: “These flights are followed very closely …”
SHEESH!
Well? So? And? Do you have access to the flyover schedule, the where’s and the when’s? If so, cough it up.
LOL!
No, sorry. I don’t. The ATC guys do.
I’d volunteer to drop trousers and grab both butt cheeks and let them know how we REALLY feel about them.
Apache
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F-4 Phantom
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Douglas A26
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Hafta get ma a ballcap with Fukk U on the top for my walks between the car and the command.I always park as far out as possible so the more geezerly can park close, so it’s a nice stroll.
Whenever Obama flies to Camp David, he flies right over my house. If I’m outside, I always make a point of giving him the one finger salute.
VERY satisfying.
WHAT-DA fuckety-fuckass-fuck is next? An official apology to Putin from B. Hussein 0bama for us winning the Cold War? B-HO giving the Ivans an office in the Pentagon’s E ring? GOD, Jesus, Joseph, Mary and the Apostles, just when we thought this administration couldn’t get more stupid, incompetent, imbecilic, and corrupt…
Methinks this administration makes the Dutch Rudder Gang look capable.
Okay, well, I’ll send them my home address so they can do a flyover and see what I’ve got written on my roof in Latin: FUTUE TE IPSUM, VLAD.
“The Treaty on Open Skies establishes a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the territories of its signatories. The Treaty is designed to enhance mutual understanding and confidence by giving all participants, regardless of size, a direct role in gathering information through aerial imaging on military forces and activities of concern to them. Open Skies is one of the most wide-ranging international arms control efforts to date to promote openness and transparency in military forces and activities.” Source: US Dept of State
“a direct role in gathering information through aerial imaging on military forces and activities of concern to them.” I just thought I’d repeat that part. Unbelievable.
And it was first proposed by Ike in ’55 as a way to help de-escalate the Cold War. The Soviets told him to pack cold sand in his shorts. We signed the treaty in 1992 under Bush I when the drunken Boris Yeltsin took over. The idea is that if everyone knows there is a spy flight going on, then people won’t be killed doing jobs that cost a number of lives from the ELINT and Photo birds from 45 to 55 (ando even later).
Read the treaty more and you see that signatories have to announce well in advance when a fly over is going to occur (my memory says at least 30 days minimum) and they have to announce their path and it’s basically treated as “rights of innocent passage” if they were ships.
Bingo. It would have been a huge plus at the time for US intel – we knew somewhere between diddly and squat about the infrastructure in the Soviet Union in 1955. The Soviets could (and did) get most of what they needed from open source literature or at any larger US public library or the newspapers/magazines of the day.
We would have been fools not to propose it. The Soviets would have been fools to accept it.
And Ike was fully prepared to order U2 overflights if the Soviets told him, “Nyet.” The first U2 overflight of Warsaw Pact nations occurred on 20 June 1956 – less than a year after Khrushchev told Eisenhower to get lost. The first Soviet overflight occurred on 4 July 1956 – sixty-one years ago tomorrow.
“FUTUE TE IPSUM, VLAD.”
Don’t sugar coat it, Ex!
*smile*
Aww, I was just being nice for starters.
Dafuq was Bush thinking? Actually, this started with Ike, a stupid freakin’ idea that was supposed to allow the Evil Empire and the USA to assure one another that the silos weren’t gettin’ hot and smokey. That didn’t work out but the idea persisted. Daddy Bush liked it and sonny made it happen. I trust the Russkies. Always have. My ass.
Once knew a guy who said “the only difference between George HW Bush and a Democrat was that he called himself Republican” – never saw grounds to dispute that.
Vlad, Вы старая сумка газа. Прекратите пролетать над моим домом, и прекратите появляться публично без рубашки.
Спасибо!
Just when I think it would be impossible to read anything that would be more stupid than the day before from this administration I am reminded just how resourceful these fuckers are when it comes to being completely incompetent on the world stage.
What in the hell is going on here?
My hope is that either a) we get reciprocal flights, and our surveillance tech is far better than theirs, so it’s a net positive for us, or b) since we know the flight times and pattern, we can conduct disinformation ops on their surveillance.
If this is just, “Oh, sure, why not let the Russians spy on us? What’s wrong with that?” then that’s asinine. But I think there must be some gain from this.
Well of course we do. All the members who signed the treaty get a certain number of overflights per year, it’s not just one-way. We’re flying over spying on them just like they’re doing to us.
The main point of this article isn’t the treaty itself – that’s old news. It’s about the installation of unnamed “upgraded sensors” on the aircraft Russia uses for its flights. This is potentially worrisome, especially in light of the recent developments regarding Russian technical abilities that they have demonstrated during their little “Safari” in Syria.
The only issue here is that the Russians and our allies upgraded their sensors (we are primarily talking about digital vs wet film cameras) when we didn’t make the investment.
So…why didn’t we upgrade?
Fwiw all imagery collected is shared to all parties and all flights have observers from the flyover country on board the aircraft.
Damn! I hope they don’t sense that the UN has occupied Virginia! They might attack!
Someone’s idea of “support and defend” is different than mine.
I assume you’re talking about GWB who was in office when the treaty was signed.
Um, no. It was signed in January 1992. That would be GHWB, not GWB.
It was delayed for 20 years due to ratification issues in Belarus and Russia and did not become effective until January 2002.
Can we get an F-15 or an F-22 to fly up next to the Russkies and do a barrel roll or two over and around the TU-154? Within 50 feet or so? Just for shits and giggles?
Don’t strafe..eh, fly over San Francisco. Assemblyman John Avalos will absolutely lose it man.
Just remember, we have nothing to fear from the commies.
Larsie the poodle boi said so!
I wonder what he says about muzzies? Oh well, I’m enjoying the civility and adult atmosphere that accompanies his absence.
This isn’t news. We’ve been doing reciprocal overflights for years under this treaty, and I am sure both sides use it as cover for other activities.
This helps prevent what is known as ‘The Prisoner’s Dilemma” a classic problem in game theory and negotiations. If two self interested parties cannot communicate, they will inevitably choose the worst option out of fear that the other party will do the same.
By showing the enemy that we have a credible force, they are deterred. If either party backs out of the agreement, it signals that you either no longer have a credible deterrent force or are preparing to attack.
To paraphrase Dr Stranglove “Why didn’t you tell the world about your “Doomsday Device?”
The Russians flying overhead don’t worry me; the jihadists slithering around in our cities are who i worry about. We need to get our priorities sorted out and as far as I’m concerned, the Russians are way down on the list.
For some of us who don’t read Foreign Affaits religiously or have perfect memories, this is news, nothwithjstanding that the treaty has been around since ’92. Some folks think turnabout is fair play and I get that. I just don’t agree with it. I want every advantage in a fight or potential fight and I want my foe to be at a disadvantage. My perspective is rather quaint, I guess. One other thing: If the world can’t afford to buy it’s own Coke, then it gets none.
I do have an online subscription, but I really just read Tom Ricks’ “Best Defense’ blog and that’s about it. The rest is kind of dry, although their stuff on China has been really good lately.
This is a strategic arms treaty- the overflights target the kind of facilities that are essentially open secrets. The point is to help avoid a nuclear exchange. I’m sure they look at other stuff too, but they can probably get most of that by signing up for Navy base tours and subscribing to Soldier’s Facebook accounts…
We probably get more out of it than the Russians. For one thing, we have more people on our side of the treaty that get to overfly Russia, and while they have essentially unrestricted freedom of movement in the US, it is relatively hard for us to creep up on Russian facilities.
MAD theory depends on both sides knowing that the other can utterly destroy them. This provides that assurance.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma asserts that when two parties cannot communicate, even though they can cooperate and gain a mutually beneficial outcome they will act in self interest even if it gives them a harmful outcome rather than trust the other to cooperate.
This is the same concept behind the ‘Red Phone’ hotline between the US and USSR (although I have read that it was really a teletype, then a fax, and now it’s email)
I hope that you are correct.
Back in the 70’s I went through the Army Intelligence Image Interpreter Course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. A lot of time was spent looking at aerial shots of Eastern Bloc motor pools learning to identify equipment and vehicles. The photos were really sharp and in may shots personnel on the ground were clearly looking up towards the camera. I asked the Instructor how the photos were taken and he said it was common for NATO county aircraft on diplomatic flights in these areas to wander off flight and landing paths and use hidden camera systems in the aircraft.
Point being, if there something for the bad guys to see at least we know where they’re looking.
This makes my vulva quiver