Thread by @steffanwatkins

Oh my. This is a buffet of propaganda. Debunking this and dragging it through the street tarred and feathered is going to be the highlight of my week, possibly month. This is going to be legendary.

nationalreview.com/2019/10/trump-…

"the costs of the treaty to the United States now outweigh the benefits"

Really? What are those costs? Financial? It costs peanuts, especially compared with anything satellite related. The US will fly 16 flights over Russia this year, half of them ride-alongs with allies.

Costs to security? What exactly is exposed out in the open that 30cm optical imagery, worse than Russian spy satellite imagery, will see? Russia uses the same resolution camera as we do over them. What "cost", exactly? This is fluff.

"Russia is not complying with the letter or spirit of the treaty"

Oh? Do go on... Count the ways for me.

"Russia has been limiting and preventing flights over those parts of its territory in which there is the most interest among U.S. allies: Kaliningrad, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Chechnya"

This is a poorly worded and serves to conflate three different issues, intentionally.

1 Russia has imposed a 500km limit (below the 5500km total limit of flights over Russia) over Kaliningrad Oblast, stemming from an arguable abuse of a flight in 2013 which blocked all flights in/out of Kaliningrad all day.
It poses no practical obstacle to implementing the treaty

How can I make that statement? Because I asked the RCAF in 2016 after LGen Stewart provided misleading testimony before Congress. His statements clear up the issues, and are a far cry from the faux outrage from American factions.

vesselofinterest.com/2016/10/dnd-do…

Russia recognizes Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, and per the treaty, flight plans near non-signatory states must be 10km inside Russia. The U.S. does not recognize them as separate states, therefore the U.S. believes Russia is in violation of the treaty.

The Abkhazia and South Ossetia "issue" has to to with recognition of independent states, and there is nothing in the treaty that arbitrates whose interpretation of those states/borders takes precedence. The issue is unrelated to the Open Skies Treaty itself.

Chechnya? This suggests that the talking points provided to Ms Heinrichs were from 2016, when this was last an issue, and not updated after April 2017, when the State report stated that Russia no longer insisted planes fly higher over Chechnya for flight safety reasons, in 2016.

"even when Russia is technically complying, the timing of its flights and its choice of flight paths are highly concerning"

Oh, do go on... when and where they fly over the United States is concerning you say? Tell me how.

"In one instance, Russia flew the Tupolev Tu-154M spy plane over parts of Washington, D.C."

That's what the treaty is meant to do. They proposed a flight plan Mon/Tues, and performed their flights Thurs/Fri after negotiating the path with members of the USAF.

We do the same.

Members of DTRA and the USAF are aboard, monitoring the entire flight. It is not not a spy plane. That's dog whistling to try and freak people out.

It's fear-mongering.

It's agitprop.

"(flew over) Bedminster, N.J., where President Trump was vacationing at his Trump National Golf Course."

False. I checked.

They were 5mi away, the swath of their imagery was 1.7mi, therefore they were not over the Golf course, nor was it in frame, so didn't get any pics either.

"the spy plane flew through the temporary flight-restriction (TFR) airspace that was established around the president’s golf club."

- It's not a "spy plane".
- The flight path was approved by the USAF and given priority above all else.

Framing this as an "issue" is dishonest.

"The United States has tried to persuade Russia to act responsibly."

Yes, the State Department has worked very hard to get the "compliance issues" down to the remaining 2, that's what it takes, diplomacy over years, which is what they've been doing, successfully.

I've already debunked much of what LGen Stewart testified about in the aforementioned hearing, and shown him to not be a credible witness based on his statements and his poor grasp of the issues. He compared the switch from film to digital as polaroids to 1080p. That's silly.

All signatory to the treaty adhere to the same limited sensor standards that are laid out in the treaty. All the signatories to the treaty spend months verifying the compliance of new sensors. Stewart was briefed by someone who was incompetent or politically motivated.

"is it fair to say that Russia gets more benefits from these flights than does the United States?”
-Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)

This is a truism; it's been true and was accepted as such since 1992 by Bush. It's acknowledged, and accepted, that the US has better satellites. Obviously.

By all accounts, Russian satellite imagery is better than 30cm resolution as well, so while US satellites are better than the treaty allows sensors aboard US planes, the same goes for Russian satellites - yes, they do have spy satellites too.

Denying Russians overflights over the United States using false pretenses, at the cost of denying dozens of allied nations who are signatory to the treaty those same rights over Russia, is counterproductive.

All countries "get more" out of the flights than the United States, from an imagery perspective.
From a mil-to-mil contact angle, they are invaluable, and that's what I was told by the RCAF when I interviewed them because of LGen Stewart's disturbing and poorly informed testimony

"the surveillance flights that are the treaty’s purpose are expensive"

Really, no. Open Skies Treaty flights are an infinitesimal fraction of the cost of satellite imagery, and provide invaluable info from face to face meetings on an almost monthly basis with Russian officers.

"(POTUS) should withdraw from the treaty and redeploy the hundreds of millions of dollars the Pentagon wastes on Open Skies flights and equipment to increase U.S. combat power." -Cotton

Buy more arms, not cameras, is the rhetoric from the Senator bankrolled by the arms industry.

Heinrichs (Hudson Institute) and Cotton tag team journalists giving an impression of impartiality, but between synchronized tweets, and out of date talking points from 2016, this article is nothing but a partisan attack on the treaty and cannot be taken seriously; o/c some will.