A little discussed portion of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the $716 billion US military spending bill also defunds US participation in Open Skies Treaty. The move was presented as a way to punish Russia.
Effective since 2002, the Open Skies Treaty has 34 participants. The treaty allows nations to carry out unarmed surveillance flights over one another’s nations, theoretically to build confidence that none of them are secretly building up military forces.
Russian Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov issued a statement of regret on Tuesday over the US suspension of the treaty. Russian MPs suggested this was a prelude to a new arms race, and would lead to a US arms buildup that dishonoring the treaty is meant to hide.
The language in the NDAA demands an assessment of what Russian surveillance flights over the US are for, and claimed such flights could expose certain American counterintelligence “vulnerabilities.”
I learned a lot about Russia-US relationships after watching this documentary:
The Magnitsky Act Behind The Scenes. https://d.tube/#!/v/doessteemitwork/89n1gkl9 It will be up for only a week, so I recommend saving to the disk and mirroring. It’s a very important piece of investigation. Real investigative journalism for once.
What are the Russians up to militarily? Not much. How about the US? We don’t do very much else. Balanced diplomacy and transparency are inconvenient to US plans for military domination of everywhere apparently.
Still waiting for affordable quality health care.
I wonder how much this has to do with Israel. The most likely sneak attack in the world would start in Israel. I am not sure how effective it will be now that Russia basically has plenty of places in Syria, Iran to keep an eye on middle east.
Remember “Donald Cook” 2014!!!!!