Taking apart the Cotton/Cruz anti-Open Skies Treaty resolution in the United States Senate

Tom Cotton participates in a conversation
about American foreign strategy
and statesmanship at the Hudson Institute
March 18, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Getty)

UPDATED AND REPUBLISHED ON MEDIUM (2020-03-03)

https://medium.com/@steffanwatkins/inside-the-u-s-senate-resolution-to-withdraw-from-the-open-skies-treaty-4cbad67f3981


I find it difficult to explain how frustrating it is to watch the same stories about the Open Skies Treaty get circulated for over four years, with little understanding in the media, and almost no fact-checking of official sources, while I scream into the void, write long-form explainers, micro-blog, talk about it in podcasts, assist journalists in their research, and do interviews to inform the public about what's going on; all the while the news media is duped by officials trying to kill the treaty with deliberately misleading quotes, omissions, and half-truths. After documenting and publicising information, refuting claims made by politicians, and their favourite think tanks, I have received some good feedback from a variety of people. Some say wow, I didn't know about this treaty - even journalists covering the defence sector, members of the military (domestic + foreign), and government officials appreciate that someone is trying, however futilly, to educate the public about the Open Skies Treaty. I know that to be true, because they've told me so. That gives me hope. I'd like to think I've educated a few people along the way, but here we are, many years later; the same disinformation is making headlines, the Open Skies Treaty is on the brink of being destroyed by the Americans, and the same politicians from over four years ago are still duping the people of the world with their half-truths and flat out lies.

I'm crestfallen, but I'm not beaten.

By following the majority of published news items about the Open Skies Treaty, and asking the right questions on and off the record to  people in the know, I am very familiar with the majority of the alleged violations of the Open Skies Treaty, and some of the violations which haven't been alleged too. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) have tabled a resolution in the United States Senate (https://www.cruz.senate.gov/files/documents/2019.10.30_DAV19I06.pdf) which seems to exploit the disinformation Cotton and his proxies have been spreading for years.

Tom Cotton at CSIS Headquarters July 17, 2017
for a paid speaking engagement about the INF Treaty

I feel like this is shaping up to be a final push before their Republican POTUS is ousted. I think they're in a rush, and I think they're getting sloppy. They're recycling talking points from 2015 and 2016 that don't apply anymore. As time moves on their ammunition is running out, the allegations are being disproven or shown to be untrue. "Violations" keep getting resolved, and despite what they might tell you, diplomacy is working. Other countries, beside the Russians, have also moved to digital electro-optical sensors. I will demonstrate to you that this resolution in the Senate is the latest contrived attempt to kill the Open Skies Treaty by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), and now Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). I believe these are the death throes of Cotton's quest to kill the treaty for the interests who lobby him.

The following an excerpts of the reasons cited in the Cotton/Cruz resolution in the senate for terminating the participation of the United States in the Open Skies Treaty.

Whereas the Department of State has repeatedly assessed
and documented in its annual report on Adherence to
and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation,
and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments, that
Russia is violating the Treaty on Open Skies, done at
Helsinki March 24, 1992, and entered into force January
1, 2002 (commonly known as the ‘‘Open Skies Treaty’’);

Why not take this opportunity to explain the violations to the American people and the rest of the people of the world. The United States Department of State publishes a report every year, a report which is not sanctioned by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), or Open Skies Consultative Commission (OSCC). It is a United States Department of State account, from their view, of how the United States feels other countries are adhering, or not, to arms control agreements. While Americans likely don't want to hear this, there are 33 other signatories to the Open Skies Treaty, meaning there are 34 members of the OSCC, who have monthly meetings in Vienna, where they resolve disputes with diplomacy, and the United States does not have a special role to critique compliance. The compliance report holds no weight internationally, other than being an opinion voiced by the United States. Interestingly, the present chairperson of the OSCC is even American. Are the items that the United States Department of State calls violations, also considered violations by the entire OSCC? I don't know, they're quite tight lipped about that, so it would seem not. We do not know anything about what the 33 other members feel about the American-alleged violations, other than none of them believe the United States should leave. No country has made any statements which echo the Americans' position that they must withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty for reasons of national security. Even domestic American academics don't agree that the United States should withdraw from the treaty. You may wonder why I don't call any of the alleged-violations, just "violations". There is surely conduct that Russia has performed in the past 15+ years of flights that have been violations, but the last two outstanding "violations" are contentious, complicated, and the alleged-violations are significantly less critical than anyone who is trying to kill the treaty wants the public to understand. Amy Woolf of the Congressional Research institute goes over what they mean in her testimony before congress just a few weeks ago; let me allow her to speak for herself.



A snippet of Amy Woolf's written testimony below:

"Concerns About Russian Compliance. The 2019 version of the State Department’s Annual Report on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments highlighted two areas of concern about Russian compliance with the Open Skies Treaty. The first notes that, while the Treaty establishes a maximum range of 5,500 kilometers for observation flights, Russia has imposed a sublimit of 500 kilometers for flights over its Kaliningrad region. Kaliningrad is a relatively small, but heavily militarized area that is geographically separate from Russia. According to some reports, Russia imposed this limit after an overflight by Poland in 2014 lingered over Kaliningrad and interfered with commercial aviation in the area. While this sublimit does not preclude flights over or observations of military activities in Kaliningrad, it is inconsistent with the terms of the Treaty and an OSCC decision that “precludes a State Party from decreasing the maximum flight distance from an Open Skies airfield.”

The 2019 Compliance Report also notes that Russia has prohibited observation flights within ten kilometers of its border with the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions of Georgia. This dispute is less about the provisions of the Treaty than it is about Russia’s dispute with Georgia over the status of these regions. The Treaty permits parties to prohibit flights within ten kilometers of independent states that are not a party to the Treaty. While Georgia is a party to the Treaty, Russia has considered South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be independent states since its 2008 conflict with Georgia. Because these regions have not joined the Treaty, Russia has argued that flights cannot approach their borders. The United States and other parties to the Treaty have not accepted this interpretation of the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia has recently indicated that it would lift the ban on flights within ten kilometers of the borders with South Ossetia and Abkhazia if Georgia were to accept Open Skies overflights from Russia. Georgia had suspended this access in 2017 and 2018."

source: https://www.csce.gov/sites/helsinkicommission.house.gov/files/III%203%20Woolf%20Testimony.pdf

(*correction, Georgia has restricted access to its airspace, prohibiting Russian overflights since 2012 per the Georgian Government, a violation itself - reference: https://old.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=24634)

As Amy Woolf notes in her testimony to Congress, these are not core issues, these are fringe outlying issues which do not significantly impede core Open Skies Treaty objectives. This is also a view shared by the RCAF, a representative of which I interviewed in late 2016 about these same violations. I submit to you that framing these alleged violations as huge issues is purely a political stunt, they are not factual, and they are not acting in good faith; which shouldn't be entirely surprising from the likes of Cotton and Cruz.

Whereas, in 2015, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Vincent R. Stewart, testified to
Congress that ‘‘[t]he Open Skies construct was designed
for a different era,’’ and in 2016, that the treaty allows
Russia ‘‘to get incredible foundational intelligence on crit-
ical infrastructure, bases, ports, all of our facilities’’ and
provides Russia with ‘‘a significant advantage’’;

It is quite remarkable that opponents of the Open Skies Treaty keep coming back to LtGen Stewart, but it's great for me, since his misleading testimony was what motivated me to take on interviewing the Royal Canadian Air Force, to get their view. I'd been interested for years about where the Russian Open Skies Treaty flights were taking place over Canada, because I wanted to see where their flights intersected with my interest in Cold War history, to understand what they were looking at. I had a wild and crazy question in the back of my mind; did Canada have a secret base that they were checking up on? (Spoiler: Nope) but the Russians' paths did uncover (for me) that they visit the former military bases in Northern Canada, as well as current bases, naval bases, and other locations of military interest. But why were they visiting closed bases that were nothin but concrete and rubble? I spoke with a senior officer, off the record, about choosing the location for a satellite downlink, and from what I recall part of the decision was what infrastructure was already there, and that property was already owned by the Government. There's no need to buy new land for military projects, there's lots of minimally used DND land that can handle more than one use. So, the Russians were absolutely right in visiting former military bases, some of which have been converted to prisons or other facilities. They're flying over to get a better look at them, just to make sure. If you didn't know a present-day prison was actually formerly a military base, radar base, or missile launch site, I can only imagine what interesting conspiracy theories could be made up about a Russian-assisted prison break, and flying through restricted airspace above the prison. Because of LtGen Stewart's testimony I filed Access to Information requests (The Canadian FOIA) for all the Russian flight plans over Canada, and I got over ten years of them, proving they are flying over sites of clear military interest, despite the information provided to LtGen Stewart, and in turn to the United States Senate.

I don't feel entirely comfortable embarrassing LtGen Stewart for his comments, because I have reason to believe he was fed a line, several even, by people who had political motivations within or outside the DIA, who were sympathetic or directly acting on behalf of Sen. Tom Cotton. Unfortunately, despite LtGen Stewart's best intentions, he's been made to look like a fool by them. LtGen Stewart testified that the Russians switching from wet-film to digital (an American initiative that had been going on for nearly a decade at the time) was akin to going from Polaroids to 1080P. If you're of the right age, you remember what a consumer grade instant Polaroid picture looks like, and they look terrible despite your rosy memories of your childhood. You probably know what a 1080P video image looks like, which is technically 2 megapixels. LtGen Stewart was portraying that a fuzzy polaroid was equivalent to what the Russians used to see when they flew over the United States (like in 2017), and that the American government had to block ratification of the Russian digital electro-optical sensor which would give them pictures that would now look exponentially better, like 1080p. This is clearly an attempt to portray the change in the their capabilities and level of detail as superior to what it was, and it was quite absurd. If the head of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), who is opposed to the treaty, and has been for the entire length of the treaty, can get away with making such ridiculous statements into the record, without anyone calling him out, I have to wonder what's going on. Fortunately, his testimony provides me with a clear example that anyone with a film camera who upgraded to a digital camera (of equivalent capability) can understand.

Let me digress for a minute.
My dad used to shoot 35mm slide film with a 35mm camera, and I shoot digital pictures with a digital camera now. He took great pictures of fish doing underwater photography in the Bahamas. Those slides (which are still in a box) when blown up on a projector look great, lots of detail, and while my digital camera may give a better picture than his 35mm then, it's not overwhelmingly better - but it's certainly way easier to see, edit, store, etc - it's digital after all. The wet film cameras of the Open Skies Treaty are all treaty-limited in their capability. They can only take pictures of 30 cm resolution, and do so at 3 different altitudes, using different cameras and lenses. It's a high end wet-film camera. The new digital electro-optical sensors (ahem, digital cameras) are equally high-end, but made to comply with the maximum resolution requirements in the treaty. The United States didn't raise the red flag about the German Open Skies Treaty plane and their new digital electro-optical sensor, did they? The switch to digital was an American initiative, that all countries are in the middle of right now. The German Luftwaffe is flying theirs, testing it, right now - or was earlier today. The Russians first deployed theirs for their flights over Europe in 2014. LtGen Stewart's testimony in 2016 was all about trashing the move to digital on the Tu-154M that the Russians use to overfly the United States, and his testimony wasn't compelling to the Obama administration, who approved the digital electro-optical camera in 2016, and it flew over the United States in 2017 - over the White House even (foreshadowing). It then shouldn't be surprising that the Defence Intelligence Agency has an axe to grind, and is still against having a Russian observation plane with 30 cm resolution cameras fly over the United States. The thing is, there's more to the treaty than the DIA. The State Department and STRATCOM are both in favour of the treaty, so are other departments, academics, former and current officials, as well as dozens of other allied nations. The OSCE PA has even said they would like the United States to table their issues with the Open Skies Treaty at the OSCC, and not unilaterally pull out of the treaty. There is no country in the world that believes that it is necessary for the Americans to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, and there is no reason to believe anything Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has said based on the years of disinformation he's been spreading.

Here is LtGen Stewart's testimony for you to review and come to your own conclusions. LtGen Stewart is a highly decorated accomplished senior military officer, now retired, with an exemplary career. I think it's unfortunate he was mislead and used in this way by whoever briefed him, as he clearly is not a technical guy, by his own admission and testimony. Because of this, I do not think his testimony can be taken seriously, unfortunately. His testimony was in context of the digital electro-optical sensor upgrade, not just the Open Skies Treaty, and we know now all the FUD being spread about the sensor was just propaganda. The specifications of the camera were fully disclosed by the Russians to the public, and all treaty signatories, including the United States, and all confirmed that the sensor is limited to 30 cm resolution, as Amy Woolf stated in her testimony just a few weeks ago. Any quotes from LtGen Stewart's testimony being used by Cruz or Cotton are being taken out of context, and his cannot be used as an authority on the treaty.


(U) March 2nd 2016  House Armed Services Committee hearing on World Wide Threats

Whereas, in 2016, the Commander of the United States Strategic Command, Admiral Cecil Haney, testified to Congress that the Open Skies Treaty gives Russia ‘‘a capability to be able to reconnoiter parts of our country and
other nations’’;

I'm not sure how Adm Haney didn't notice, but "reconnoitering" parts of the United States, and 32 other countries, is exactly what the Open Skies Treaty is meant to do. We - the American allies who are signatory to the treaty - reconnoiter Russia too, many dozens of times a year. In fact, we can do it much more often if we like; the quotas are renegotiated yearly. Doing so is not objectionable, and raises questions as to what anyone thought the treaty was for if not exactly that. Is his statement true? Yes, Russia does reconnoiter, but it's certainly not a reason to kill the treaty; it's the reason 34 countries are signatory to the treaty. What an incredibly weird justification for withdrawing from a treaty; doing what it says it's supposed to do. His testimony is not a justification to leave the treaty, it's just describing a working Open Skies Treaty mission. We do exactly the same thing over Russia as the Russians do over he United States, and all other signatory countries.

Whereas, in 2017, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,General Joseph Dunford, testified to Congress that ‘‘wedon’t believe the treaty should be in place if the Russiansaren’t complying’’;

Shockingly this is out of context, this quote is cherry picked and cropped, let me correct it.

Dunford's whole quote, in context of Tom Cotton leading questions, was to say at 58:25 "let me (..) make sure we make it clear, we believe on balance that it would be best that the treaty continue to be in place, but we do not believe the treaty should be in place if the Russians are not compliant, but there is a decidedly aggressive diplomatic effort to bring the Russians back into compliance, which we think would be the best outcome"

Tom Cotton cites four (alleged) violations in this September 2017 testimony
(remember this date)

• Limiting flights over Kaliningrad (that's the 500km sub-limit)
• Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Georgian breakaway republics; the 10km issue)
• Chechnya, which in September 2017 was no longer an issue, per the April 2017 State Department compliance report.
  "One compliance concern cited in previous editions of the Compliance Report — a minimum altitude restriction over Chechnya — has been resolved. In early 2016, U.S. implementers observed that Russia stopped including altitude restrictions over Chechnya during pre-mission briefs. On April 18, during the OSCC plenary, the Russian representative confirmed that Russia no longer published altitude restrictions over Chechnya."
  source: https://www.state.gov/2017-report-on-adherence-to-and-compliance-with-arms-control-nonproliferation-and-disarmament-agreements-and-commitments/
• An altitude limit over (a part of) Moscow, which was also dropped as an issue in April 2017, after it was discovered by the American delegation to the OSCC that other countries have also imposed similar altitude restrictions for air traffic control / flight safety reasons. The issue did not reappear in 2018 or 2019, it's gone for good.
  "Russia’s imposition of a minimum altitude for all air traffic over Moscow, in the region designated as UUP-53, continued and impacted one observation flight in 2016. The United States discussed this concern with States Party in 2016, including Russia’s assertion that the altitude restriction is linked to safety of flight, and it became clear that a number of States Party impose altitude restrictions for reasons of flight safety. The United States, Russia, and other interested States Party intend to explore altitude restrictions as part of a broader discussion of air traffic control procedures and Open Skies Treaty implementation. The United States will continue to monitor this issue closely."
  source: https://www.state.gov/2017-report-on-adherence-to-and-compliance-with-arms-control-nonproliferation-and-disarmament-agreements-and-commitments/

It serves Tom Cotton's interest to overstate the alleged Russian violations, and rounding up by a factor of 2x, reporting alleged violations which had already been resolved and reported as such, publicly, almost 6 months earlier, was not caught by the media.

Tom Cotton continued with his misleading line of questioning asking Gen Dunford if the Russians get more out of the imagery than the Americans do since the Americans have superior satellite constellations for imagery; but this is a truism and has always been accepted as such. There is nobody on the planet with a better satellite constellation for imagery than the United States. That's not a reason to kill the treaty, since it was that way when the Americans proposed and signed the treaty.
It's that way by design, and it's always been that way.

Starting at (57:32)

Whereas the Government of the Russian Federation has recently used the Open Skies Treaty for surveillance of major American cities and infrastructure, includingWashington D.C. and New York City;

...and Area51, China Lake, the Nevada Test Site, RCS sites, ICBM fields, missile testing sites, Cheyenne Mountain... Tom Cotton didn't think an enterprising OSINT afficianado with a knack for tracking planes would examine the flight paths of many past flights, at great detail, and debunk this; they're not flying over anything that doesn't have a military use. I've done this for American flights, and Canadian flights, alleging that the Russians are using their flights to survey anything that we wouldn't survey ourselves is completely untrue. I also interviewed the RCAF about this, and the RCAF on the record confirm there is nothing the Russians are flying over that we don't fly over ourselves. Suggesting they are flying over "critical infrastructure" in some sort of improper manner is not any sort of violation of the treaty even if it were true, which it is not. The flight paths of the flights, and where they take pictures, can be determined with OSINT, or if the FOIA system was working correctly, could be asked for directly, since the Russians provide all signatories to the treaty a list of where they took pictures at the end of their flight over the United States. All treaty signatories know what the Russians took pictures of, so it's completely disingenuous of Cotton to claim they are spying on critical infrastructure in two ways. Factually, they are not. Per the treaty, they're allowed to. We are also allowed to, and we do take pictures of their infrastructure if there is a need. "Infrastructure", for example rail, is of military as well as civilian use, and knowing what's on the rail cars is in the interest of the Russians, as well as being completely legal under the treaty.

Whereas the Government of the Russian Federation has installed advanced digital technology for use in Open Skies flights, enhancing its surveillance and espionage capabilities; Whereas Government of the Russian Federation has limitedand at times outright denied access for surveillance flights by the United States and other countries;

This is a two part-er;
a) The switch to digital was an American initiative from a decade ago, everyone in the treaty is moving to digital. I suspect Cotton realized this, and sped up efforts to kill the treaty, but this item is already out of date and proves their initiative to kill the treaty is disingenuous.
a1) Tom Cotton may not want the public to be aware that the Germans have already installed their digital electro-optical sensor, and are in the middle of testing it - hopefully it will be flying next year.
a2) The United States (you may have heard of them) has already installed their digital electro-optical sensor and is testing it too; maybe ready for next year, only 7 years behind the Russians.
b) Outright denied access to what? When? There isn't enough information here to make an argument, let alone expose it for the propaganda that it is. When planes arrive n country they table a flight plan, that flight plan outlines what they want to overfly, if there are flight safety issues or weather, the flight plan is changed - it's a negotiation. It's extremely rare for a flight to be denied completely, but it did happen between Russian and Turkey, when Turkey wouldn't give access to the areas Russia wanted several years ago. No Open Skies Treaty flights have been denied over Russia, that's disinformation.

Whereas Congress has repeatedly sought to limit implementation of the Open Skies Treaty in response to Russian treaty violations, including in the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (Public Law 115–232);

He's got me there, he's flooded Congress with disinformation for years, and have made several very poor misinformed decisions. In the last NDAA it even brought up the risks of SAR, and no plane has SAR certified, or installed. Sure the treaty allows for it, but nobody is doing it, or even has any plans to do it - it looked like it was added to the NDAA to promote fear.

Whereas the United States Government has developed and deployed technology so that it does not gain significant additional intelligence from participating in the Open Skies Treaty; 

Welcome to 1992! The United States has had superior spy satellites which render part of the Open Skies Treaty flights redundant in terms of *new* information, but it isn't just about *new* imagery for most countries either; Open Skies Treaty flights serve as a manner to gather unclassified imagery of things they may already be privy to through national technical means. Resulting Open Skies Treaty imagery can be presented at the UN, NATO, or NORAD in an unclassified setting. American TOP SECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN 6 cm resolution imagery needs to be handled more carefully, but 30cm res can be carried in a binder, or even emailed to someone in a slide deck. It provides imagery that can be shared with any partner nation, even if they do not have an intelligence sharing agreement in place.

Whereas participating in the Open Skies Treaty costs the
United States hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary spending

Again, this is just disinformation by the Cotton cadre. All nations, even the United States, benefit from the Open Skies treaty to different degrees, filling in gaps as well as enabling unclassified intelligence sharing; and considering the American OC-135s are ~60 years old, I think they've been paid off a while. It's time to buy new planes, but you don't need anything bigger than the new German plane, which is a recycled Airbus A319. A repurposed KC-10 would do just fine as well, and be a heck of a lot more efficient; I hear they're having some growing pains anyway and might have a spare or two.

Please watch the following testimony by three expert witnesses on the hill and dispel some of the rumours that have been getting spread by Cotton and his cadre for over 4 years.

Do efforts to kill the Open Skies Treaty, and the al-Baghdadi raid, cross paths?

Aircrew members assigned to Russian air force Open Skies
and Airmen assigned to the 15th Wing, pose for a group photo
at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, Aug. 14, 2019
Photo Credit: Tech. Sgt. Heather Redman, 15th Wing Public Affairs, USAF

There have been a series of startling things in the media which have compelled me to document and draw attention to the timing of events.
Are they related, or a coincidence?

Based on information from multiple leaks, during the 1st week of October, Tim Morrison, the National Security Council’s Russia and Europe director, put some sort of letter of intent to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty under Donald Trump’s fingers while a pen was in them, finishing off the paperwork that John Bolton had drafted before leaving, and progressing a personal quest of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has been on for years, to kill the Open Skies Treaty. Did I mention Tim, Tom, and John are all on the same page about the Open Skies Treaty? Well, they’re three peas in a pod.

On Friday October 4th, 2019 a meeting invite went out to several departments of the United States Government for an NSC meeting on October 7th, Monday, without a set agenda.

On Saturday October 5th, Turkish President Erdogan announced an operation involving Turkish forces in Northern Syria would commence, also on Monday October 7th.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-turkey-usa/erdogan-says-turkey-to-launch-military-operation-in-northeast-syria-idUSKCN1WK053

By Sunday October 6th the public was aware that the US Military would be withdrawing, leaving the Kurds to fight the Turks, and it was all defence correspondents were reporting on.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-says-it-will-stand-aside-turkey-moves-syria-n1063106

On Monday October 7th there was the aforementioned meeting between members of the NSC, and other government departments. From my understanding, all departments were told that they would have to be prepared for October 26th when they would exit the Open Skies Treaty, because Trump already signed a letter of intent to exit the treaty; which didn’t make any sense to me, since withdrawing from a treaty takes months of negotiations. I asked around if this was something about an NDAA deadline, or some other event that I was unaware of - nobody I asked knew.

On Wednesday October 9th Slate published an article giving a significant amount of detail about the story, 

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/open-skies-trump-bolton-morrison.html

Several articles were written by many experts (WSJ published one from George P. Shultz, William J. Perry and Sam Nunn), even the NYT editorial board, all in support of the treaty, and no interviews were granted to anyone at the White House or National Security Council. The leak was real, and the article by Slate was true - nobody at the NSC was ready to talk about any of it, yet.

Over the next two weeks I spent a lot of time tutoring journalists on the Open Skies Treaty, laying trails of breadcrumbs on Twitter so people could find their own information, hooking them up with experts in the field, publicising new developments about the Open Skies Treaty crisis, and tweeting background for the media and the public. All the while I was being mindful that one of the principal enemies of the treaty was at the helm, in the NSC, destroying the treaty; Tim Morrison. But what would be happening October 26th?

October 23rd, CSIS published an article on the Open Skies Treaty, and when I contacted the author for edits to the piece to make a significant detail unambiguous, he refused to make any changes - not one word - saying he stood behind every word and gave three references to other articles (including The Economist, which he may not have noticed I contributed to). Upon reviewing the articles, none supported his position.

I had contacted the author of the paper, and rethought my many objections, condensing them down to changing just one word toward the top of the article that could be changed to make it clear to the public that flights over Kaliningrad are *not* being blocked; Open Skies Treaty flights are being *frustrated*, by a 500 km limit, and the RCAF has characterised that limit as not significant to their missions over Kaliningrad.  That’s unusual, I thought, but CSIS is a think tank; there is no reason to think they would have any desire to change the piece at all. Why did they publish the piece on October 23rd, two weeks after Slate broke the story on Oct 9th? I still don’t know. That’s unusual, I thought, but CSIS is a think tank, not a newspaper; there is no reason to think they would have any desire to change the piece at all. But why did they publish the piece on October 23rd, two weeks after Slate broke the story on Oct 9th?

This is the 2nd time I’ve run into an Open Skies Treaty article related to someone at CSIS which I’ve found ambiguously worded and riddled with issues, and the author refused to make any changes then too. The last was written by Kath Hicks (and/or her research assistant), for The Cipher Brief. Not one change made out of 8 pages of feedback; I find that fascinating. Perhaps people at CSIS have been, or are being, targeted with disinformation from sources close to Cotton and Morrison; maybe John Bolton is going to appear shortly as one of their senior fellows, time will tell.

(after months of nothing in response to my email, I published the corrections publicly)

While I'm pretty sure I remember @kath_hicks welcoming feedback, I can't find those tweets anymore, and I have heard nothing back from my email on August 16th 2018 requesting the record be corrected. https://t.co/KLH3oAYFzN

— 𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔣𝔣𝔞𝔫 𝔴𝔞𝔱𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔰 🎃 (@steffanwatkins) December 10, 2018

October 26th, the strike on Al-Baghdadi happened, and all leads were about the raid on Sunday, October 27th.

October 27th, the Wall Street Journal published what I would call an unusual article, it didn’t “flow” like any previous reporting about the potential Open Skies Treaty pull-out by the Americans. The article had some treaty-positive information, and also spread propaganda from the opponents of the Open Skies Treaty. I felt it missed some obvious counter-arguments about why the treaty should be kept, and it had the first quote that I’ve seen on the topic from Tim Morrison, the aforementioned NSC official who is spearheading the murder of this 34-country treaty. This was October 27th, one day after October 26th, the date given by NSC officials October 7th to be prepared for, or as we now know it, the day of the Al-Baghdadi raid. The published timeline of events so far suggests Tim Morrison would have been aware of the upcoming Al-Baghdadi raid, and I believe the leak to the WSJ was already part of the plan on October 7th. I believe it is reasonable to think Tim delayed the “leak” by “officials” to the WSJ, about their intent to kill the Open Skies Treaty until October 26th. He would be in a position to know it would take that long to get all their domestic allies on the same page, arrange information operations, get their favourite think tanks on board, “experts” lined up for interviews with the major news networks, the Al-Baghdadi raid would provide cover for the bombshell news, and would get the Open Skies Treaty announcement pushed back to a less prominent position in the daily news cycle.

• Where does that leave CSIS and the WSJ?
• Are they clandestinely operated by the White House?
• Do they only publish what the National Security Council ask them to?

No, I’m not that paranoid.

I believe the answer is more human, less conspiracy. Every journalist is under deadlines, and with a limited amount of research, they need to send to press something at the end of the day, even when nobody calls them back, or maybe previous references are less than clear. Also, every journalist and researcher have their trusted sources on the topics that they’re focused on - myself included. Some of those journalists have Tim Morrison in their Rolodex (look it up kids), the guy who is actively trying to kill the treaty (and provided an exclusive quote to the WSJ), and some have John Bolton, or Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) as their sources; three different people, that will give them the same story, more or less. That’s all the due diligence a journalist might need, to prove they’ve researched a story, if their editor didn’t understand that those three people were the greatest threat to the treaty, and were actually the people trying to kill it. Isn’t it presumptive of me to assume they spoke to one of those three? What if they spoke to none of them? Well, those three people are very influential, themselves having contacts at right-wing think tanks, and other people around Washington, who will also parrot their talking points; they don’t live in a bubble. There is no shortage of former White House and DoD officials who have heard their anti-Open Skies Treaty talking points, and most wouldn’t know that they’re mostly trumped up (no pun intended). Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and his allies have been slandering the treaty with disinformation for years, feeding half-truths to the media, committees, and the public; since Obama, at least. This faction of American government does not represent the will of the people. They represent their own interests, and should be treated as a radical, well funded, fringe group, out to endanger the world for their own reasons.

The Russian air force Open Skies Tupolev Tu-154M RF-85655,

lands at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, Aug. 14, 2019

Photo Credit: Tech. Sgt. Heather Redman, 15th Wing Public Affairs, USAF

The NYT, Slate, Vox, and many others are already on record about what’s been going on with the Open Skies Treaty. Journalists have been contacting sources and writing articles since October ~8th. I can’t understand how the Wall Street Journal was able to delay by over two weeks covering the story, but I’m now watching for others who haven’t, or won’t, write about it as well because they can’t figure out what’s going on.

I hope my efforts in publicising what’s really going on disrupt any disinformation that’s being spread about the Open Skies Treaty. Any journalist with questions about the treaty or what’s been going on is free to email me questions or catch me on Twitter. I’m more than happy to brief them on the history of the treaty, give references to official documents, and referrals to more arms control academics and experts than you can shake a stick at.

Previous Important Open Skies Posts:

• A Journalist's Primer on the Open Skies Treaty
• Debunking Anti-Open Skies Treaty Propaganda, Digital Electro-Optical Sensor Edition
• Cutting through misinformation about the Open Skies Treaty
• DND downplays operational impact of Open Skies restrictions by Russia, contrasting the DoD

(also posted on Medium 2020-03-04)

Did you hear the one about a Russian Yacht circling Puerto Rico, like a shark with lasers?

Dateline November 17, 2017: The Bermuda-flagged super-yacht "Eclipse" sailed into The Port of Palm Beach Florida. Eclipse is Roman Abramovich's yacht; and he's a very rich Russian with ties to Vladimir Putin, so naturally rumours started to circulate among a faction of people, who were still in shock over Donald Trump's election win. One of the stories was about clandestine meetings at Mar-a-Lago; Russian yachts moored off the coast, and their "oligarch" owners slipped in to shore, maybe under the cover of darkness. It was a great story to lift the spirits of those who felt they'd lost the election, and helped smooth over any criticism of Hillary Clinton's election loss. The Russian yacht-clandestine meeting narrative would fan the flames of the story it was the Russians, not the American voters, who were to blame. The yacht story would also prove to be quite absurd.

---

"don’t get all collusion-delusional"

-Tony Doris, Journalist with the Palm Beach Post covering the last yacht story

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As reputable media organisations reported, Roman Abramovich wasn't on his yacht in Florida in 2017.

• That's what his publicist said.
• That's what the press said.
• That's what I said.

Why? How can I be so sure? Because there were no helicopters, no fast cars, no entourage, no limo... and no Roman. Where Roman Abramovich goes, so does the Paparazzi. There were no Paparazzi staking out the ship, because Roman Abramovich wasn't there. Some people wanted to believe the yacht, owned by a rich Russian, was a sign of Russian influence. The yacht was parked for weeks at the end of 11th Avenue in Palm Beach, having preparations done for its usual winter season spent in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, the yacht's presence was all the evidence some people needed. Believing the yacht's owner is nearby may be a good guess for someone's weekend cabin cruiser, it doesn't scale to the mega-rich, with yachts that are the size of cruise ships.

Despite the rumour not being even remotely plausible, let alone true, the story plays to a crowd who would very much like to believe Russian yachts are following the President of the United States up and down the United States East Coast, and somehow meeting with him, despite closed airspace overhead, and secret service agents hiding in the bushes. Mega-yachts of the rich and famous are not following Donald J Trump around. The story is quite ridiculous, and easily shown to be false; all multi-million dollar yachts have AIS transponders, all are tracked, but the rumour has staying power, because people want to believe it. It is quite impossible to smuggle a Russian billionaire into the USA using a yacht that's worth hundreds of millions of dollars unnoticed.

Skip ahead to April 2019, and another (in)famous Russian's yacht sailed into a US harbour, this time, into the Port of San Juan; Andrey Melnichenko's super-yacht "A" - to a crowd of impressed onlookers.

Since Donald J Trump isn't in Puerto Rico (I hear he's not popular with the locals for some reason), how can this non-event be spun to be something nefarious and Russian-y? The rumour is the yacht stopped near a dozen different American military bases in Puerto Rico, the insinuation is they are conducting SIGINT/ELINT/COMINT/(etc); someone even made a list of the bases... but it's not entirely as it seems; it's a truism. Truisms make great springboards for propaganda, especially when people don't understand they're truisms to begin with.

Picture a rectangular dining table, standing on four legs. In your imagination, walk around the table. Now picture the headline as; "Suspicious person seen circling 4 table legs; citizens monitoring situation for signs of vandalism." It misses the obvious, an uses exaggeration for effect; but it's still the same story, phrased differently; spin, propaganda, disinformation - whatever you want to call it.

I want you to think about this. I invite you to look at a map of Puerto Rico. Answer me this; in what direction can you sail around the island, approaching from the East, and loop around the island (ending up heading East again, like a horse shoe) without passing "near" a dozen military bases? Do you sail around the island clockwise, or counterclockwise, to avoid the bases? What do other yachts do? What's is the baseline from which you determine that this trip is at all unusual or out of the ordinary.

unknown source, picture making the rounds with the rumour

I hear Puerto Rico is lovely, but it isn't very big. All of the military bases are close to shore if not on the shore. No matter where you are in Puerto Rico, you're already near a US military base. Even using terms like nearby and close are subjective, and could be an attempt to make the claim impervious to criticism. These are the usual wiggle-words that we, the consumers of propaganda, need to be on-the-lookout for. Additionally, the claim doesn't elaborate regarding the speed or where the ship stopped; it is only referred to as circling the island, and stopping near bases, which is true, they did sail around the island counter clockwise. If they had sailed around the island clockwise would that have avoided scrutiny? My point in pointing out the absurdity of these allegations is they're totally baseless. As a truism those that make the claims can say they're factually correct; and they are. There was a big yacht, owned by a Russian (not a Russian yacht - there's a difference), that sailed around the island of Puerto Rico, as it had previously done around many other Caribbean islands. There's nothing weird or nefarious about it. It's the same route taken by millions of other ships before them, and completely unrelated to Venezuela; which is a new red herring that could have been thrown in by the Venezuela regime change propaganda campaign for all I know.

MarineTraffic.com AIS-T and AIS-S Tracking Data

Using MarineTraffic.com data of the ship's movements shows their pattern of movement matches what you'd expect the route would be for any incredibly expensive yacht; they're sailing from beach to beach, Caribbean vista to Caribbean vista. Overlaying that they're stopping near American military bases is true, but only because Puerto Rico has so many military bases; it's a truism. Every ship that circles the island or stops anywhere near Puerto Rico is "near" a military base.

Voice of America, PolygraphInfo, and the problem with Open Skies Treaty disinformation.

How frustrated am I?  Extremely. Why? I had a lengthy correspondence with one of the Voice of America's award winning journalists, Fatima Tlisova, and it didn't really end well. Ms Tlisova is a former Russian dissident who sought refuge in the United States in 2007, after being repeatedly attacked and poisoned by Putin's goons, and even accused by Infowars of being a CIA asset in 2013; a dubious honour indeed! Ms Tlisova wrote this piece, and despite my best efforts explaining the background of the issues, that she was being exploited as a pawn by government factions with underlying special interests, without the well being of Americans in their mind, the resulting article is only marginally better than how it began. This is not from a lack of trying; Ms Tlisova was gracious and accepting of my criticism, and seemed interested in the truth, but the final edit was made by her editor, and I'm not thrilled with the result. Let's not dwell on the past, let's take apart the current article, as it has been edited by the (nameless) Voice of America editor.

It's been many years that I've been following the Open Skies Treaty flights of the RuAF over Canada and the United States, as well as the flights Canada flies over Russia. I've also been following the problems it has had, mainly between Russia and the United States, and the tit-for-tat retaliation the latest round of threats and posturing has brought on. I was extremely surprised to see an article published by the Voice of America disparaging the treaty, out of the blue, mid-August.

“One thing is completely clear. The State Department does not fabricate charges of Russian arms control violations. They typically do the opposite,” an expert told us. Read the #FactCheck on the Open Skies Treaty https://t.co/TcxpCCHmKs

— Polygraph (@PolygraphInfo) August 23, 2018

Please follow this link and read it over, we're going to pull it apart. Got it? Good.

The stated purpose of Polygraphinfo, by Voice of America, is to debunk disinformation from the Russians.  That's a noble pursuit, one I unquestionably agree with, and even encourage. Well, that is until it starts spitting out disinfomation itself, from factions of the American government, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Have a boo at this 1982 paper from Duke University, and this 2017 article from a  former VOA journalist for background on The Voice of America itself.

Let me just right off the bat re-write this entire article. Yes, the whole thing; it's really really simple to make it completely and unquestionably accurate, to a level that even the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs would approve. Can't believe it? Watch me!

Russia says they are in full compliance with the Treaty on Open Skies; True or Flase?

FALSE

According to the United States Department of State, Russia is in violation of two provisions of the treaty; one regarding a 500km flight distance restriction over Kaliningrad, and another requiring that flight plans stay 10km inside Russian territory along its border with the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia

ref: 2018 Report on Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments; Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance; Washington, DC (April 2018)

It's really that simple. Say up front this is all based on the US State Department, and is only their view; stop speaking for the OSCC or 32 other countries, the US State Department does not speak for them.

For some unknown reason, the Voice of America wants to re-hash American propaganda that I've already debunked, in 2016, especially about a digital electo-optical sensor that she claimed was "illegal" and of too high a resolution to be allowed under the treaty. I told Ms Tlisova that if I didn't know better she'd been given an old slide deck from LtGen Stewart himself, or the staffer who penned it for him. Why? Because the talking points contained in the article are kissing cousins to the talking points provided to the USMC 3-Star General, so he could parrot them to Congress in the spring of 2016. That testimony, along with that of Adm. Haney (the then commander of USSTRATCOM), compelled me to request an interview with the section head of the Royal Canadian Air Force team that conducts Canadian overflights over Russia, on the record, and debunk almost everything they said, which I published via my blog in the fall of 2016. 

Let's do this paragraph by paragraph.

Russia is in violation of the Treaty on Open Skies, because this report said so?

"The claim is false – Russia’s violations of the Treaty are documented in the annual compliance reports that are publicly available on the U.S. State Department website." -VOA

The United States is one or 34 countries who are signatory to the Open Skies Treaty. Rather than name them all, the article glosses over how many by grouping and naming only a few "NATO allies, Eastern European members of the former Warsaw Pact, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia."

Let me spell that out a little better. Here are all the countries who are signatory, because they are all equally important to the treaty, and are above being skimmed over.

Belarus	The French Republic	Kingdom of the Netherlands	Turkey
Belgium	The Republic of Georgia	Norway	Ukraine
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Germany	Poland	The United Kingdom
Bulgaria	Greece	Portugal	The United States
Canada	Hungary	Romania
Croatia	Iceland	The Russian Federation
The Czech Republic	Italy	Slovakia
Denmark	Latvia	Slovenia
Estonia	Lithuania	Spain
Finland	Luxembourg	Sweden

There is no Canadian-nice way to say this; there is no special designation in the treaty for the United States. There is no head of the table that the United States sits at in Vienna, where the Open Skies Consultative Commission (OSCC) is located. The OSCC is made of of 34 state parties that are all working together on equal footing. Each votes for provisions of the treaty. There is dissent among allies, and adversaries; it's a democracy. The United States has one vote, out of thirty four. The United States can write their "compliance report" and publish it, and I'm glad they do since I use it as a historical record of the past year of activities, but I also know it's purely an American document, an American point of view, with no ratification from any of the 33 other countries, no approvals from anyone else before it was published, and no talk of what countries were in favour, or against, the American official positions stated in it. It is not an official document from the OSCC. I don't believe everything the American government tells me, with good reason. That doesn't make me anti-American, that makes me Canadian, and highly skeptical of anything that is stated by the American government. If history is an indication, you should be too. The most patriotic thing I can do is question what I'm being told by a foreign government, demand proof, and background information. The Voice of American tells you that the "truth" is in the American report, that is unilateral, and only from one of the 34 countries who are signatory to the treaty. That is ridiculous, American-centric, self-serving, egotistical twaddle.
So no, Voice of America, the "proof" is not in the State Department document; that is the opinion of a part of the American Government that does not represent the rest of the signatory countries.
Mileage may vary. Let's move on.

Altitude restriction over Moscow? 

"The U.S. says the Russian government sets distance limits on flights over the Kaliningrad Oblast, imposes altitude restrictions for the Moscow region, denies permission for Open Skies aircraft to fly within 10 kilometers of the Russian border with South Ossetia and Abkhazia." -VOA

This is where it gets interesting. While the article links to a compliance report, it links to last year's compliance report, which has been superseded since April 2018, four months before the VOA article was published. Using the latest compliance report would have removed one of three alleged-violations by the Russians, as reported by the 2017 State Department compliance report. Was this an oversight? Was this article prepared last year, but never published? Was the VOA provided a draft of this article with leftovers from previous talking points? I don't know, but I pointed it out, and the editor who reviewed my comments at the Voice of America declined to remove it.
Was this a talking point the VOA board of directions insisted they needed to put out for an upcoming event? While it was arguably a violation, it is no longer a violation; so says this year's compliance report, published by the United States Department of State.

There's a area over Moscow called "UUP-53" that the Russians insist can't be controlled by their air traffic control (ATC), something like a blind spot on their radar, perhaps it's behind a big building or hill, I have no idea. In 2017 the Americans came to the conclusion they'd drop the issue, because they are now considering the same thing, as are their allies, for flight safety reasons.

The same thing Russia has been claiming for years. Well that's awkward.

"Russia’s imposition of a minimum altitude for all air traffic over Moscow, in the region designated as UUP-53, continued and impacted one observation flight in 2016. The United States discussed this concern with States Party in 2016, including Russia’s assertion that the altitude restriction is linked to safety of flight, and it became clear that a number of States Party impose altitude restrictions for reasons of flight safety. The United States, Russia, and other interested States Party intend to explore altitude restrictions as part of a broader discussion of air traffic control procedures and Open Skies Treaty implementation." -United States Department of State, April 2017

Not surprisingly, no mention of this issue can be found in the April 2018 compliance report, because they dropped it. Better still, at no time did Russia prohibit flights over UUP-53, they just required the flights to fly at a higher altitude. Unfortunately, wet film cameras, and their lenses, are configured to produce treaty mandated 30cm resolution at a specific height. Flying higher means a different camera needs to be used, perhaps just a different lens; either way, not all countries had the camera necessary to do the higher flight, but since all countries pool their imagery, it wouldn't matter who took the pictures, everyone would see them anyway. To reiterate, no flights over Moscow have ever been prohibited, they just need to fly higher, for safety, which doesn't affect the quality of the imagery, when you use the right camera.

What's the 500km bit about over Kaliningrad?

"The U.S. says the Russian government sets distance limits on flights over the Kaliningrad Oblast, imposes altitude restrictions for the Moscow region, denies permission for Open Skies aircraft to fly within 10 kilometers of the Russian border with South Ossetia and Abkhazia." -VOA

True, Russia does impose a 500km limit for flights over Kaliningrad, which is about the size of Connecticut, and have done so since 2012, because.. hang on, I'll let the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs explain why. Importantly, this is the same reason I'd heard off the record, over a year before, so I was pretty excited to hear it directly from the Russian MFA spokesperson Maria Zakharova, corroborating what I'd heard already (not from a Russian source either).

(Here is the translation of the relevant part)

First, Russia has imposed restrictions, allegedly unlawfully, on observation flights over the Kaliningrad Region. According to the United States, this precludes effective observation of Russia’s territory during the approved number of flights. Moreover, NATO countries have accused Russia of a desire to “conceal” military facilities near Kaliningrad from Open Skies cameras.
It is much simpler than this, though. Some of our partners, who have the right to make observation flights at a maximum distance of 5,500 kilometres, used this right over the Kaliningrad Region, flying over it far and wide, which created problems in the limited airspace of the region and hindered the operation of Khrabrovo International Airport. We did not manage to convince our partners to show a reasonable degree of restraint. This is why we had to minimise spending by restricting the maximum flight distance over the Kaliningrad Region to 500 kilometres. This is not contrary to the OST or the signatories’ subsequent decisions. I would like to point out that this has not changed the total flight distance of 5,500 km and hence coverage of Russia’s territory. The flight range of 500 km over the Kaliningrad Region is sufficient for observing any part of the region, even the most distant areas, during observation flights. In other words, this restriction has not affected observation effectiveness.
-Maria Zakharova, Spokesperson, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, September 28, 2017 (original here)

Let me elaborate further; The US, Canada, or any country, can fly 5500 km over Russia (maximum distance per flight) and take pictures anywhere they want, with a certified camera, on a certified plane, with RuAF members aboard their plane as observers. Missile facilities, tank factories, ICBM silos, Naval bases - anywhere, as long as the max distance travelled is less than 5500 km. Russia is a really big place, and if you don't get all of what you want in 5500 km, you can come back the next week, next month, or next year, and do it again (and fill out all the paperwork to do so, of course). What Ms Zakharova is alluding to is a flight by one of the signatory parties which performed a "lawnmower" pattern over Kaliningrad, burning thousands of kilometres over one spot the size of Connecticut. Because of the "lawnmower pattern", commercial and private flight was heavily disrupted. Planes couldn't take off, or land, because the Open Skies Treaty flight kept looping back, and forth - treaty flights take precedence for ATC; everyone had to get out of their way. After this perfectly treaty-legal flight, Russia brought it up and protested at the next meeting of the OSCC. They couldn't get a satisfying resolution to their concerns; specifically that another State couldn't just do an entire aerial surveillance of the entire territory and shutdown their airspace, therefore imposed a unilateral 500 km restriction, using "flight safety" as a reason, IIRC. I can't really argue with that, since watching Russian flight patterns over Canada and the United States, and getting the post-flight reports of those flights via Access to Information requests, does confirm their flights are between military bases, naval bases, rail hubs, and that sort of thing. They don't just fly thousands of miles carpeting all of Nova Scotia in one day. They cover large distances to see multiple sites, spread all across one area or another during two or three days of flights.

So yes, Russia has imposed a limit over Kaliningrad, they feel it's justified, and they feel it's a safety issue. We can disagree, but there really needs to be an OSCC voice involved, not just an American statement that it's a violation. What do the other 32 nations, who aren't complaining about it, saying?  Well, Canada for one, from an operational point of view, isn't bothered by the sub-limit. I asked  Royal Canadian Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Steeve Veillette, the section head of the Canadian Department of National Defence Strategic Joint Staff Arms Control and Verification (4); the team which flies Canadian Open Skies Treaty missions over other signatory states, and facilitates their flights over Canada.

When asked about Russian restrictions on the Open Skies Treaty overflights over the Russian Federation, and if they impacted the observation missions the RCAF routinely flies over the Russian Federation in those same restricted areas, Lieutenant-Colonel Veillette stated ...

". . . somewhat, but at the end I don't think the treaty is degraded by any shape or form . . . operationally it makes things a little bit more complicated, but not totally (insurmountable), there's always a way."  

Specifically on the topic of the flight distance restriction of 500km imposed over Kaliningrad:

"If I cannot see everything in 500km it doesn't mean I cannot go a 2nd time and do another 500km, if I wanted to do 1000km there; so in the end, is it degraded? Somewhat, because I would rather do it once."

...which, again, is a far cry from the Pentagon / DoD narrative which depicted the Russian-imposed restrictions as being heinous acts, stopping just short of suggesting the United States should pull out of treaty because of them.

-Interview with Lieutenant-Colonel Veillette, Steffan Watkins, Vessel of Interest (Blog) 2016-10-06

The buck stops with him, and he says it's no big deal. I'm inclined to believe him, over a USMC 3-Star General who compares digital cameras vs wet film to 1080p vs Polaroids.
Go on, watch the video, General Stewart's testimony is horrifyingly terrible and poorly informed.

What's this 10km limit with Georgia?

"The U.S. says the Russian government sets distance limits on flights over the Kaliningrad Oblast, imposes altitude restrictions for the Moscow region, denies permission for Open Skies aircraft to fly within 10 kilometers of the Russian border with South Ossetia and Abkhazia." - VOA

Yes, I'm still going over the same paragraph... I know - think of how I feel!

The Open Skies Treaty is meant to allow countries to fly over each others' territory, and make sure they're not about to invade or build a WMD, not spy on those countries' neighbours. There is a provision in the treaty that states that flights must stay inside the overflown country's border, by 10 km, when the flight path is adjacent to a country which is not part of the Open Skies Treaty.
Turkey shares a border with Syria, Iraq, and Iran. I'm sure Iran doesn't want an American observation plane overflying Turkey, 1 km from their border; when you look "down" from that flight path, you'd get a lot of Iran in the picture. That is why the 10 km provision is there. Simple, right?

Now we complicate things; Russia recognizes the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, but Georgia, the United States, and pretty much everyone else, doesn't. By Russia recognizing them as countries, they require flights stay 10 km inside Russia when flight plans for Open Skies trips are near their borders. By my very rough estimates, that's ~250 km of border. Russia is requiring, according to their interpretation of the rules, that flight plans stay inside 10 km of those 250 km of border. Georgia claims that humouring Russia about this 10 km limit is recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia's independence, and greatly object to any such agreement. This argument, over time, has become baseless, specifically since 2014, as the same issue exists over Crimea, which is not recognized as being part of Russia by many, but no signatory countries ask for an Open Skies Treaty flights over Crimea, as they would have to ask Ukraine for permission, but really Russia controls that airspace. Neither Crimea, South Ossetia, or Abkhazia are Open Skies Treaty-Related issues. Countries are not overflying Crimea as part of the Open Skies Treaty, and it does not mean they approve of Russia's annexation. While the Georgia issue is quite relevant to Russia and Georgia, it should not block all flights everywhere - oh yeah, which is exactly what has happened.

All Open Skies Treaty flights were stopped by Georgia starting January 1st 2018, grossly violating everything the Open Skies Treaty stands for - WAY beyond any "restrictions" Russia has ever done.

Every year the Open Skies Treaty signatories bid for quotas to overfly each other at the end of the year. Signatories who already have a quota to overfly another country get preference to renew their quota and keep the status quo, and if they don't want to keep flying with their quota, they release it so another country can pick it up. Any other country can take their quota if they desire overflying the other country. Russia requested, as part of the quota process, to overfly Georgia, but Georgia, because of their unresolved border issues, has since 2013 refused any and all overflights of Russian Air Force Planes, including the Open Skies Treaty-approved one. That's been easy to do, since Russia didn't have a quota to overfly Georgia, until the end of 2017, when the OSCC was signing off on the 2018 quotas and there was an available opportunity for Russia, which they took, completely legitimately and within the procedures of the Open Skies Treaty, but, Georgia won't sign off. Despite the Voice of America bleating like a wounded goat about Russian alleged violations of the Open Skies Treaty which 1) required flights to be done at a higher altitude or 2) required a distance sub-limit, Georgia has blocked the entire treaty, preventing all flights, everywhere, while the United States has turned a blind eye, because there's nothing the United States would like more than prevent Russia from overflying the United States. ..and you know what? They've got away with it.

Let me repeat that:

There has not been a single Open Skies Treaty overflight of any country in 2018, not one. Georgia has stopped all flights due to their own political reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the Open Skies Treaty, or 32 signatory nations.  Georgia will not sign-off on the 2018 flight quotas, therefore no flights can take place. This has been reported sparingly in the Russian media, and absolutely not at all in the American media, yet.

What about the Voice of America article?

Oh yeah; this blog post started with me, reading over the article that was published by the Voice of America, seeing red because the Voice of America was parroting talking points from years ago, with outdated information that I'd already debunked. Where out of left field did this come from? The claim made by the original edit of the article was that the digital electro optical sensor used by the RuAF was beyond the resolution allowed by the treaty, and that the camera was somehow illegal. These claims are factually completely false. The digital electro-optical sensor was approved aboard the Tu-154 the Russians use for their Open Skies Treaty flights over the United States and Canada by the OSCC.  The camera is a OSDCAM 4060, in case you want the specifications to compare for yourself. It should be quite self-evident that the camera used over the United States and Canada, last year, would have to be certified and approved, or it wouldn't have been flying over the country. I stopped writing about the digital electro-optical sensor years ago, because the whole argument was over - moot - the Tu-154 was flying overhead with the digital camera in use. It's quite incredible that the VOA would out of the blue bring this up again, and write an article full of factual inaccuracies, and bias - or maybe I shouldn't have expected anything more from the State Department's propaganda wing. I do give them credit, they did change the article after I resoundingly proved that they were completely wrong to call the digital electro-optical sensor illegal under the Open Skies Treaty. However, it was the least they could do, short of nothing at all.

MOAR READING

Here is your fill of Open Skies Treaty blog posts, which seem to still be relevant today:

A Journalist's Primer on the Open Skies Treaty
Cutting through misinformation about the Open Skies Treaty
Open Skies Treaty overflight; Russia over Canada 2016
Two Russian Open Skies Treaty aerial observation missions over the USA in June 2017
Russian Open Skies observation flights are doing nothing unexpected over Canada
Open Skies Treaty overflight of the United States by the RuAF Sept 25-29 2017
Russian Open Skies Treaty overflight of the USA, August 2017 edition
Russian Observation flights over the United States, again. (May 18-19 2017)

I'll remind you that the US Government suppresses as much information as possible about the Open Skies Treaty, keeping all imagery, flight plans, mission plans, or even when past missions have been performed over the United States a secret, as a matter of policy. The Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Government do not, proving this is a partisan American issue, not a treaty-secret.  Still, everything I've found has been very difficult to source through open source methods. It's not an accident either, the American government want the American public kept in the dark about the treaty, since it had been working quite well, despite the Republican push to kill all treaties and open up the purse strings for defence spending on new missile technology.