Open Skies: Transparency, Confidence-Building, and the End of the Cold War - Hardcover

Jones, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804790981 ISBN 13: 9780804790987

Verlag: Stanford University Press, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

This book recounts and analyzes the history of one of the best-kept diplomatic and security secrets of the last half-century-the Open Skies Treaty: a treaty that allows the U.S., the Russian Federation, and over 30 other signatories to fly unarmed reconnaissance aircraft over one another's territory. First proposed by President Eisenhower in 1955, shelved by succeeding administrations, re-launched by President George H. W. Bush in 1989, and finally ratified in 2002, the Treaty has been one of the most important security instruments of the 21st century-with over 1,000 flights logged to date providing confidence for the governments, intelligence communities, and militaries of former and potential adversaries.

Written by a professor and former diplomat who was deeply involved in the negotiations of the Open Skies Treaty from 1989 to 1995, this book is a meticulous work of political history that explores how Open Skies affected, and was affected by, the extraordinary times of its negotiation-during which the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed. But it is also a potential blueprint for future applications of the Open Skies concept by providing insights into the role that cooperative aerial monitoring can play in helping to transform other difficult relationships around the world. As such it will serve as a negotiation handbook for diplomats, bureaucrats, and politicians and as a case-study textbook for IR students and students of diplomacy.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Peter Jones teaches in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

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Open Skies

Transparency, Confidence-Building, and the End of the Cold War

By Peter Jones

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2014 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8047-9098-7

Contents

Preface, 
Foreword by Sidney D. Drell, 
Introduction, 
1. From the First Open Skies Initiative to the Stockholm Conference, 
2. Open Skies Reborn, 
3. The Issues Explored, 
4. The Ottawa and Budapest Conferences, 
5. Interim Negotiations, 
6. The First Vienna Round, 
7. End-Game, 
8. Into Force and Into the Future, 
Conclusion, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

From the First Open Skies Initiative to the Stockholm Conference

May 1989 was not the first time the idea of an Open Skies regime was put forward. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed such a regime in Geneva in July of 1955 at the Four Power (U.S., USSR, UK, and France) Summit. The considerations that prompted the first initiative bear resemblance to those of the 1989 version. In both cases a small group of presidential advisors were instrumental in imposing a "top-down" initiative on an unwilling U.S. bureaucracy. In both cases the adoption of the initiative had a great deal to do with the political needs of the moment, and particularly a desire to publicly test the leadership of the USSR.

Indeed, historians—particularly those who have studied the 1955 Open Skies initiative with the benefit of access to declassified archives—are divided as to Eisenhower's motives. Some believe it represented a real desire to propose a measure that would have benefited both sides and reduced tensions and fear of surprise attack. Others regard it as having been a somewhat cynical ploy that was never intended to be accepted, but rather to expose the Soviet penchant for extreme secrecy and contrast it unfavorably with a U.S. willingness to "take risks for peace." In the latter connection, it will be recalled that desultory nuclear disarmament discussions were underway at this time, and there was a perception in many quarters that the United States was not prepared to entertain serious proposals for disarmament. In fact, we now know that there was a raging debate within the U.S. government over whether it would be possible to pursue serious negotiations on disarmament with the Soviets, who were widely perceived to be far ahead in conventional weaponry, and also fundamentally untrustworthy. Moreover, given that Eisenhower had decided to rely on the threat of massive nuclear retaliation for Soviet transgressions, even conventional ones, there were suspicions that the U.S. was simply not interested in seriously pursuing nuclear disarmament.

The idea for Open Skies arose during a meeting of a small group of analysts working for presidential advisor Nelson Rockefeller. Rockefeller, whose mandate was to "find ways to exploit Soviet vulnerabilities on information, ideology and international issues," had brought the group together in advance of the upcoming Geneva Summit. His charge to the group was to come up with initiatives that might be used by the president at the summit to demonstrate U.S. willingness to consider real arms control, and to test the Soviets' willingness to do the same. This group met at the Quantico Marine base in Virginia between June 5 and 10, 1955.

The Quantico panel was aware of the superiority enjoyed by the United States in most areas of the military competition, and especially in the nuclear sphere. Nevertheless, the extreme secrecy of the Soviet state made it difficult for U.S. planners to get a firm grip on the extent of Soviet military capability. There were also concerns that misperceptions might lead to an inadvertent escalation during a crisis. It will be remembered that surveillance satellites had not yet been deployed, and U.S. U2 reconnaissance flights did not yet exist.

The idea of cooperative aerial inspections was suggested by Max Millikan of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who had heard it discussed at a seminar in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Quantico panel was impressed by the idea. They particularly liked the fact that it would test the Soviets' willingness to accept the kind of intrusive measures necessary for the verification of the disarmament proposals then under discussion. Open Skies was thus seen as a winwin: if the Soviets accepted it, the United States would gain access to vast areas it could not presently monitor; if the Soviets rejected it, a dramatic and easily understood public relations point would have been scored by a U.S. that would be seen as being prepared to accept intrusive inspections for peace against a USSR that was not. Accordingly, the group included a recommendation for some type of intrusive aerial inspection regime in their report to Rockefeller on June 10, 1955.

Rockefeller presented the idea to the president in early July. Eisenhower was attracted to it, but his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, was leery. Although he had some reservations about the proposal itself, Dulles's main concern was that the president not be stampeded into making proposals for the sake of the moment that the United States might come to regret at a later date. It should also be said that an intense rivalry existed between Rockefeller and Dulles, with the latter being especially jealous of his prerogative as the main presidential advisor on foreign policy matters. Also involved in this discussion was presidential disarmament advisor Harold Stassen, who saw Open Skies as a way to shift U.S. nuclear disarmament proposals from an "all or nothing" approach to one in which specific issues—such as the inspection regime that would be necessary for disarmament—could be tackled one by one. In this, Stassen was also opposed by Dulles, who did not believe that the Soviets were interested in real disarmament and could not be trusted. Dulles was concerned that Soviet disarmament proposals were a propaganda ploy designed to undermine U.S. public support for continued development of nuclear weapons and to split the Western alliance, and he believed that the United States should avoid discussion of them.

When Eisenhower left for Geneva, then, Open Skies was not on his list of matters to be raised. Instead, Dulles had won, and the president went to Geneva prepared to listen to whatever the Soviets might offer. It had, after all, been their idea to hold the summit in the first place. Indeed, both Eisenhower and Dulles had been leery of the whole summit idea, fearing that little of substance would be accomplished and that the Soviets might score a propaganda victory at the West's expense. But they recognized that their allies, France and the UK, were keen on the summit for their own internal political reasons and that world opinion was also receptive to the idea. Eisenhower therefore agreed to Dulles's advice on Open Skies but asked Rockefeller to have members of his staff familiar with the plan in Geneva, in case he changed his mind.

As the summit unfolded, Eisenhower became uneasy at the fact that little of substance was being proposed by either side. The U.S. news media was becoming somewhat restive, and the president wanted to make a statement of "drama and substance." Rockefeller once again raised the idea of Open Skies during an evening meeting in the president's quarters. This time the president was prepared to accept the idea and overruled Dulles.

The next day, July 18, 1955, Eisenhower made a statement...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0804790981
• ISBN 13: 9780804790987
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 264
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande