Cooperative airborne monitoring: Opening the skies to promote peace, protect the environment, and cope with natural disasters

Abstract

Few arms control scholars or practitioners are familiar with the Open Skies Treaty and other cooperative airborne monitoring programmes. Yet the Treaty only began full-scale implementation on 1 January 2006. All NATO members and much of the former Warsaw Pact region are subject to overflights. According to the quotas specified by the treaty, Russia and the United States each are subject to up to 42 annual confidence-building overflights annually by planes equipped with cameras and other sensors, though there will be only four overflights in 2006. Other parties to the treaty have smaller overflight quotas. This is progress, but there are a host of new applications for airborne monitoring regimes that have barely been explored. This article summarizes the history and current status of Open Skies, indicating its strengths but also highlighting its weaknesses. It recommends future uses for cooperative airborne monitoring. Open Skies regimes can be an effective tool in many conflict areas including India–Pakistan and the Horn of Africa. They also have enormous potential for surveying the environment, verifying environmental agreements, evaluating degradation, and natural disaster assessment.