Pentagon Moves to Block Russian Spy Plane in American Skies

Pentagon Moves to Block Russian Spy Plane in American Skies

Russian surveillance planes already fly over America, thanks to a long-standing treaty. But a new, ultra-sophisticated spy plane has U.S. military and intelligence bosses spooked.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. military and American intelligence agencies have quietly pushed the White House in recent weeks to deny a new Russian surveillance plane the right to fly over U.S. territory. This week, the White House finally began consideration of the decision whether to certify the new Russian aircraft under the so-called “Open Skies Treaty.” And now the question becomes: Will the spies and generals get their way?

As the United States and Russia face off publicly over Ukraine, behind the scenes, President Obama’s national security cabinet is having its own quiet feud over a long-standing agreement to allow Russian surveillance flights over U.S. airspace.

The spies and the generals want to deny the Russians the overflight rights for its latest surveillance planes. The State Department, which ultimately makes that decision, has favored such certification. On Wednesday an interagency meeting of senior officials failed to reach consensus, delaying the decision until Obama takes it up with the National Security Council, according to U.S. officials involved in the dispute.

At issue is the Open Skies Treaty. First signed in 1992 and finally ratified in 2002, the treaty adopted by 34 nations allows the safe passage of planes equipped with advanced cameras and sensors that give governments the imagery and data they use to assess everything from compliance with arms control treaties to troop movements.

On April 15, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, and the Republican chairman of that panel’s subcommittee that oversees the U.S. nuclear arsenal, Rep. Mike Rogers from Alabama, urged Obama to deny Russia the right to fly its new planes over U.S. airspace.

In their letter, the two lawmakers write, “We agree with the concerns expressed by the Intelligence Community and the military leadership of the Department of Defense” in their opposition to certifying the new Russian planes under the treaty.

The State Department on the other hand has argued the United States should live up to the treaty's obligations and approve the new Russian aircraft. The decision to certify the planes and their sensors has been pending since late last year, long before the Ukraine crisis began. One senior U.S. official said, “This isn’t just an issue between the United States and Russia. Our allies and partners depend on this treaty for insight into Russia because they don’t have the same capabilities as the United States.”

The Russians use the aircraft today to monitor U.S. nuclear weapons as part of arms control agreements between both countries. The Russian planes, according to U.S. officials involved in the dispute, contain a new sensor package that would allow Moscow to surveil American nuclear assets with a level of precision and detail that makes U.S. military and intelligence leaders deeply uncomfortable.

A letter first published by the Weekly Standard on April 13 from two Republican and two Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said the Russian Federation had just completed construction of aircraft that will “support digital photograph equipment, sideways-looking synthetic aperture radar, and infrared equipment.”

A U.S. official familiar with the dispute and sympathetic to the concerns of the military and intelligence community told The Daily Beast that the worry over the new Russian aircraft is independent of the standoff in Ukraine. “This would have been an issue even if there was no Ukraine crisis,” this official said.

In some ways, however, the Ukraine showdown has placed pressure the White House to hold off on further angering the Russians. The State Department, which has worked with Russia to iron out at least an agreement in principle to begin to disarm the pro-Russian militias that have seized eastern Ukrainian cities, wants to allow the new Russian aircraft to fly over U.S. airspace.

The Ukraine crisis has complicated the decision-making process on the Open Skies issue. Ukraine’s military has still failed to take back cities that have fallen to militias that Western leaders have said publicly are orchestrated by Russia’s special operations units known as the Spetsnaz. 

In Geneva, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the beginning of a process to de-escalate the crisis. But Lavrov also promised Kerry there were no military plans to take Crimea in late February, only to see Spetsnaz soldiers in uniforms without insignia take the peninsula's airports and government buildings. .......

Pentagon Moves to Block Russian Spy Plane in American Skies - The Daily Beast