Trump exiting Open Skies treaty
According to anonymous sources, Trump has decided to pull the U.S. out of the Open Skies Treaty, negotiated in 2002 to allow countries to overfly other nations freely.
President Trump will be pulling the United States out of the Open Skies Treaty, an agreement between more than 30 countries that allow for those involved to fly in each other’s air spaces, a senior administration official confirmed to Fox News. The New York Times first reported that Trump was planning to withdraw from the agreement, worrying NATO member nations who are concerned that once the U.S. is out, Russia will block their flights, which provide valuable surveillance of their own borders.
U.S. officials have warned that Russia had been violating the treaty already by not allowing flights over areas where military exercises were taking place or sites where Russia had nuclear weapons deployed. Each nation in the treaty agrees to make all its territory available for surveillance flights.
Note also that China is not a signatory.
Not surprisingly, their Democratic Party allies, always ready to aid other countries over U.S. interests, are already blasting this decision by the Trump administration.
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According to anonymous sources, Trump has decided to pull the U.S. out of the Open Skies Treaty, negotiated in 2002 to allow countries to overfly other nations freely.
President Trump will be pulling the United States out of the Open Skies Treaty, an agreement between more than 30 countries that allow for those involved to fly in each other’s air spaces, a senior administration official confirmed to Fox News. The New York Times first reported that Trump was planning to withdraw from the agreement, worrying NATO member nations who are concerned that once the U.S. is out, Russia will block their flights, which provide valuable surveillance of their own borders.
U.S. officials have warned that Russia had been violating the treaty already by not allowing flights over areas where military exercises were taking place or sites where Russia had nuclear weapons deployed. Each nation in the treaty agrees to make all its territory available for surveillance flights.
Note also that China is not a signatory.
Not surprisingly, their Democratic Party allies, always ready to aid other countries over U.S. interests, are already blasting this decision by the Trump administration.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
I’ve always wondered if the Russians overflew places like Area 51. The treaty says at least a few days notice has to be given, so the UFOs would be in the hanger and everyone would be sick that day. They used to occasionally overfly my old base, and it wasn’t a big deal. It was said we didn’t return the favor as much because satellite reconnaissance is far superior.
The Expanse
“Preemptive Railgun attack on Mars”
https://youtu.be/9fgaMhcTxCY?t=130
Like leaving the INF intermediate range missile treaty, I think Trump’s longer term aim is to get a new set of treaties that include China (after Xi Jinping is hanged).
Donald J Trump ending his typical standing press conference at the helicopter “Remarks Upon Departure” to that Ford factory (a company that is now smaller in market capitalization than the hand made collection item maker Ferrari):
Journalist:
– (Are you going to be present at the rocket launch? [SpaceX crewed Dragon 27 May])
Trump:
– I’m thinking about going to the rocket launch, next week. I’d like to put ya’ all on the rocket to get rid of you for a while!”
With satellite technology today, the flyovers appear outdated.
@Charles, Being at 10 km altitude over a target of interest, at a speed of a couple of hundred meters per second, always will have advantages over being at 300 km altitude at eight million meters per second. Being 30 times closer to the target means a thousand times better resolution with the same equipment.
*) thousands turned millions above. That’s weird.
The sad thing is that these over flights are not just fly overs.
The participants have to call ahead and get permission for a specific path. They are allowed to fly anyplace.
The real problem is that members like Russia do not have the aircraft that can make the fly over without refueling. So we have been letting them land and refuel inside the US.
Plus the US doesn’t even need to do fly overs anymore. Just put a satellite on it.
In terms of whether Open Skies is still needed, let me point out that it was proposed by Eisenhower in 1955. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-presents-his-open-skies-plan
– the same year the U-2 first flew and so, before it was operational.
I would think that the people who know whether it is useful or not aren’t talking
LocalFluff–
you mean, “after Xi Jinping is….. vaporized.”
Minuteman III launch animation
https://youtu.be/S-V6MZlyCqE
2:22
@wayne
No, I mean when, any day now, Xi’s (isn’t that spelled “her’s” in English?) best friends hang him from a lamp post because he’s in their way of earning more monies by opening up and do good business. Like the Chinese in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore do. Xi is more afraid of the Chinese than anyone else is. Xi grabbed totalitarian power from his rival party friends, and promised Nirvana. When his promise isn’t kept, something bad will happen to him.
“- Here’s your ‘Belt” around your neck on this ‘enlightened Road’ of yours!”
Doesn’t his formal tenure end in 2022? I think it will. Even if he hasn’t formally nominated a successor, I think that others have. They who had enough of Mao I.