Why does Mr. Trump want to break the "open sky"?
Skill frostbite ears spite others
The Trump administration is famous for its strange, difficult to understand, and sometimes inexplicable steps. It is worth noting that in this it is quite consistent. Their policy in relations with the Russian Federation and the PRC, and on the Syrian issue, and in relation to Iran and the "nuclear deal", and in relations with NATO, and with the DPRK has features of unpredictability, situationality, paradoxical decisions and other things. And with regard to international treaties, the same thing - remember the withdrawal from the INF Treaty, which would harm primarily the interests of the United States and its allies, or an open chatter about the extension of the START-3, attempts to include China there (without England and France), or the issue of nuclear weapons, then "systems weapons 1 of March, "of those that do not fall into it in any way. However, the tradition of" spitelessly frosting my ears "coming out of contracts that were good for America is not only a feature of Trump's style, it is the style of all post-Soviet administrations.
Recall the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. And what the Americans now have on this issue, they could realize all this without leaving the DPRO and not providing the opportunity for the Russian Federation to develop in the sphere of missile defense what had already been worked out for a long time. As well as the possibilities of creating systems, the need to create which in the Russian Federation was explained precisely by the opponent’s withdrawal from the missile defense system, and their real purpose is much more widespread and dangerous for the USA. Americans are generally masters at driving themselves into uncomfortable positions and releasing someone else's genie from a bottle. Let us recall at least the beginning and the outcome of the hypersonic race - who started it and how things are now. Or the US actions to put together a strong military-political alliance of the Russian Federation and the PRC. It has already been created, thanks to the Americans, and the fact that Sergey Lavrov denies the plans for its creation was convinced by experts in the West that it was already created, and no more, and our denials look like excuses for the couple who spent the night in a hotel in one room that "they are just friends and they have nothing." And now with the “open sky” (hereinafter referred to as the Don, Open Skies Treaty), the situation will come out again, when the Americans will step on their own feet first of all. But, unfortunately, the whole world and general international security and strategic stability, too.
One intelligent general and sensible politician
History This treaty goes back to the distant, distant times of the middle of the 50's, when there was an open arms race. Then the American nuclear arsenal ... was decently larger than now, and amounted to more than 4650 of ammunition (but then it grew rampant, and did not fall confidently under victorious talks about "the growth of America's nuclear power to unprecedented heights"). And he did not grow by tens or hundreds, but by thousands of ammunition per year! Soviet also grew, but was still scanty against the American background, probably like the DPRK arsenal, but it was already and the Americans were already afraid of it, including because they knew little about it. They were even more afraid of the overwhelming land power of the USSR (though the authorities already had the “dear” NS Khrushchev, who did a lot to destroy this land power). And in the United States, one of the presidents, probably the most sensible and who understood the essence of things, ruled Dwight Eisenhower, the military general who passed the Second World War. And although “Hayk” itself was neither a talent of the level of Zhukov, Vasilevsky or Vatutin, nor the experience of such a brutal and uncompromising war as the Second World War, he did not have, but he was an intelligent general.
And the military most often differs from the politician in that he really wants to fight much less, because he knows what war is. What a nuclear war is, no one really knew, but Eisenhower at one time refused his military to deliver a preemptive surprise attack on the USSR (which promised a quick and effective victory), saying that he was not ready to go to this kind of war, because in the US bulldozers, then to clear their cities of corpses. He also understood where the "military-industrial complex" that was then emerging, was trying to drag him and the country as a whole (according to Eisenhower, this was not only military industry, but also a bunch of interested military, political and industrial circles). In general, Ike understood very well that the level of tension in relations between the two world superpowers (although the USSR did not have the right to be called so in the nuclear plan, in general, there is still a trace of it) should be reduced. And the first steps in establishing contacts took place during his reign, and not under the “good” Kennedy, who twice brought the situation to extremely dangerous crises, which were nuclear in nature.
But what is the best way to convince an opponent that you are not going to attack him, and vice versa, are you afraid of his attack first? Of course, various very honest words and even signed papers on this issue of faith are not enough. The agents may also be mistaken - let’s recall the leapfrog with the dates of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. We need reliable technical reconnaissance equipment (TSR). This, of course, is a set of measures - both radio and radio reconnaissance, and air reconnaissance, and reconnaissance by means of the orbital grouping (specific optical and electron-optical, radar, radio engineering, etc.). It is possible to deceive TCP, including satellite ones. Or you can get a more or less complete array of data, but don’t understand anything about it - this is a problem for intelligent analysts, and no supercomputers and light-headed neural networks can replace it. So they “burst” in the USA in 2014, when they did not understand and recognized the intentions and actions of the Russian leadership in relation to the Ukrainian crisis, in the situation with Crimea and Donbass. So they were mistaken during the Danube operation in 1968 or its counterfeit analogue with respect to Poland in 1981 (General Jaruzelski, who saved Poland from this then, the grateful Poles then tried to condemn). But, nevertheless, with orbital reconnaissance capabilities, it is possible to adequately assess the situation - say, if Stalin had satellites, in 1941 he would have the opportunity to check whether the agents were lying to him or not. There were no satellites, and aerial photography on the adjacent territory of the USSR was feared, as you know, so as not to provoke.
General Eisenhower also had 1955. there were no satellites, they were not there at all. And aerial photography even now, after so many years of developing space assets, surpasses space in quality and resolution (because the properties of the Earth’s atmosphere and the physical and optical limitations cannot be surpassed by anyone except advertisers and Hollywood storytellers). In 1955. "General Hayk" in Geneva, at a meeting with the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Bulganin, proposed through him Khrushchev a mechanism that later formed the basis of the concept of open sky. As he himself said after the meeting:
"Open sky" of a modern sample
The USSR and the USA did not return to this idea almost until the very end of the Cold War (which, in general, never ended, but officially it is). Namely, until 1989, when George W. Bush. came up with a similar idea, which eventually led to a real agreement. The Open Skies Agreement was signed after the collapse of the Union, at the beginning of the 90's. Russia ratified it only in 2001. It entered into force in 2002, 10 years after signing, and then 27 countries were its participants. Now their 34.
DON itself consists of a preamble, 19 articles and 12 applications.
Under the Agreement, a fly-by-air quota system is in place. For example, in the 2017 year of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, recorded as one group of countries, they had the right to 42 flights over the member states of the Don. And they had the right to 34 flight over the territories of the Russian Federation and Belarus. In 2008. we had 46 flights over participating countries, and 33 over us and Belarusians. That is, in fact, given the fact that the majority of the participants are NATO countries, they have more opportunities for observation missions than we have above them, because there are many countries. But there are nuances, you can not control many countries that have no interest for Russia. But using the entire quota over one country or group of countries will also fail.
Aircraft of DON member states can use the following surveillance equipment on their reconnaissance aircraft: optical panoramic and frame cameras, video cameras with a real-time image on a display (resolution not higher than 0.3, that is, at a level not higher than ideal for space vehicles), Side-scan radar (RLSBO) with synthesized aperture (resolution not higher than 3m), infrared systems (resolution not higher than 50 cm).
Open air planes
Russia usually uses An-30Б and Tu-154М-ЛК1 aircraft for control flights. The Americans are OS-135В aircraft, created on the basis of the ancient KS-135 refueling aircraft, which itself was created on the basis of the C-135 transporter, essentially a militarized Boeing-707. But often the American "partners" used our An-30B - it’s cheaper to rent a plane, and pictures from our plane were usually better. The problems began when in Russia for the first time, among the parties to the contract, they created an airline complex, fully utilizing the capabilities of the DON itself.
It's about Tu-214ON. The aerial photo complex is represented by photosystems located in the bow of the fuselage on the lower deck. There is also a radar station with a capture band of up to 25 km and a viewing area of up to 50 km. The center section also contains infrared equipment with a range of viewing angles of 130 °, the scanning bandwidth on the ground - 4,6H of the flight altitude with measurement by radio altimeter. Say, if the flight altitude is 10000km, then the strip will be 46km wide. The composition of the TCEs, the television surveillance complex, includes three TV cameras - the central wide-angle KTSH-5 and two lateral CTBO-6. The viewing angle of KTSH-5 reaches 148 degrees, the scanning width on the ground is 6,6H (with the same 10000m it will be 66km). The viewing angle of the CTBO-6 is from 8,5 ° in narrow focus to 20,1 ° in wide focus with a range of viewing angles of 60 °. The aircraft is equipped with a perfect on-board digital computer system designed to control the operation and control the monitoring mode of surveillance equipment, as well as to display real-time information from surveillance equipment and its recording and processing. The BCVK structure includes 5 automated workstations (AWS), united in a local network: AWP of the operator of the aerial complex, AWP of the radar operator, AWP of the operator of infrared equipment, AWP of the operator of TV equipment and AWP of the senior flight representative.
But all this beautiful equipment, for some reason, frightened some in the USA, a number of representatives of military and political circles raised a wave about how dangerous this airline complex is and how it can carry "undocumented" equipment. As if with special desire and lack of control from the side, An-30B or Tu-154M-LK1 could not, or an American plane could not. But there is control, and the other side has nothing to fear. Nevertheless, for several years the Americans did not allow this unique complex to their territory. The aircraft, however, was certified by the participating countries during the 22 open skies program last year, and the Americans signed the certificate last fall. The first flights within the framework of DON over the United States were performed by Tu-214ON 25 — 27 April 2019 aircraft. He flew over the territory of the states of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, inspecting objects: Fort Bliss, the White Sands rocket range), Sandian national laboratories, Los Alamos and the warehouse of destroyed chemical weapons in Pueblo.
"Toxic" treaty for internal political struggle
And now the Americans can leave this contract. And the reasons, as before, are internal political. The internal struggle of spiders in the power bank of Washington has already reached the point where it affects the US foreign policy decisions, and we have a lot of examples for this. Any manifestation of imaginary "weakness" trump instantly inflated by his opponents, and he is forced to take the "tough", but stupid from the point of view of American interests steps.
There is also the factor of "toxic", as it is now customary to say (a very stupid expression, to be honest) PR around the implementation of the DON. We live in an age where all passenger and a significant number of military aircraft use transponders (the military sometimes turns them off, but in general, they try to be as safe as possible in international waters). And there are well-known sites where you can track such flights. This gave rise to a whole trend in journalism - when there is nothing to write about, then you can go to "Flighttradar 24" and rummage there on the topic of reconnaissance aircraft flights of NATO countries off our coasts. Or drones large size. You can "cook" an excellent alarmist note in the style of "surround, demons." Or you can just dig into the blogs of those who track such flights on such sites. At the same time, it is not necessary to write that all these flights are an ordinary routine, which differs by orders of magnitude from the same activity, say, in the 80s, and that the Aerospace Forces react accordingly to all such flights. In the USA or Japan, they also write notes about the flights of our bombers or long-range anti-submarines off their coasts.
So, the flights of open skies in the same United States cause a bunch of panic comments from idiots on the networks, and the same notes in the media. The same alarmist articles are brewed, and given the fact that the Russians are not off the coast, but right in the heart of an "exceptional nation." And they put the headlines for fun to spread better, like "a Russian spy plane flies over America's most secret bases, and even the" 51 Zone "(which they were going to storm on 4 million Facebook, but it all turned out" a bit wrong ") This is what they wrote about the first Tu-214ON observation flight over the USA. The headline worked very well for the paranoid, schizo-patriots of America, ultra-liberals, leftists and ultra-conservatives, and such a negative press is bad for the election.
There is another factor - not so long ago, the harmful grandfather Bolton, who was put out in the cold from the post of assistant to the president for national security, recently. Grandfather is on display, but his business lives on. He managed to draw up the papers he needed against DON, and whoever slipped them on Donald Trump's signature also remained. For example, there is still a certain Tim Morrison still working in the National Security Council, according to journalist Fred Kaplan of Slate, Bolton's friend and associate on strategic stability. And we know Bolton’s point of view - to dismantle the entire contractual base and die under the rubble of a collapsed security building. Because all these steps do much more harm to the United States itself, and not to Russia or China.
Enough to stay or not?
But DON, as already mentioned above, is beneficial to America and its allies, and, probably, even more profitable than the Russian Federation. But Russia adheres to the point of view that the generative considerable "trust material" of the DON should be preserved. After all, it is the Russian Federation and the USA that have developed TSR systems, including space ones, and other DON participants are much worse with this, or not at all, and they are forced to either use the information handouts of senior allies, or commercial sources of information, or even stay ignorant of the behavior of neighbors.
Moreover, many politicians, members of Congress and the Senate and the military in the United States adhere to the same point of view. It got to the point that, according to reports, he leaves his post because of disagreement with the administration’s policy regarding START-3 (where they simply “pull the bagpipe” by putting forward the same unacceptable and idiotic proposals) and DON, General John Hayten , Commander of the Strategic Command of the US Armed Forces, and Deputy Head of the United States Armed Forces Strategic Command And not one, but with a number of senior officers.
The new head of STRATKOM, Vice Admiral Charles Richard, came from the post of commander of the submarine forces of the Navy, and, formally, is considered something like a "hawk". But his first statements are unexpectedly cautious. He spoke in the spirit of his predecessor both in relation to Russia and its new military capabilities, and in relation to the strategic forces of America (he spoke out very negatively on this issue), and in relation to the START-3, and, in relation to, DON. In general, he also does not want to go anywhere.
So far, Trump has not signed any official papers that begin the six-month process of leaving DON. Maybe he won’t sign, enough of the mind. And if it’s not enough, then most likely, after the United States, Russia, together with Belarus, and not only will leave the treaty. Because the situation when we cannot fly over America, because they have left the open sky regime, and their allies above us, they can, of course, will not suit us. It will be like with the CFE Treaty, where Russia has not been in the agreement for a long time, and information on this line comes to Moscow from Minsk and other CSTO members - just the opposite.
Only such a solution, in fact, torpedoes and destroys a fairly sensible tool to ensure the information peace of the opposing parties in our already troubled world. This is definitely a bad thing. Maybe Mr. Trump should turn to Mr. Eisenhower’s spiritual heritage? Moreover, he was also a republican.
- Ya. Vyatkin, especially for "Military Review"
- wikipedia.org
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