A USAF Boeing OC-135B Open Skies. / Wikipedia
Bloomberg: Russia to Limit U.S. Military Flyovers in Tit-for-Tat Response
* Kremlin to restrict base usage under Open Skies Treaty
* Moscow-Washington relations are the most strained in decades
Russia plans to limit the number of airbases the U.S. can use to launch reconnaissance flights under the Open Skies Treaty, in a fresh sign of its deteriorating relationship with Washington.
The restrictions will be introduced Jan. 1 in response to U.S. measures to limit Russian military flights in its airspace, said Georgiy Borisenko, head of the Foreign Ministry’s North American department, according to the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
Read more ....
Update#1: Report: Russia to limit US military observation flights (The Hill)
Update #2: Russia to 'limit' access to airfields for US observation planes after Alaska & Hawaii restrictions (RT)
WNU Editor: Russia has been threatening to do this for a while .... Russia to respond to US restrictions on observation flights (RT). My guess is that since there has no shift on U.S. policy when it comes to "Open Skies", the decision was made that by today the Kremlin would impose its own retaliatory measures. This is unfortunate .... even though much of today's intelligence gathering is done by satellites, the Open Skies Treaty was implemented to foster trust and openness between Russia and the U.S.. It looks like that trust does not exist anymore.
Satellites are not sufficient because their flyover time and area of capturing is predictable and short. Means the US would need more satellites in space to reliably cover pretty much all of Russia, as unpredictability and reaction speed of planes is lost. Plus you have the cyber vulnerability issue of satellites, both operational as well as information security.. An old school U2 might get jammed, but is less prone to a cyber attack.
ReplyDeleteWhen the US Intel Community infiltrated the UN Weapon Inspection teams in Iraq, they got a threefer,
ReplyDelete- they successfully sabotaged the Iraqi cooperation with the UN Teams,
- the lack of Iraqi cooperation with the UN Teams allowed the US to sow doubt about Iraqi weapons and disamament,
- they sucessfully collected major SIGINT on the Iraqi Military Communications.
On the other hand, Russia using the Open Skies Agreement and overfligts, to allow Russian Spies to map out US Military and Economic digital communications then microburst that intel to the Russian Open Skies aircraft acting as communication nodes, was not a threefer, or even a twofer.
You don't sabotage your own "legal" intel ops by "piggybacking" illegal intel ops ontop. If you are going to "piggyback", use somebody elses "legal" intel ops.
Jay, interesting point, can you clarify please? (Find above a bit hard to read / want to make sure I understood what you're saying)
DeleteAnon,
ReplyDeleteHe is probably referring to this post a few weeks back that explains what the Russian consulate in San Francisco was doing ....
The Interesting History Of The Russian Consulate in San Francisco
http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.ca/2017/12/the-interesting-history-of-russian.html
Yup,
DeleteAnd contrasted sabotaging your own "legal spying", with a piggybacked illegal op,
vs. Sabotaging somebody elses's "legal spying", with your piggybacked illegal op.