Open Skies: Facilitating the Many Dimensions of Transparancy

The Treaty on Open Skies (Open Skies)1 was signed on 24 March 1992 by 23 European nations in addition to the United States and Canada. Unlike other arms control treaties which prohibit specific weapons or weapon systems, Open Skies is intended to provide, in the words of its preamble, means \"to facilitate the monitoring of compliance with existing or future arms control agreements\". In addition, its objectives include the \"improvement of openness and transparency for conflict prevention and crises management in the framework of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and in other relevant international institutions\". The preamble also alludes to the possible extension of the Open Skies regime into additional (non-arms control) fields, such as environmental protection. Not mentioned is an objective which the treaty would appear to strive to attain: to equalize to some degree the ability of nations to obtain intelligence deemed essential to their national security. This is in fact the case since it provides such means to signatories which otherwise do not have direct access to advanced information gathering technology. \"Open Skies\" also contributes to monitoring or treaty verification by providing an instrument for cuing further investigation of information which might indicate impending treaty violation. Thus, while appearing unfocussed from a monitoring or treaty verification point of view, Open Skies represents substantial progress toward facilitating transparency.