Perspectives for Co-operative Aerial Observation and the Treaty on Open Skies

Contents

Introduction and Opening remarks:
Amb. Alyson Bailes, SIPRI
Amb. Anders Bjurner, MFA, Sweden

Session 1:
LtCol Peter Gehrhardt, MoD, Germany
Dr. Zdzislaw Lachowski, SIPRI
Prof. Hartwig Spitzer, University Hamburg

Session 2:
Amb. Marton Krasznai, UNECE, Geneva
Dr. Yurii Kryvonos, OSCE
Mr. Lorant Czaran, UN Dep-t of Peace-keeping Operations, New York
Air Marshall (ret.) Kodendera Cariappa, India

Session 3:
Mr. Eric van Schijndel, UNMOVIC, New York
Mr. Ashraf Abushady, CTBTO, Vienna

Final Panel:
BrigGen (ret.) Georg Aminoff, Delegation of Sweden to the OSCE
Dr. Ulrich Hochschild, MFA, Germany


Appendix I: Conference Programme
Appendix II: List of Participants
Appendix III: Conference Papers
(full texts as presented, where available)

Introduction

The seminar on the ‘Perspectives for Co-operative Aerial Observation and the Treaty on Open Skies’ took place on the 30th of November and the 1st of December 2004 at SIPRI in cooperation with the Foreign Ministries of Germany and Sweden.

The upcoming review conference of the Open Skies Treaty at Vienna in February 2005 (under German chairmanship), taken together with current security concerns in different regions of the world, provides a timely opportunity and reason to explore and discuss the perspectives for co-operative aerial observation as a security-building tool. Aerial observation has the potential to contribute to the increase of security in many parts of the world. The specific method elaborated in the Open Skies Treaty of 1992 may well serve as a prototype, but needs to be handled mutatis mutandis in view of the demands of different regions, conditions, and functional tasks.


Opening Remarks

Anders Bjurner, Deputy Director-General at the Swedish MFA, in his opening remarks emphasised that aerial observation has played a substantial role in international security without, so far, attracting particular popular or media attention. When the Open Skies Treaty was negotiated, the world looked very different, and the initial purpose of the Treaty was verification of arms control régimes and confidence-building. Key questions for the seminar to address were the relevance, what it has achieved, and what its opportunities are. For many European countries, including Sweden, the most important area to look at today was whether aerial monitoring might contribute to conflict prevention and crisis management. Sweden has a longstanding tradition of contribution, and participates in operations led by the UN, the EU and NATO. Sweden also contributes to OSCE efforts. As a substantial contributor, it is in Swedish interest to make efforts as effective as possible, utilize necessary, needed and scarce resources. Advanced capabilities are needed both for direct action and for support of monitoring activities. This is where Open Skies could be useful.

Even in European conditions, however, the potential of aerial monitoring as a co-operative measure should not be understated.

Alyson Bailes, SIPRI, began by noting that arms control has been facing challenges in recent years, with the result that several familiar instruments are looking somewhat frail. A major advantage of Open Skies, in this context, is that it is not a single-purpose instrument. It can contribute to arms control verification, confidence-building, post-conflict monitoring and also to non-military activities, e.g. environmental monitoring. There is potentially something for every country in the Open Skies régime. Its membership has broadened significantly since its entry into force, and it would be worth looking at options to continue the accession process particularly regarding countries in the OSCE area that have been involved in, or are still at risk of, violent conflict. For example, not all Western Balkans states and none of the Central Asian former Soviet republics are party to the Treaty, although Kyrgyzstan has signed it.

The technical means available for monitoring under the Open Skies Treaty are challenged by the constant improvement of facilities offered by reconnaissance and commercial satellites. However, data from the latter are in general available to a more limited number of states, and satellite-gathered information may not be available to users at critical times.

The Open Skies régime is formally open for accession to states outside the OSCE area. If the states parties do not reach consensus on such accessions, it would still be an option for interested groups of states in other regions or sub-regions to establish their own aerial observation regimes, using Open Skies as a model to the extent appropriate.


Session One: Core values and achievements of aerial observations under the Open Skies Treaty and the Vienna Document

LtCol Peter Gehrhardt, MoD, Germany gave a comprehensive overview of Open Skies, starting out from its changing role. Open Skies has increasingly gained significance as a CSBM and lost importance as a verification measure. This is fully in line with the changes in European arms control generally, where ’soft’ measures have gained priority. In the new context, Open Skies can be regarded as the most far-reaching set of CSBMs in force nowadays. It is a flexible set of measures that may be applied for a variety of purposes. It permits unrestricted aerial observation without fixing the flight altitudes. It is highly adaptable. Although the treaty limits the ground resolution of sensors, after 1 January 2005 (three years after entry into force) the sensor set can be revised. It will be possible for example to introduce infra-red line scanners, and the resolution of synthetic aperture radars (SAR) will not have to remain limited to three metres. Satellites can, however, provide better resolution in the range of one metre.

As of 1 January 2005 there will be 32 states parties to the Treaty. This will not make any easier the existing headache over quota distribution. The fact that NATO member-states, according to their intra-alliance understanding, do not fly Open Skies missions in each other’s airspace and that their interest is consequently focussed almost exclusively on monitoring Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, will make quota distribution increasingly contentious. One way out might be some degree of sharing of quotas, and carrying out observation missions jointly.

Open Skies offers something of interest to policy-makers. If its membership can be extended to other regions or countries outside the OSCE area, it may contribute to their security as well. Most importantly, and notably with its infrared sensors, it could strengthen the capacity for conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict monitoring. Open Skies can be used to monitor armistices, peace agreements, and compliance with such agreements. It is possible (for instance) to carry out observation flights to monitor convoys, training camps, depots, troop movements, refugee camps and mass migration. It is also useful to identify mass graves and mine fields.

These functions are supplemented by the potential use of Open Skies for the protection of the environment. Although this latter function was explored a couple of times before the entry into force of the Treaty, some ambiguity about it has remained. Relevant questions include: 1. What could be the appropriate sensors for this use? 2. Who pays for such flights? 3. Would they take the form of routine or ad hoc monitoring? (Until now the method has been used for the monitoring of environmental disasters, i.e. ad hoc.) 4. Would “quota missions” be allocated for the monitoring of the environment? 5. What would the role of the Open Skies Consultative Commission (OSCC) be? Would it also coordinate missions of this kind, or not?

The real question remains, which activity/activities would help best retain, or regain, the political relevance of the Treaty.

Zdzislaw Lachowski, SIPRI set Open Skies in the broader context of cooperative confidence-building. Quantitative CBMs in the European context were designed in the context of preventing or addressing conflicts of a kind that are increasingly unlikely. There are three broad types of CBMs that currently exist:

• a) Vienna Document-type measures and the Open Skies regime,
• b) Norm- and standard-setting arrangements (NSSMs), and
• c) A variety of regional, sub-regional and intra-state forums.

The two latter types of measures also leave some scope for aerial observation arrangements. In order to retain the relevance of such measures, it may be necessary to consider more intrusive regimes tailored to local needs. For example, border management CBMs may make use of aerial monitoring. Other general issues are whether the confidence-building process and its instruments can be better used in “all weathers”, ie also in crisis and near-crisis situations (where the obstacle so far seems to be more political than technical); and how these methods might be adapted or extended to play a meaningful role in handling the ‘new threats’ agenda.

Hartwig Spitzer, University Hamburg, CENSIS compared Open Skies assets and commercial satellites. He started by noting that when the Open Skies Treaty was signed in 1992, it was only the U.S. and the Russian Federation that had high resolution reconnaissance satellites. There were no high resolution commercial satellites. Today, several companies operate high resolution commercial satellites and sell the images to (almost) any customer.

Open Skies competes with satellites in terms of costs, resolution and flexibility. In costs, Open Skies is somewhat cheaper than satellite imagery, particularly when the amortization of the aircraft is not counted. It is often superior to commercial satellite images. However, the resolution of satellites will continue to improve. The U.S. will soon reach 50 cm-s resolution. Furthermore, new players (France and India) will join those companies that operate commercial satellites (at present, three in the USA and one in Israel), thus increasing the range of supply. There remains one area where Open Skies is way ahead of satellites: namely through its ability to supply thermal images. Satellite imagery of this kind does not offer better than 60 metres resolution, whereas Open Skies offers 0.5 metres.

In order to maintain the competitiveness and the relevance of Open Skies, its sensors should be upgraded in order to provide: colour (film or digital data), digitalized images, and accurate annotation (~3 metres) to relate images to maps. This would require the modification of Annex B and Appendix C of the Open Skies Treaty.

Discussion*

There are basically two ways to improve resolution. Either the same sensors should be applied at lower altitudes, or higher resolution sensors should be applied from the same altitude. It must be borne in mind that lowering the altitude risks coming closer to the range of MANPADS. Hence the question is, how high (rather than how low) one can go and still get the same resolution.

Bringing new members into the Treaty would certainly increase its relevance. As it seems unrealistic to extend the Treaty as such to states, which are not in the OSCE area (too great distances for exchanging flights, etc), one should look for countries within the area that could increase the relevance of Open Skies. The rest of the Western Balkans, Armenia and Azerbaijan and the Central Asian former Soviet republics come into this category. One could further explore the possible role of RACVIAC in bringing the rest of the Western Balkans into the treaty’s orbit.

Low resolution should not be assessed only negatively – it can be appropriate, e.g. for environmental monitoring.

Although the discussion focussed on retaining the relevance of Open Skies, it was noted that its operational value would always depend to some degree on how well it is supplemented (for interpretation and policy making purposes) by other sources of information.


Session two: Scenarios for Co-operative aerial observations in support of crisis prevention and post conflict settlement

Amb. Marton Krasznai, before turning to the theme of lessons from the Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) experience (Open Skies demonstration flights 1997-2001) briefly presented the bilateral Romanian–Hungarian Open Skies agreement that was signed in 1991 during an impasse in the multilateral Open Skies negotiations. Although now largely irrelevant in light of both counties’ NATO membership, it had great political significance when it was concluded. There was real concern in the West that the

* In this and subsequent ‘discussion’ segments, the main points made in questions, answers and comments are reported without attribution to individuals.
occasionally tough populist rhetoric of the two countries might result in hostilities. The bilateral accord contributed effectively to dispel this worry, and it was a highly cost-effective means of confidence-building at the time. It demonstrated that such a measure can be implemented at very low cost between two neighbours using not particularly sophisticated technology.

Amb. Krasznai was the personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-office in 1996 for the implementation of the agreement on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures in Bosnia and Herzegovina, based on the Dayton peace accord. Moderate politicians on both sides were keen to show early results from the confidence-building process. As a highly visible part of this, Romania and Hungary made an Open Skies demonstration flight, following similar German and US–Russian flights during 1997.

The lessons of this episode could be summarized as follows:

• Open Skies is a versatile confidence- and security-building tool. It was an effective tool in post-conflict stabilization in Bosnia and Herzegovina, less than two years after the end of hostilities.
• Open Skies observation flights can be carried out in a less than fully stable security environment.
• Open Skies is also a ‘soft’, not over-intrusive measure in times of relative stability.
• Open Skies observation flights can be quite effective when relatively large areas of rugged terrain have to be covered, when heavy equipment is moved out of military bases and storage sites or when undeclared military infrastructure has to be discovered.
• As the preparation, the carrying out and the evaluation of an observation flight is a highly cooperative exercise, it has a good confidence-building effect among the experts representing the states parties.
• Under a post-conflict scenario, the most appropriate platform, sensor suite and expertise might not be available locally; thus foreign assistance might be necessary to facilitate the carrying out of observation flights.
• A sub-regional Open Skies regime can be set up and operated relatively cheaply.
• Open Skies has a good PR value because the wider public can easily grasp the concept and its implementation can be made highly visible.
  

Thus, Open Skies-type activity could be an ideal first step to introduce confidence- and security-building in an unstable conflict-prone region as an integral part of a post-crisis rehabilitation process. It is particularly useful in post-conflict situations where relative instability might prevent the implementation of other, including more intrusive, measures. Open Skies is a highly adaptable tool in terms of the conditions it can cope with.

Yuriy Kryvonos, OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre, made a presentation on how aerial imageries could support OSCE field operations. This approach supposes a certain expansion of the regime to non-state parties. Fortunately, however, since the Open Skies negotiations ended in the post-cold war era, the Treaty text reflects a broad and inclusive concept of European security. It is possible to extend the conflict prevention function to:

• preventing the launching of surprise attack and initiation of large-scale offensive actions,
• preventing any military conflict in Europe,
• addressing internal and interstate armed conflicts,
• post-conflict rehabilitation, and
• border management.

The informal working group on rules of procedures has discussed whether the OSCC/OSCE could exploit the possibilities provided in the treaty with regard to conflict prevention. Though there have been no results as yet, there might be three options for conducting aerial observation aimed at conflict prevention and crisis management:

• aerial observation of crisis zones on the territory of the States Parties to the Treaty, either as a regular observation flight or a specially designed mission (in the latter case, at the request of a State Party),
• action on behalf of another OSCE participating state at its request, according to the decision of the responsible body of the OSCE,
• action regarding third countries, on the basis of an agreement with the UN Security Council.

One could easily imagine cases where this approach could be applied. The mandate of the OSCE mission to Georgia, according to Dr. Kryvonos, included at least four tasks where aerial observation could be useful. Nagorno-Karabakh could be an example of a case where the parties to the conflict are not parties to the Open Skies Treaty. With the agreement of all parties concerned, pending an agreement on conflict resolution, there could be several reasons to collect data by aerial observation. It could help identify appropriate locations for peace-keeping forces if settlement is reached. It may help to update information about infrastructure in the region and to detect mine-fields that might affect the members of OSCE missions (helicopters equipped with special sensors would be quite effective for this). It could help gather information concerning military and paramilitary forces in the region. The Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) that preceded the Kosovo conflict of spring 1999, based on UN Security Council resolution 1199, could have benefited from aerial observation as well. This could have been a prototype of a mission of a “third kind”. Several other international missions (Moldova, FYROM) could also benefit from aerial observation.

The Open Skies regime could be used as a means to gain more transparency and to contribute to the settlement of problems. It could be used both for conflict management and for post-conflict monitoring. In spite of its sensitivity, particularly in cases where non-state parties are involved, it could be to the benefit of conflict-prone areas. The process could be fostered by close cooperation between the OSCE and the OSCC. If the necessary uses do not come within the provisions of the Treaty, special guidelines should be developed to allow Open Skies to be made readily available if and when necessary.

Lorant Czaran, UN DPKO, New York, started by noting that the UN at present administers 16 peacekeeping operations around the world. As most missions are deployed in developing countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East it is difficult, if not impossible to gain access to accurate and updated geographic data. During the last five years an increasing number of requests have come from field level to supply missions with updated, improved cartographic material, or at least image maps. DPKO HQ was unable to address most of those requests, lacking qualified staff to follow them up. The fastest way to provide updated map content is the use of satellite imagery and/or aerial surveys with data validation and ground truthing performed on the ground by visiting or local expert UN staff.

There have been cases where satellite images were used to develop sets of maps (e.g. demarcation between Cameroon and Nigeria). Digital visualization is used for the areas of operation on the basis of digital elevation models.

Currently the emphasis is on satellite imagery combined with local comparison of conditions in the field. Work is currently being carried out on the Sudan because of the crisis in Darfur area, and on Eritrea and Ethiopia.

There is increased need for access to imagery, both aerial and satellite, as well as repetitive data in order to detect change. Imagery is needed to derive geographic data and new maps, given that access to larger-scale topographic maps is restricted by most owners of the available resources and that these show little understanding for the special role of the UN. In certain cases, aerial observation could prove more cost-effective (especially for repetitive observations), if special aircraft and expertise are easier to obtain or could even be made available on stand-by with appropriate plans to meet such operational needs.

Air Marshal (ret.) Nanda Cariappa, India presented the findings of a report he wrote together with Air Marshal (ret.) Mohammad A. Chaudry of Pakistan on using aerial monitoring for preventing further hostilities in Jammu and Kashmir, in the India-Pakistan ‘zone of contact’. Aerial monitoring could be used to guarantee respect for the disengagement of forces in the zone if a political solution is achieved - i.e., a typical post-conflict monitoring mission. It would be highly cost-effective compared to the costs of the current troop deployment in the area. Military transparency would be combined with minimum intrusiveness. The institution of cooperative aerial monitoring would have the following advantages: 1. Monitoring military activity close to the border at low cost, 2. Building a secure and stable security understanding between the two countries, 3. Reducing tension and suspicion. Despite the fact the findings of the report have been available for more than three years, the mounting political tension between India and Pakistan has prevented its realisation. Now, there might be a window of opportunity as tension has relaxed and political leaderships have recognised the viability of practical steps towards a settlement.

For such a purpose, it would be possible to request a third party aircraft from the OSCC to conduct an experimental cooperative aerial monitoring flight. It would fly along the Indo-Pakistani border with observers from both countries on board. The on-board cameras would photograph a swath of territory 15 km on either side of the border (30 km total). Later, as confidence levels increase, the coverage could be extended progressively to 30 km and then to 60 km. These later missions could then be flown using Indian and Pakistani aircraft, modified for photographic missions and flown over their own territory with observers from the other side.

The report in full is available at http://www.cmc.sandia.gov/links/cmc-papers/sand-98-0505-22/sand-98-0505-22.html

Discussion

It is important to eliminate redundancies and make clear “who does what”. The added value of activity by one organization or the other has to be analysed and compared in concrete terms.

The conflict prevention and post-conflict monitoring contexts hold potential for the future of Open Skies. Pursuing such measures may be a way to both increase the relevance and improve the effectiveness of the Open Skies method.


Session three: Scenarios for support of multilateral verification through co-operative aerial monitoring

Eric van Schijndel, UNMOVIC, New York, summarised the experience of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission’s work and the role of satellite monitoring. UNMOVIC staff are employees of the United Nations. The commission has been financed by using a small portion of the money raised by the “oil for food” programme. Since April 2003, the end of the “hot phase” of the operation, the function of UNMOVIC has changed. Now its focus is on detecting changes in Iraq: e.g. ascertaining what equipment has been destroyed in the light of UNMOVIC’s previous knowledge of a given location.

The resolution of available satellite images has dramatically improved, and had a big impact on UNMOVIC. One-metre pixel resolution imagery was commercially available in 2000 for the first time. The tremendous amount of information available is good news in itself, but requires a larger amount of interpretation time. Furthermore, high-resolution images made it difficult to transmit the imagery through the UNMOVIC network and made upgrades necessary.

There are certain lessons to be learned from UNMOVIC’s active phase for observation missions of the future. 1. It must be clearly determined what standards the observation has to meet. 2. Without the digitalisation of data the information cannot be managed. 3. Information can be constantly updated as the offer of satellite imagery increases. 4. Data/imagery can be made available on portable devices and thus can be used in the field, both during the operation and thereafter.

Ashraf Abushady, CTBTO, Vienna pointed out that although the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has not come into force, it has given rise to a complex set of organizations designed to cover implementation tasks. As part of this, a Remote Detection Regime has been established. The purpose of on-site inspections is to monitor whether nuclear explosion has occurred and, if in the affirmative, to identify the violator. On-site inspections include over-flights with a maximum altitude of 1500 meters - there is no minimum altitude. The activities carried out during an initial over-flight are visual observation, position location and (still and video) photography. Activities carried out during additional over-flight(s), in addition to the ones mentioned above also include multi-spectral (including infrared) imagery, magnetic mapping and gamma spectroscopy. The inspection regime is based on the use of multiple means.

The question may be raised of how the parties to the Open Skies treaty could help. The CTBTO needs to conduct over-flights, especially for multi-spectral imaging including infrared. It could be useful to gain access to archived aerial imagery from Open Skies countries that would help in interpretation, e.g. by identifying recent changes to an inspection area. Over-flights under the CTBT should be carried out anywhere within short notice.

Mr. Abushady presented a case study: The 2002 Field Experiment in Kazakhstan, in the area of Semipalatinsk.

Hartwig Spitzer said that aerial and satellite images have not been used by the OPCW. He was convinced, however that they could have some potential to support CWC verification. There are several factors to take into account: 1. The OPCW Secretariat seems still sensitive to the political concerns of member states, 2. It considers the added value of overhead imagery as marginal, 3. It is short of funds (to the extent that it could not even acquire a transport aircraft for bulky inspection equipment).

The lesson may be drawn from the Iraq inspections that observation over-flights are very useful, under a robust mandate - “inspections any time, anywhere”. It is possible to track attempts at evasion and to find previously unknown sites by, e.g. tracking transport movements. In the absence of a specific and robust mandate, however, states parties have been restrained about utilizing their possibilities under the CWC and no challenge inspection has been carried out so far.

It is safe to assume that some Open Skies states parties have taken images from notified CWC sites on a regular basis. Such images provide a solid basis for detecting change and inconsistencies with the notified data. There is at least one case known when such an inconsistency was raised in the OPCW framework in The Hague. As for the future, the state parties to the Open Skies treaty are free to discuss such issues (and share images) among themselves in particular through their representatives at OPCW. In the future the Open Skies treaty should leave room for extraordinary flights for international organizations in the treaty area.

Aerial and satellite imagery may support the preparation and execution of routine inspections that could consist of a complete site overview, in order e.g. to detect new construction. They could also support the detection of suspect sites, which could be checked further through challenge inspections. However sensitive this approach may have been hitherto, in the age of commercial observation satellites it is anachronistic to ban the use of overhead images by international organisations. To the extent that cooperative aerial observation should be politically more acceptable than the use of satellite images, Open Skies may have a small window to make a contribution in the years to come.

Discussion

It was noted again that Open Skies should be seen as part of an overall information acquisition strategy, as it provides only one medium.

It is apparent that different cultures have evolved in different international organizations as far as the use of aerial monitoring. The CTBTO is supportive of its positive contribution to verification whereas the OPCW seems far more reserved. UNMOVIC also seems reserved: Open Skies was not used when over-flights were carried out.

It is not clear who should be contacted if CTBTO would express interest to using Open Skies aircraft - either the owner of the aircraft or the OSCC?

There is need to standardise data digitalisation. Without it the usability of Open Skies data will remain limited outside the Treaty regime.

There are certain problems with the data provided by commercial satellites. Some of them, registered in a certain country, have to abide by certain rules set forth by a sovereign actor. For example, data with higher resolution than two metres are not available about the territory of Israel from commercial satellites registered in that country. Would commercial satellites providing higher resolution and registered in other countries be obliged to abide by the same rules?

Satellite and aerial observation data are more sensitive when they are nearer to real time.


Final Panel: Challenges and opportunities for the Open Skies regime, and conclusions on cooperative aerial observation elsewhere

Brig.Gen. (ret.) Hans-Georg Aminoff was of the view that the Open Skies regime faces an identity crisis, much as the OSCE as a whole. Open Skies countries all see different “needs”. There is a significant asymmetry that has developed over time. No longer do “many fly over many”: rather, many fly over a few. This has contributed to a slowly evolving crisis in the Open Skies system. As the security situation in Europe has fundamentally improved, the political tool that Open Skies initially was has changed. We are discussing the introduction of infrared, digital technology although the way forward on these issues has been rather slow.

When discussing the use of Open Skies in crisis management, what type of crises do we foresee and under what conditions? Quick reaction deployment, post-conflict, between or inside states, and for what purpose (verification, intelligence, CBM)? The stabilizing measures foreseen within the VD99 could for example already today be used in efforts to solve conflict, perhaps in Nagorno-Karabakh. For potential use of the regime in environmental over-flights, additional questions have to be answered. General Aminoff cautioned against trying to apply the format on environmental tasks where quick reaction and flexibility are called for.

Exporting the regime to others could perhaps be done within the framework of the OSCE Outreach Initiative, and here, the Open Skies countries could only provide an example that others may want to learn from.

Aminoff concluded by calling for avoidance of duplication and leaving aside what others do better with better resources.


Discussion

The challenge for Open Skies practitioners is to make their political masters more interested in the treaty regime. If this is impossible to achieve, one could take a bottom-up approach, developing pragmatic steps whose results could be presented to the political leaders later. The immediate challenge is to continue implementation of the Treaty until 2006, and the discussion on broader questions should be deferred.

It is the Europeans who speak most frequently about arms control, and the huge body of mechanisms and experience they have developed in this sphere is a success story of the Euro-Atlantic system. Arms control specialists, have, however, become somewhat detached from regional security interests and expertise. They should seek new connections with diplomats and experts who deal with regional issues. There is huge need for arms control in other parts of the world. If the right models and ideas can be found, Europe could make a contribution by helping to spread them to other regions.

In order to make a relevant contribution by applying – inter alia - Open Skies, it will be necessary to develop the potential of aerial observation as a crisis management capability, for example with the framework of the ESDP; to determine clearly in what type of conflict scenario we intend to use it; and what its precise role and contribution should be.


Closing Remarks

Ulrich Hochschild, MFA, Germany emphasised that it is necessary to consider the full implementation of the treaty. Its potential could be further used for verification purposes, but also to explore aspects that were neglected in the past. Here, major significance should be attributed to the conflict management aspect, and attention should also be given to its potential in environmental monitoring.

It would contribute to the relevance of the Treaty, and would be in the parties’ best interest, to promote the use of Open Skies measures outside the current area of application, both inside Europe and elsewhere. This seminar has also shown the necessity and potential of going forward by using resources and experience built up in the successful implementation of Open Skies to date. One should consider holding a further seminar, in cooperation with the OSCE, on the future contribution of open skies flights to stability and security in the whole OSCE area.