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January 27, 2021 57 mins

On November 22, 2020, the United States withdrew from the Treaty on Open Skies. This treaty, signed in 1992, allows 34 member countries to perform unarmed aerial observations over foreign soil. Imagery captured is shared with the member countries. The U.S. cited Russia's activities with regards to the treaty as their reason for withdrawing.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noah. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer,
all mission control decond Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. We've often said in earlier episodes that
history hinges on the smallest things, and this is true

(00:47):
in fact. You know, if you think about it, you
could describe this story of humanity as a series of
terrifying close calls. Uh. Did you guys ever hear about this?
Ain't sent population bottleneck? No, please tell us right now,
We've got a little less than eight billion people on

(01:08):
the planet, right Uh, and everybody agrees it's kind of
a crowded place. Back in the day, Uh, the opposite
was true. There were there were around ten thousand people
or so on the planet. That was it. That was
all of the Homo sapiens, and the the odds were

(01:28):
not looking good. And then in the modern era, post
nuclear weapons. The world has almost ended by accident so
many times panic miscalculation. We have so many close calls
where people almost deployed nuclear weapons, like it went down
to one or two people who said, hold on, let's

(01:49):
think about this. Yeah. Clearly the impetus for the fantastic
Stanley Kubrick film Doctor Strange Love that sort of satirizes
how on the edge of a nile lation we as
a species constantly live, largely because of ignorance and incompetence.
The Hunt for Red October, if you're talking about film,

(02:11):
is also a pretty good study of what signals people
send during times of rising tensions or war. But altogether,
it's pretty impressive to realize the human species has made
it to one in the first place. The first part,
we can't call the end yet. Reporters, politicians, generals obviously

(02:36):
don't want to meet the public every week and say
we don't know what the hell is going on. But
but everybody is acutely aware of this problem. Human beings
are not super great at communicating clearly, and this miscommunication
can have disastrous consequences. So as a result, all of

(02:59):
the country trees on the planet now have been playing
a very strange game with the balance between transparency and obstucation. Yeah,
and that leads to things like rules of engagements, you know,
like these sort of codes that we all agree to follow,
but maybe it's a little more like, Okay, this would

(03:19):
be nice if we all agreed to this, and in
theory we do, but we've also seen the way those
things can completely break down with just a few bad
actors or a few people that don't adhere to these
kind of tacit codes of understanding, right, Yeah, And nobody
thinks of themselves as the bad guy. No, and humanity.
Humanity has formed all these things for a long time.

(03:40):
Think about NATO, think about you know, the World Health Organization.
Think about all these groups that try to come together
from multiple nations and stamin accord things like you know,
the w Yeah. So we're talking about treaties, we're talking
about international conglomerates, way of a state. Uh, they come
together and we make rules that are honestly well intentioned.

(04:06):
And like you said, we're not attempting to give all
of our secrets away as a country, but we are
trying to minimize inaccuracies, minimize miscalculations. One of the agreements
that the human species reached not too long ago, something

(04:26):
called the Open Skies Treaty. So here are the facts.
This treaty is pretty extraordinary, actually. It it allows all
of the signatory countries to fly unarmed surveillance craft over
the entire territory of every other country that participates in

(04:50):
this treaty. Right now, there are more than thirty countries
on board with this, and it's it's pretty weird when
you think about it. It is weird, especially when we
think of things like you're in our airspace, you know,
ideas like that of being shot down or being threatened
because you accidentally wandered as someone's airspace or into you know,
waters that are part of a sovereign nation, been right

(05:12):
up front, How is this different than that? Is it
the unarmed quality? Because I feel like that kind of
threat happens even with just like like say a commercial
flight or whatever, like a private jet. Yeah, it's it's
it's kind of like that stuff. But the Open Skies
Treaty specifically is for optic observation from the skies, and

(05:34):
there are there are a couple of other sensors that
are used in the flights. But it was specifically designed
so that each country could have a direct a direct
role in looking at the military activities of other countries.
So you know, it's not you hear a report, even
if you know all these countries are friendly with each other,

(05:55):
you hear a report about the military gathering armored vehicles
in one part of their country, you get to actually
go and look at it. And it's really just a
way to make sure everybody's on the same page. Um,
we're not doing anything secret here. Everything's fine. You can
take a look. It's cool. That's really what it is. Yeah,
the idea here is that there will be less cloak

(06:18):
and daggers stuff going on, because the issue here is
that misunderstandings used to proliferate pretty often. You know, we
have to remember like during the Napoleonic Wars, for instance,
the fastest method of communication was this Game of Thrones
stuff like send send a raven kind of things, and uh,

(06:42):
and that's that's not super reliable. Then, you know, as
you guys know, I'm the last person to dunk on
ravens or it's in general, but there's just people. They're
just not as good as planes in terms of surveillance,
so so we could maybe the idea of open skies
is we could maybe knit some of this stuff in

(07:03):
the But it's an historic agreement, you guys. I mean,
given how the problems that you've discussed throughout humanity and
the problems that we continue to have with miscommunication, can
you imagine what it must have been like to have
to wait for a letter to to arrive by carrier,
pigeon or raven or what have you, and all of
the horrible things that could happen in between. It's like,

(07:24):
it's like we joke about how like so many of
the problems in modern sitcoms could be solved. People have
cell phones, you know, Like I mean, I can't even
imagine so much like diplomatic nightmare scenarios could have taken place,
for sure, you know, and horrible things can still take
place with the machinery, you know, with the the planes
and jets that are out there doing this kind of surveillance.

(07:46):
But it's not the same as as a raven getting
caught in a storm or attacked by an eagle. Um,
have you guys ever been in that situation, you know,
a situation with limited communication. Not for a long time?
Uh yeah, I mean I've been in the wilderness before
where there's no signal for anything. Sure, it's an eerie feeling.

(08:11):
It's something that a lot of our listeners in the
developed world may be unfamiliar with, because there's a pretty
great communication infrastructure and most of the West, most of
the developed world, but if you get you get too
far in the wild. We've got some listeners now in
rural areas who you know, may have just gotten fiber

(08:36):
Internet connection, you know what I mean of, like a
fast Internet connection. However, in much of the world communication
is still stymied and it's still um. If you go
on Reddit or you go on to Travel for Him
and you look for problems in the developing world that

(08:59):
aren't really mentioned in the developed world, what you'll see
is is that safe delivery of accurate information is kind
of a luxury. Open Skies is meant to eliminate miscommunication,
which is still rampant in the world today but was

(09:20):
even more widespread in decades past. And it's not a
new idea. President Dwight Eisenhower. Yes, the military industrial Congressional
complex Guy first proposed the US and the Soviet Union
allow He called it aerial reconnaissance flights over each other's territory.

(09:41):
He he pitched this in July at the Geneva conference.
And again, this is you know, this is before widespread satellites.
Both the USSR and the United States were kind of flying,
kind of flying blind. I'm gonna say it. Well, yeah,
they think about the tentions that existed there with the

(10:01):
two superpowers after World War Two. It had been a
little while since then, but there's you know, there's still tensions.
They're still worry about what the other one is doing
and what machinations may exist over on that other side,
just you know, and that that exists for both countries.
So um it. You can imagine that this concept was

(10:22):
probably not taken very warmly immediately because it wasn't. Yes, Matt,
you are correct, sir. The USSR, the Soviet Union was
not having it. They said this initiative was bs it
was malarkey, it was hogs wallop. Oh well yeah, I

(10:44):
mean essentially, what it sounds like is you just want
to spy on us. You just want to openly spy
on us. Cool, really, really you want to have a
conversation about how it's cool that you spy on us,
But you can spy on us. Two. Dude, it's fine,
it's so weird. Yeah, yeah, it is weird. And you know,

(11:04):
this is something we came across off air. In in
the research. You'll notice that we've used the word surveillance
and reconnaissance interchangeably here. But there's there's an important difference, right, Yes,
there absolutely is. So, uh, reconnaissance refers to specifically monitoring

(11:25):
outside of friendly territory, which makes sense if you think
about it. In like, uh, let's think about like you know,
Medal of Honor or whatever, those video games, Like you know,
you're doing recon you're like the squad that's going out
and checking the area for like minds and stuff, or
like you know, making sure ahead of everyone that's moving
in that it's okay um, or you know, getting intel
about what your target is like, etcetera. Definitely, the image

(11:48):
that this conscious for me is creeping around through hostile territory, right,
and surveillance could be just monitoring in friendly territory. The
point is the USSR and the United States were the
definition of not friends at this time. So of course,

(12:08):
of course the government of the U s SR is
gonna say what the hell is wrong with you dude,
you're being crazy. But the problem was there, and eventually
all parties realized that the problem was miscalculation is rife.
You could, for instance, based on your intelligence at the time,
mistake or routine supply operation as preparation for the launch

(12:34):
of a missile. Or you could be a pilot and
you could be doing a routine flight and you could
have something messed up with your instrumentation, and you could
have human error. You could end up violating sovereign airspace,
which could also be considered an act of aggression instead

(12:57):
of just some hapless schmuck in the wrong part of
the air. Or in the worst case scenario, you could
mistake something innocuous as preparation for nuclear war. And that's
where that's where the Open Skies Treaty comes from. So

(13:18):
to Eisenhower and the Eisenhower administration, this could save lives
for you know, humanity. Yeah, yeah, them too. Uh. And
so of course Moscow it says, no, no deal. You're
you're crazy American. Ah. Well, I don't know what they

(13:42):
would call us at that time. Yankee. They say, so
you're you're crazy, Yankee. Uh. This doesn't work out, But
the seeds are planted, and so in then President George H. W.
Bush's also you may remember him from his earlier work
in the c I A uh he's he's the guy

(14:04):
who says, oh, you know, it's not bad, let's let's
do some flyover stuff, which makes sense, you know, spy wise.
There's one more thing to bring in here. You we
mentioned it early early on, just the concept that there
weren't a lot of satellites that had good enough imagery
that were you know, in the right places in order

(14:24):
to have just kind of large scale surveillance, like wide
wide surveillance that is constant. We didn't have that, so
we really were relying. Ever, every country was relying on
planes and you know, film cameras, like the about film cameras,
and then how much optical technology expanded and evolved from

(14:46):
fifty five to like it was still really good stuff.
But we're gonna talk about it later once we're in
the nineties. Satellite technology is a thing. It's heavily a thing.
So so it is a bit strange still that this
this treaty and this pact ends up being focused strictly

(15:08):
on on jets airplanes. Yeah, to a degree, it's a
it's a self limiting treaty, and we'll we're getting to
the conspiratorial aspects of this very soon, folks. Just just
for a note for long time listeners, you could say
that the satellite program on the US and began in

(15:31):
the very late nineteen fifties, the Corona satellite program, which
which is nuts that people don't talk about that more
often because it is logistically objectively impressive. They were they
were dropping film these things up in like lower orbit

(15:54):
and they were dropping canisters a film. That's so nuts,
but yeah, they did it, and for a long time
the planes were better. But obviously in the modern day
satellite technology is a huge piece of the problem. Let's
talk about how the treaty itself works, right, So, in

(16:17):
nineteen ninety NATO and the Warsaw Pact think of that
as the Russian NATO if you want a really easy comparison. Uh,
They started negotiating this in and it went into effect
in two thousand and two. Currently, as we said, thirty

(16:37):
four countries signed on. There is no expiration date to
this treaty. And if you are a country that is
not involved, like if you are Nepal, Bhuton or Switzerland,
all three of those countries are not involved, then you
can petition to sign on and you there there's like
a there's an explicit process for it. But essentially all

(17:01):
that needs to happen is for the other countries that
are already in the treaty to be like, yeah, we
want to fly our spy planes over your stuff too.
And doesn't the treaty actually kind of really spell out
exactly what kind of equipment can be used? Oh yes, yeah.
So when I asked at the top of the show, like,
how is this different from like, Okay, you're in our airspace.

(17:22):
This is essentially like making an appointment, Like you have
to give notice and you know exactly what the rules
are and you have to follow, you know, using this
agreed upon type of equipment. Correct, Yes, you have to
give seventy two hours notice essentially. Uh. And then and
then there's it's really I mean, it's great. It's a treaty,
lots of lots of words, lots of lots of stipulations
about how many hours you get to agree to this,

(17:44):
to agree to that, to give your flight plan in
to get it approved. It's uh, it's it's all fun
in that way. Uh. The last thing here, I'm gonna
go in and talk about all this. If you want
to follow along with any of this and just read more,
we highly recommend the website arms control dot org. You
can actually see pictures of a lot of the stuff

(18:05):
we're mentioning in the show today, so you can kind
of check it out. I would also recommend the Federation
of American Scientists. They have a great summary of this.
We're going somewhere with this, folks, and it's not just
enemy airspace, it turns out. Know, you're absolutely right. The

(18:26):
treaty is not just specific on the type of equipment
that can be used for surveillance, but it also has
rules regarding how new equipment can be introduced or how
it can be turned down. It also there's a really
cool thing in this treaty. Well, I say cool. I

(18:48):
think it's funny. Uh. Let's see, you're a smaller country
and you don't have the biggest air force, but you're
a member of Open Skies. There's this thing in the
treaty called the taxi option. So imagine that like Matt
is France and Noel is Germany, and Matt's country wants

(19:13):
to surveil Noel's country. Then Noel, as a leader of Germany,
has the option to say, get your own planes, by
your own planes over here, you know the rules, buddy,
or Noel as the you know in Germany can say, actually,

(19:35):
theyll tech the German plane. Indeed, of course what I
would say, because as you know, I was once a
young German boy. Yes, yes, I didn't mean to stereotype
you there, but it's but it is pretty neat, you know.
The idea like this applied to the US too, past tense.
You could if you were the US, you could say, okay,

(19:58):
you want to surveiled me France, Matt, I don't know
why I major the leader of France, but here we
are so good. It's in my it's in my blood.
So yeah, well let's do it. Keep going, all right.
So so that if you're the US and you know
France wants to surveil you under this treaty, then you
can you you have the choice as the observed country.

(20:22):
You can either say okay, yes, and your planes over,
send your folks over, or you can say, oh, yeah,
well we'll run a plane around for you. The treaty
does require people from the observer country to be on board,
so they got they have in front of that. Anyway,
getting into the weeds a little bit, each member the
treaty has a couple of quotas. They have a number

(20:44):
of flights that they can conduct over other countries. That's
a that's a called their active quota, that has a
maximum number, that has a ceiling, a threshold. And then
every country has a number of flights that must accept
from the other or countries. Think of that as something
with a floor. There's a minimum there. It's called a

(21:05):
passive quota. It has to do with the size of
the country. I believe. I believe that's the actual like
physical size of the country, right, Yeah, because we are
talking geography at this point more so than geopolitics. But
eventually they end up being the same thing. So the
cool part is one of the cool parts. One of

(21:27):
the distinct parts of this treaty is that any member
has the right to request information received by any other
country under this treaty. The weird thing is being that
that it's the government they have to pay for the
cost of reproduction, to pay for printing. Yeah, their fees, dude,

(21:49):
Come on, this is high quality now digital hopefully photography
I just I love that part. I love those parts.
And treaty is because it's so it is so petty,
But it is easy to imagine if if that stipulation
did not exist, wouldn't one country just to be super petty.

(22:12):
Wouldn't one country just start demanding reproductions of everything and
try to try to break the bank? I just love it.
I love the idea. I love the idea. Uh but yes,
that's the treaty came into force January one, two thousand two.
As you might imagine, things did not work out as planned.

(22:35):
And we'll tell you why they didn't work out after
a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Turns out,
during the Cold War, Russia and the US spoilers. Folks
hated each other like very much, so loathed, despised, feared,

(23:00):
and we're fascinated by one another. So they repeatedly, pretty
much immediately, they repeatedly began accusing one another of violating
the treaty. Fast forward too, not that long ago, as
we record today. On November twenty, the US bailed out

(23:20):
of the treaty. So what happened? Here's where it gets crazy.
So the US kind of let the badger ahead of
the bag as far as its plans to withdraw well
in advance of November, with the Trump administration sending mixed
messages about whether the country would actually leave the agreement.
This is something that the Trump administration has done many

(23:41):
times in terms of will they won't They say with
the Paris Climate A core, they ultimately did get out
of that one. But there's a lot of this kind
of leveraging of kind of like keeping people on the
edge of their seats in some kind of weird power move.
But the Federation of American Scientists sums up the United
States logic uh pretty succinctly um saying this quote. According

(24:05):
to the U s. State Department, Russia has restricted access
for open skies flights over Kaliningrad, over Moscow, and along
the border of Russia with the Georgian regions of South
Ossesia and ab Khazia. Russia has reportedly also failed to
provide priority flight clearance for open skies flights on a
few occasions. The United States raised these issues in the

(24:26):
Open Skies Consultive Commission, and some have been resolved. Nevertheless,
the United States responded to limitations imposed by Russia by
limiting the length of flights over Hawaii, and removing access
to two US Air Force Bass used during Russian missions
over the United States. So a little bit of a
tip for tat situation here, Ben, Can you help us

(24:48):
unpack this a little bit. Yeah, everything you just said
is true. Russia, as a signatory to the agreement was
not playing by the rules. Uh. Folks will notice that
the areas and Will just mentioned South, Ossetia, Kasia. These

(25:08):
are I would add parts of Ukraine as well, crimea. Uh.
These are areas that are hotly contested on the international sphere,
and Russia is saying the some sky open other No,
you know what I mean. I apologize. I'm just I

(25:31):
watched too many eighties movies Battleship never Oh gosh, folks,
we had the we had the most fun. Riff was
so mad we didn't record it where we were just
imagining Vladimir Putin playing board games with regular people. Bus goal,

(25:51):
I possess park Bliss But but but yes, bad accents
of side. It's true. It is provably demonstrably true that
Russia violated the terms of this treaty, and so this

(26:12):
became a rationalization for other parties. Cough cough, wink, wink,
nudge nudge the US cough cough, wink, wink, nudge nudge.
It became, it became this rationalization for the US to
also not obey parts of the treaty. It's understandable, right,
It's an understandable concept. However, there are some problems with

(26:33):
this perspective. First, the biggest one, the biggest badger in
this bag, the biggest elephant in this room, as you said, Matt,
satellite technology. Yeah, I mean they they can. They can
get extremely high resolution imagery and some of the other
sensors that are on board many satellites can give you

(26:56):
just ridiculously detailed information that you don't needed to send
a big, loud plane over there, and you don't need
to send seventy two hours. Notice, you just got that thing.
It's up there, and it looks always, it never looks away. Yeah,
that right there is alone is reason. I don't know,

(27:20):
it's reason that makes this whole treaty a bit more
ceremonial um and just in just a something that just
shows all the other countries that hey, we have nothing
to hide. That's literally all it has become, and and
has been really since because we're talking to two thousand
two is when it was ratified. We've had extremely good

(27:44):
satellites all many of the countries that have signed have
had ridiculously powerful satellites in the sky, in the above
the skies for a long time. Yeah, yeah, it's true.
Is it like having a treaty with very specific rules
on how to how to transport VHS tapes in a

(28:07):
world of digital downloads? That's not That's not a bad comparison. Really,
the problem is the problem is the satellites. Is this
ceremonial I love that you use this word because for
people objecting saying that Russia is not obeying the rules

(28:29):
of this treaty, are we then just saying Russia is
not doing the ceremonial song and dance that we wish
it would do with us? You know what I mean?
Is it just offbeat for this, for this choreography, this pageant,
this theater. Uh, not quite. The thing is if we

(28:50):
go back to what no mentioned earlier with the Federation
of American Scientists, we see that in US analysts did
termined that this treaty doesn't really make risk for the
US Russia. Russia could already collect information with these observation satellites,

(29:16):
and Russia for a time was running behind. They were
they were lagging in terms of monitoring capability in in
their own satellites, and then the US was also lagging
behind in different things. There's there's this constant push and pull,

(29:38):
this constant um gap in in capability. But as we
said earlier, the thing about this treaty is it doesn't
care about satellites. It is only about the planes, and
it's only about what specific stuff one can have on
a plane. So this criticis is um of Russia not

(30:02):
obeying the rules. Again, it's absolutely true, but it also
sort of ignores what is implied to be the larger point.
The larger point is who spies on whom and how?
And now? Uh Now, to argue, you know, our plane

(30:23):
flights aren't working, it's kind of like pretending the U
S satellites don't exist, which is you know, I'll say it,
it's it's at best misleading. Uh. Second problem, this is
huge for NATO, This is huge for European security. And
of course, uh, NATO is a rough beast slouching toward

(30:46):
Bethlehem to be born, as as various poets would say,
it's it's not a perfect thing, but it needs it
needs the US. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization needs the US.
So the European countries who are signatories to open skies
very much want the US on board. The U S

(31:08):
is not on board, by the way, uh recently, as
we said, you know who else is not on board?
Any East Asian South East Asian countries of none of
them are on board. And I am trying to imagine
approaching China right now and attempting to get them on

(31:29):
board or something like this. But from a strategic standpoint,
is is really what I'm thinking about? Like what would
be the benefit? I don't know, And I guess it
would be just the same the same argument that was
made when making it before. We have nothing to hide, everybody,
I know, you have nothing to hide, right, I have
nothing to hide. Okay, cool, that's lots to hide. It's

(31:54):
all about optics, right, I mean that's what you're saying. Then,
like this idea that this is some sort of like
a understanding, but it doesn't mean full transparency. That's not
what it means. No, No, And it's so strange you
don't it's so strange with with humanity, the rules it
puts in place. There are laws about the right way

(32:17):
to kill people. Isn't that nuts? No one ever thinks
about that, no one, no one ever talks about that.
They're they're they're like the same way you would have
a slaughterhouse with health regulations. That's the way this species is.
It's like, Okay, some methods, maybe a lot of methods
of killing people or endangering innocence are wrong. However, you

(32:42):
know if you do it, if you do it according
to the following guidelines, I don't know. That's story for
a different day. We're gonna pause for word from our sponsor,
and then we're going to return with the war conspiratorial
accusations regard the Open Skies Treaty. We're back. So we

(33:10):
mentioned the two big problems. First, the European countries feel
like they very much need the US on board for
open skies. Uh. Second, satellite technology. How much of this
stuff is ceremony at this point? Right? Uh? This is
the third part. This is the third part. It's a
little more uh speculative. You see, critics of the US

(33:35):
decision to withdraw from this treaty are not just objecting
to withdrawal from this one treaty. They are objecting to
what they see as a larger pattern of withdrawing from
arms treaties in general. And they they think that there's

(33:55):
something amiss. They think there's something wrong with this pattern. Yeah,
and the critics aren't exactly shying away from how they
feel about this. UH. The House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman
Elliott Engel, who's a Democrat from New York UH, in
addition to Representative William Keating, Democrat from Massachusetts, issued a

(34:16):
statement on November three saying that the Trump administration broke
the law when withdrawing from the treaty UM as the
administration did not give Congress a one and twenty day notice. UM.
They went further in their statement UM and got pretty
heated by Congressional standards anyway, UM, saying the following President

(34:37):
Trump is attempting to burn down our critical institutions on
his way out the door. In doing so, he not
only jeopardized US national security, but he blatantly ignored and
deliberately broke the law. Burn The one thing that you
can't say is true is that we withdrew I believe

(34:57):
ben correct if I'm wrong November of twenty twenty, which
is very very late into the four year term of
of the standing current standing president. So it's just it
is a bit weird to drop out of that. We
will talk about it further, but I I personally don't
see the immediate need to do so, even with the

(35:19):
stuff we discussed about Russia and not necessarily playing by
the rules. Yeah, I mean, it's a good point that
we read a lot of government publications, government statements. That's
kind of provocative people to say, you know this, this
guy that we don't like is not just leaving, he's

(35:40):
burning everything down. It's uh, it's made for TV. But
the point stands, and you are right, Uh, this is
a withdrawal very late into a presidential term. If we
are to look at it from a larger perspective of

(36:00):
continuity of government, then we could perhaps argue that any
specific for year period doesn't specifically matter. Uh. The problem
is the rest of the world observes the US on
this four year period. UH, and as a result, UH,

(36:22):
the US does not have the best reputation abroad. Because
you can if you're another country, let's say, Matt, your France,
you know your Germany. Um, let's make paula fun when
what country is Paul mintioned control? Luxemburg. I was gonna
say Luxemburg out of my head, out of my head. Okay,

(36:43):
well you were both going to say that, because you
are correct, Paul Luxembourg decand uh so Luxembourg, France, Germany
are looking at the US and they've may be made
a deal and they say, okay, we can trust this
guy who's here for four to eight years. But but

(37:04):
after that, it's a new ballgame. Can we trust this person?
So now we see domestic echoes of that problem, because
critics are alleging this decision to leave the Open Skies
Treaty was somehow politically motivated, and the argument there from

(37:26):
Angle and Keating and others who agree with them is
that this is an effort to prevent the incoming administration
of the US from easily rejoining or even strengthening not
just this agreement, but others. I honestly do not know this,

(37:47):
Ben and I didn't find this in my research. How
difficult is it to rejoin? Is it something that's going
to be a major process. It should not be, because
of the rules or the procedures outlined in the treaty.
As we said earlier, for a country to join the
Treaty on open Skies, they need to have a they

(38:11):
need to win a consensus vote from the signatory countries.
And we know Europe very much once the US back
in the game here because they consider it crucial for
their own transparency and security. And you know, US has
pretty substantial air force, We have the planes. So so

(38:35):
this is this is weird because it again, as we
said before, nothing occurs in a vacuum, right, So these
withdrawals from arms treaties, whatever, whatever the proposed logic for
them is, they occur in tandem with pushes from some

(38:56):
factions of the US government to develop new nuclear web
and this scares the heck out of a lot of people, rightly. So,
so here's the big question gone into the weeds on this,
this treaty. It's it's kind of dry stuff. But here
is the million dollar questions, the billion life question. Why

(39:17):
has the US withdrawn from so many arms controlled treaties
in the last few years America. First, I don't know, isolationism,
I don't know. I'm I'm just that's a good question. Well,
some of it rests upon the lasting influence of former officials, uh,
pundits and hawks like John Bolton. He that you guys

(39:43):
remember John Bolton. Uh, he's been his. He's been his
like a whole career, hating any kind of arms control
stuff because or hating anything that applied to the US
because he assumed that those kind of agreements would limit
the US and that other countries would just not obey

(40:06):
those agreements and have no consequences. John Bolton, he he
was a neo conservative. I believe maybe he's that Bush
w George W. Bush are and then a little prior
to that. Wow, it's been a while since I thought
about that, dude, But it makes complete sense, right. You
get into one of these big agreements with other countries
and everybody doesn't have to follow the rules, even though

(40:28):
they've signed something and say they're going to. But it
also means that the US, like John Bolton's side, doesn't
have to necessarily follow the rules. Maybe he knows how
we are going to roll in that kind of agreement
and then he's just applying it. He's that's what it is,
John Bolton, It's just projecting. Is it all just like

(40:49):
symbol symbolic? Though? Like what's the point if it's non binding,
is it just to kind of like have the like
optics of of rules, of the optics of like order
when it's all really just chaos and up to whatever
the individual parties want to do, there would be theoretical consequences, right,
But how many well, how many people as the International

(41:09):
Criminal Court convicted? Yeah, exactly, that's another uncomfortable question. So
shout out to you, Joseph Coney. Uh. The Open Skies
Treaty is the third arms control agreement that the we're
so very close to the tow shift and the executive

(41:30):
branch here the the current president as we record this. Uh,
this is the third arms control agreement that administration has left.
The Iran nuclear Deal I'm probably all familiar with that
went that went could put on the US side in
twenty there was another thing a lot of people may

(41:55):
not have heard about, the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
This country left that in twenty nineteen. So there are salients,
valid and immediate fears that the US will also leave
something called New Start, which is due to expire next month.

(42:19):
This is a this is a treaty about nuclear weapons,
specifically between Russia and the US. We don't know at
this point. Now Russia is responding to the US withdrawal
from open skies. Uh, but it is it is advantageous.

(42:40):
It is inarguably a good deal for Russia for the
US to not be involved in this treaty because it
means that now Russia will be able to fly over
US Basis and other treaty members airspace. Right, it will
be able to fly over US facilities, and the US

(43:03):
will not be allowed to fly over Russia. Of course, yes,
the satellites are still in orbit and pinging one another continually.
It feels like like like putting ourselves at a disadvantage purposefully.
Oh that's we know it's not necessarily true, but it
reads that way, right, Like, why even if it is ceremonial,

(43:29):
even if it is symbolic, why hamper oneself in this manner? Uh?
To be fair, The President at the time these decisions
did specifically state there would be there may be light
at the end of the nuclear tunnel, there may be

(43:49):
hope for a new agreement in the future, and he
said the following He said, I think we have a
very good relationship with Russia. But Russia didn't adhere to
the treaty. So until they had here to the treaty,
we will pull out. And he went on to say
there's a very good chance we'll make a new agreement
or do something to put that agreement back together, which

(44:11):
makes sense. I mean, it feels like something that would
get that would happen again. But there's a window at
least where we're not going to be a part of it. Yes,
And the this is this is the conspiratorial part. Here
is there a larger, longer game app play? Why now?

(44:34):
Right two thousand and two to two thousand and twenty,
Why out of the eighteen years that this was enforce
why did it end? Now? We have to say it.
It's long been suspected that parts of the US government
have been and are compromised by Russian intelligence. In recent years,

(44:57):
the executive branch of the United States has been the
target of the majority of these allegations. The idea is
that there is blackmail a foot. Yeah, compromat is sometimes
used for the Russian version. And there's something many of
our listeners remember called the Steel Dossier. You guys remember

(45:20):
that that was the one with the Ppe tape in it. Right,
It's one with allegations of recreational urination. Yes, I am,
among other things, many other things. And you know, recently
we've seen stuff coming from both sides of the congressional
aisle in this country, memos, you know, highly redacted memos

(45:41):
that have very specific things to say that you and
I as you know, just regular old citizens don't get
to read. Um. And of course we just pay we
pay those people to write things. We can't read it. Yeah, yeah,
and uh, the dossier itself has been called into question
a ton. It's also one of those things that it's

(46:05):
it's hard for us as lay people to know, you know,
what's in it, if it's real, or like, if what's
in it is real. Yeah. However, James Comy was pulled off, uh,
let go from his job while investigating this stuff, and

(46:27):
the US intelligence agencies can confirm many of the allegations
in the dossier add up or have at least some
sand to them worthy of investigation. They're also this is
also coupled with controversial remarks about Russia performatively to Russia,

(46:49):
uh in in public public statements by the current administration.
As we record this, you know, saying hey, wow, Russia
is gonna help us with the election. Do it which
is not your political party, doesn't matter if you're in
this country. You should not ask for in countries for
help it an election. That's that's that's the big thing.

(47:11):
Now at this point we have to say there's been
no official, widely accepted confirmation that Russia has its hand
on the neck of the executive branch. There's no official
confirmation of this, but it is certain that Russia interfered
with the US elections to put they're chosen candidate in office. Yes,

(47:37):
that's a scary eighties action movie thing to say, but
the question is is it true. We know that Russia
tried to influence the election, We just don't know the
degree of success. Really, we don't have. Oddly enough, the
official Russian position is that they didn't interfere with the elections.
So so there are people who are going to tell

(47:58):
you that the reason the US has withdrawn from multiple
arms controlled treaties, especially open skies, is that they were
told to by some foreign asset. What do you guys think?
What do you guys think about that? It's a big

(48:20):
thing to say, you know, it's a big thing to say,
and it's a hard thing to like know, Yeah, I
don't know, something feels off, I would say, just personally
with with a lot of these things, I think I've
watched way too much Mr Robot for me to objectively
even like ponder it at this point. Maybe it's a corporation. Yeah,

(48:43):
maybe it's the Pepperidge Farm. Uh folks, are they the
ones who make cookies? Yeah, it could be that. Yeah,
for sure, it might be them. Um but you know,
the the other thing is that we've we've discussed this
before the show the Long Game. Uh, the the concept

(49:03):
that perhaps the KGB or some other essentially sleeper organization
within Soviet intelligence went underground for a long time and
then resurfaced, and with with plans too. It's kind of
sounds silly, with plans to become the world power, the
leading world power eventually in the future at some point,

(49:26):
and to rebuild the power that they once had. Um
it it rings of that. That does not mean this
has anything to do with with those alleged plans. But yeah, again,
my maybe in my head is just too deep in
some of that stuff to think about it objectively. I mean,
it makes a whole lot of sense, the idea of
of of of us doing it to benefit Russia in

(49:48):
some way. That's sure. Has been a lot of rhetoric
that benefited Russia, a lot of kind of you know,
Trump aligning with putin Um and in ways that previous
presidents just never have or never would in a million years.
So it's it's hard to not think where they're smoke,
there's fire, but again, really really hard to prove and
very much in the realm of conjecture. Yeah, that's the pickle.

(50:09):
It's it's something that historians of the future are going
to be debating and picking apart. Right now, the facts
are this, Uh, the satellite technology that is not part
of Open skies deliver some of the same capabilities, right,
and these satellites do pretty well right now. By stepping

(50:31):
out of this treaty, the US has put itself at
a bit of a disadvantage. The degree of that disadvantage
remains to be seen. But the logic behind that withdrawal is, uh,
you know, it makes sense when you read the statements. Uh,
they said, the other folks aren't playing by the rules,

(50:52):
so why should we continue to play the game, And
we'll come back if the rules are all followed again, right, right,
So not super apocalyptic here. But the more you dig
into it, um, the stranger it seems, especially given that
pattern of withdrawals from other existing agreements. Well, and the

(51:17):
more tensions rise, the more dangerous it is for everyone,
not just Russia and the United States. The Federation of
American Scientists, and then the the Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists that that the group that puts out that doomsday
clock that we've mentioned before in the show a lot
of times. Um, you know, over the years, it's changed

(51:40):
quite a bit since we've been making this show. My goodness. Uh,
let's see, two thousand ten, it was six minutes to midnight,
two thousand twelve, it was five minutes to midnight, two
thousand fifteen, three minutes, two thousand seventeen, two and a
half minutes, two thousand eighteen, two minutes to midnight, and
as of last year, it was one hundred seconds to midnight,

(52:03):
less than two minutes away. What does that mean midnight?
That means um, highly likely apocalypse, essentially nuclear war or
you know, devastating things. Um. With with all of that
happening in the world, having these tensions run higher and
higher is just terrifying, right, because we don't have to

(52:25):
just think about the world today. We have to think
about the world in the future. The most important part
of this story of the species is a story is
not us doing this show now, and it's it's not
you listening. It's the people who come after us, and
that's in they are in a very real sense our responsibility.

(52:50):
So of course nobody wants nuclear weapons to deploy. We
think most people don't. Uh. But also just like Eisenhower,
most people want transparency. Um. If you look at the
number of close calls we have had with nuclear weapons,

(53:11):
as we said at the top of this episode, you
will and should be terrified. Things got very very close,
like multiple times, the decision whether or not to go
to a nuclear war hinged on one person being reasonable,

(53:34):
like what like Matt, Matt, one guy. One guy was like,
I don't know, man, maybe we shouldn't launch the new
Jesse yet. Let's let's hang on. Everybody have a snack.
Except there was so much sweat being generated, and um,
I'm going to assume a generous amount of urine as well,
but who knows, um, because it's it's it was very

(54:00):
it It could have been the end. Okay, I don't
want to think about that anymore, man, Um that that's
all happening. This is all happening. One last note, a
bit of a current event. As we were recording this podcast,
Russia went public with its plans to follow the United

(54:20):
States and withdraw entirely from the Open Skies treaty, creating
a future that looks even more uncertain. So let us
know what you think, folks. We know we got in
the weeds a little bit on Um Jill politics and
on a very specific treaty, but there is there does

(54:41):
seem to be a larger pattern at play. Do you
think that these moves are legit? Is that the right
thing to do to pull out of these treaties? Um?
Are other countries not behaving in good faith or not
signing on in good faith? Is there something amiss with

(55:01):
this pattern of withdrawal? If so, what is amiss? Uh?
Do you give any credence to the repeated claims that
foreign powers have compromised areas of the US government? If so,
we would love to hear from you. If not, we
would also love to hear from you. We want to

(55:23):
We want to know your opinion. We try to make
ourselves easy to find. You can uh, dropped by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
You can find us there. We'd like to recommend Here's
Where It Gets Crazy, which is um rated by us
as the best website on the Internet, the best web page.
I should say absolutely. It is all you have to

(55:43):
do to join up. Is no one or more of
our names, the hosts or creators of this show. I'm
not going to tell you our names again. Hopefully you
remember from when we said them every episode that we've
ever made of this show. But what if people hate
social media? Matt, if you dislike that stuff, you can
use your telephone device to get in contact with us.

(56:05):
With your throat device. Uh, the thing that makes sounds
that you know I love you? Got it? You can
call our number. It is one eight three three std
w y t K. You can leave us a voicemail.
We will hear it, and you may end up on
one of the Listener Maile episodes. Just please tell us

(56:27):
if you don't want your voice to be included in
one of those episodes. Uh. And guess what This episode
was inspired by someone who sent us a voicemail. Someone
that goes by Hidalgo. Yes, thank you so much, Hidalgo. Seriously,
you've sent us several just great messages and uh, you

(56:49):
may guess that's not this person's real name, but Hidalgo.
Thank you, and if you would like to take page
from Hidalgos book, as we said, of course find us
on the internet. You can find us on your local telephone.
That's weird, I guess when you think about it, we're there,
We're on your phone. And if you don't care for

(57:09):
any of that that doesn't quite fly your nukes, then
you could always hit us up at our good old
fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at I heart
radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know.

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