The Economist USA - 26.10.2019

26 United States The EconomistOctober 26th 2019

2 shaky finances. Because it is costly to pro-

vide electricity to remote areas, “the cities

subsidise the costs of providing electricity

to rural areas”, says Severin Borenstein of

the University of California, Berkeley. The

more citiespg&eloses, the less easy it is to

cross-subsidise other places. The firm has

tried to frustrate municipal power plans

for most of a century, ever since Sacramen-

to created its utility in 1923. It put up $46m

for a statewide ballot initiative in 2010,

which failed, to limit the ability of local

governments to manage their own energy.

But even if municipalities managed to

buy outpg&e’s infrastructure, they might

get into the same trouble themselves any-

way, adds Mr Borenstein. Climate change

has drastically affected utilities’ business

models. Under Californian regulations,

utilities are liable for damage caused by

wildfires regardless of the extent of their

negligence, as long as their equipment is

involved in sparking blazes.

pg&ehas a plan to “harden” its grid,

which includes installing fire-resistant

poles, trimming trees and putting infra-

structure underground. But completely

stopping fires will be difficult. In January

pg&e said it would cost from $75bn to

$150bn, or 2.5-5% of California’s annual

gdp,to fully comply with a judge’s order to

remove trees that could fall into its power

lines. Sadly for Berkeley students, shutoffs

are a more cost-effective way to avoid fu-

ture liabilities.^7

T

he russian Tupolev tu154 took off

from Wright-Patterson air-force base

near Dayton, Ohio, on October 22nd. As it

headed north over Chicago and Milwaukee,

taking in views of Lake Michigan, then

west over South Dakota and Montana, a

camera on its belly snapped photos of

American military installations and civil-

ian infrastructure. But this was not a covert

spy operation. It was the eighth time this

year that a Russian aircraft has flown over

America under the Open Skies treaty, a pact

that allows its 34 signatories to make un-

armed reconnaissance flights over any part

of one another’s territory. Alas, the treaty

may soon become the latest addition to the

Trump administration’s bonfire of arms-

control agreements.

The concept of Open Skies germinated

early in the cold war. In 1955 President

Dwight Eisenhower suggested that Ameri-

ca and the Soviet Union should not only ex-

change maps of all their military installa-

tions, but also allow the other side to fly

over them to build confidence that an at-

tack was not being planned. Nikita Khru-

shchev laughed off the idea as an “espio-

nage plot”. But when the Berlin Wall fell

and the Soviet Union dissolved, the idea

was revived and the treaty signed in 1992.

It is, as Khrushchev suggested, a form of

legalised spying known as co-operative

monitoring. Countries may conduct a set

number of flights virtually anywhere, as

long as they give 72 hours’ notice of the

mission and a day’s notice of the flight

path. They can use only unclassified cam-

eras of 30cm-resolution, which may be in-

spected. And they must share the product

with any signatory who wants it. About

1,500 flights have been conducted to date.

For several years America has com-

plained that Russia is not playing it

straight. The treaty allows countries to

keep planes 10km away from their borders

with non-signatory states. Russia uses that

exemption to stop others getting close to

parts of two breakaway Georgian territories

that it (but virtually nobody else) recog-

nises as independent and therefore out-

side the pact. It has also placed a 500km

limit, ostensibly on safety grounds, on the

total length of surveillance flights above

Kaliningrad, a small exclave wedged be-

tween Poland and Lithuania that bristles

with missiles. In September Russia also de-

nied a request to fly over its massive Cen-

tre-2019 military exercise, which conse-

quently went unobserved.

European officials mostly consider

these problems to be irritants that could be

worked out. Not so the hawkish John Bol-

ton, who until September 10th served as Mr

Trump’s national security adviser. Mr Bol-

ton drew up a memo directing America to

pull out of the treaty and lodged it in the na-

tional-security apparatus like a stink-

bomb. Mr Trump is reported to have signed

the directive a few weeks after Mr Bolton’s

departure without consulting the Penta-

gon, State Department or allies. But there

has been no formal announcement yet and

under the terms of the treaty, America

must give six months’ notice of its inten-

tion to withdraw.

An open-and-shut case

Even former officials who support the

agreement acknowledge that Russia large-

ly uses the flights to monitor the critical

national infrastructure that it would seek

to attack in a war. America has less need of

planes to do this sort of thing because it has

the world’s most advanced spy satellites—a

fact that Mr Trump demonstrated to the

world when he tweeted a spectacularly de-

tailed photo of an Iranian rocket launchpad

on August 30th.

But supporters of Open Skies insist that

Russia’s supposed advantage from the

treaty has been overstated. “If they really

wanted, Russia could basically collect

nearly all they get from Open Skies flights

via their national technical means, be it

overhead or covert collection on the

ground,” says Thomas Moore, an expert

who formerly served with the Senate Com-

mittee on Foreign Relations.

Moreover, the flights ensure that nato

and Russian officers meet routinely, build-

ing familiarity and trust when both are in

short supply. “Not only do Western coun-

tries collect imagery from their overflight,

they also get a feel for the blood pressure in

the Russian air force,” notes Steffan Wat-

kins, an analyst who studies the treaty.

But the treaty’s most compelling ratio-

nale is that most of America’s allies will

never be able to afford multi-billion-dollar

spy satellites in the first place. For a coun-

try like Ukraine, Open Skies flights might

provide the only chance to peer at Russian

troop movements across the border. As

Russia conducts larger snap exercises, of-

ten without proper notification, such

monitoring has grown in importance. Be-

tween 2002 and 2016 American observers

flew over Russia 196 times, with only 71

Russian flights over America.

Concern is mounting about America’s

possible withdrawal from the treaty.

George Shultz, a former secretary of state,

William Perry, a former secretary of de-

fence, and Sam Nunn, a former Democratic

senator, wrote on October 20th that pulling

out would be a “grave mistake”. The Penta-

gon and State Department are similarly

worried and Robert O’Brien, Mr Bolton’s

successor, is said to be slow-walking the

order. America’s allies have been working

the phones, urging Mr Trump to reconsid-

er. However much the president may dis-

like the prospect of a Russian jet humming

a few thousand feet above Washington, his

allies will be telling him they love the idea

of their own buzzing over Moscow. 7

WASHINGTON, DC

Donald Trump wants to rip up an

unusual arms-control treaty

The Open Skies treaty

Spying the end

I spy in American sky