SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2015, Issue No. 67
October 14, 2015

Secrecy News Blog: http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/

RUSSIA'S OPEN SKIES FLIGHTS PROMPT DIA "CONCERN"

Ideally, arms control agreements that are well-conceived and faithfully implemented will foster international stability and build confidence between nations. But things don't always work out that way, and arms control itself can become a cause for suspicion and conflict.

"Can you say anything about how Russia, in this venue, is using their Open Skies flights over the United States?," Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) asked Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt.Gen. Vincent R. Stewart at a February 3 hearing of the House Armed Services Committee (at page 13).

"The Open Skies construct was designed for a different era," Lt.Gen. Stewart replied. "I am very concerned about how it is applied today. And I would love to talk about that in closed hearing," he added mysteriously.

The Open Skies Treaty, to which the United States and Russia are parties, entered into force in 2002. It allows member states to conduct overflights of other members' territories in order to monitor their military forces and activities.

It is unclear exactly what prompted DIA director Stewart's concern about Russian overflights of the United States, and his perspective does not appear to be shared by some other senior Defense Department officials.

The most recent State Department annual report on arms control compliance identified several obstacles to U.S. overflights of Russia that it said were objectionable. The only issue relating to Russian overflights of the U.S. was that "Russia continued not to provide first generation duplicate negative film copies of imagery collected during Open Skies flights over the United States."

But there seems to be more to the concerns about Russian overflights than that.

"Is it true that the Commander of U.S. European Command non-concurred last year when OSD-P asked for his input on approving Russian Federation requests under the Open Skies treaty?," Rep. Rogers asked at another hearing on February 26 (at page 72).

That "was part of the deliberative process and was used to inform DOD and U.S. Government decision-making," replied Brian McKeon of the Department of Defense. "As we worked with other U.S. departments and agencies, we determined that the specific concerns would be ameliorated by some important, separate components of the policy." Both the specific concerns and the steps to ameliorate them were described in a classified letter that is not publicly available.

"USSTRATCOM's capabilities are not significantly impacted by Open Skies overflights today, any more than we have been since the Treaty was implemented in 2002," said Admiral Cecil D. Haney, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command.

"While the U.S. works with Russia on a number of broader concerns, Open Skies continues to serve as a fundamental transparency and confidence building measure in support of the Euro-Atlantic alliance," Admiral Haney said.

* * *

Relatedly, on the subject of arms control compliance, the Congressional Research Service updated its report on Russian Compliance with the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: Background and Issues for Congress, October 13, 2015.

Other new and updated CRS reports that have been issued in the past week include the following.

Appropriations Subcommittee Structure: History of Changes from 1920 to 2015, updated October 13, 2015:

Congressional Action on FY2016 Appropriations Measures, updated October 9, 2015:

EPA Policies Concerning Integrated Planning and Affordability of Water Infrastructure, October 8, 2015:

Issues in a Tax Reform Limited to Corporations and Businesses, October 8, 2015:

Advance Appropriations, Forward Funding, and Advance Funding: Concepts, Practice, and Budget Process Considerations, updated October 8, 2015:

Department of Labor's 2015 Proposed Fiduciary Rule: Background and Issues, October 8, 2015:

U.S.-South Korea Relations, updated October 8, 2015:

Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response, updated October 9, 2015:

DEFENSE SCIENCE BOARD ON AVOIDING STRATEGIC SURPRISE

The Department of Defense needs to take several steps in order to avoid "strategic surprise" by an adversary over the coming decade, according to a new study from the Defense Science Board, a Pentagon advisory body.

Among those steps, "Counterintelligence must be enhanced with urgency." See DSB Summer Study Report on Strategic Surprise, July 2015.

The Board called for "continuous monitoring" of cleared personnel who have access to particularly sensitive information. "The use of big data analytics could allow DoD to track anomalies in the behaviors of cleared personnel in order to thwart the insider threat."

"Continuous monitoring" involves constant surveillance of an employee's activities (especially online activities), and it goes beyond the "continuous evaluation" of potentially derogatory information that is an emerging part of the current insider threat program.

"Insider actions often generate suspicious indicators in multiple and organizationally separate domains--physical, personnel, and cyber security. The use of big data and creative analytics can be carefully tuned to the style and workflow of the particular organization and can help to audit for integrity as well as individual user legitimacy," the DSB report said.

The DSB report broadly addressed opportunities and vulnerabilities in eight domains: countering nuclear proliferation; ballistic and cruise missile defense; space security; undersea warfare; cyber ("The Department should treat cyber as a military capability of the highest priority"); communications and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT); counterintelligence; and logistics resilience.

To an outside reader, the DSB report seems one-dimensional and oddly disconnected from current realities. It does not consider whether the pursuit of any of its recommended courses of actions could have unintended consequences. It does not inquire whether there are high-level national policies that would make strategic surprise more or less likely. And it does not acknowledge the recurring failure of the budget process to produce a defense budget that is responsive to national requirements in a timely fashion.

******************************

Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

The Secrecy News blog is at:
      http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/

To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
     http://fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/subscribe.html

To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to:
      http://fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/unsubscribe.html

OR email your request to saftergood@fas.org

Secrecy News is archived at:
      http://fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html

SUPPORT the FAS Project on Government Secrecy with a donation here:
      https://fas.org/donate/