
One of the Offutt-based 55th Wing’s OC-135 Open Skies jets in flight.
The U.S. is scheduled to leave the Open Skies Treaty on Sunday, leaving two Offutt-based OC-135 aircraft and crews without a mission.
The withdrawal comes exactly six months after the Trump administration gave notice of its intent to leave the treaty, which allows the U.S., Russia and 32 other nations to conduct supervised aerial photography flights over one another’s territory.
At the time, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited repeated Russian violations of the treaty. They include restrictions on flights near breakaway regions along the border with its neighbor, the Republic of Georgia, and limits on the lengths of flights over the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
“Russia has consistently acted as if it were free to turn its obligations off and on at will,” Pompeo said in a statement. “Its approach to Treaty implementation has fatally undermined the very intent of the Treaty as a confidence- and trust-building measure.”
Russia denied violating the treaty.
At the time, Joe Biden — then a candidate, now president-elect — pushed back forcefully. He pointed to widespread support for the treaty among European allies and said withdrawing from it would harm their interests while further poisoning relations with Russia.
“Instead of tearing up treaties that make us and our allies more secure, President Trump … should remain in the Open Skies Treaty and work with allies to confront and resolve problems regarding Russia’s compliance,” Biden said in a statement in May.
Now, with Biden set to assume the presidency in January, the U.S. is on the verge of leaving a pact that he wants to continue. It’s not clear when or how that could happen.
Would Biden need to resubmit the treaty for ratification by two-thirds of the Senate? Would the planes and their equipment need to be certified again?
“If the Biden administration wanted to rejoin the treaty, he could do it, but it would be cumbersome,” said Peter Jones, a former Canadian diplomat who helped negotiate the treaty in the 1990s.
Peter Brookes, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said he’s against a last-minute reprieve.
“We haven’t seen enough change in Russian behavior,” said Brookes, a senior Defense Department official under President George W. Bush. “If there’s a Biden administration in January, they can look at this and decide whether they agree or disagree with the Trump administration’s decision.”
The uncertainty has left those charged with carrying out the treaty in limbo.
“We don’t know how this is going to go, either,” said Lt. Col. Andrew Maus, commander of the Offutt-based 45th Reconnaissance Squadron, which operates the treaty’s two photo reconnaissance jets. “We have our duty to train the crews and maintain the aircraft. We’re doing that.”
Maus said the squadron flew 19 treaty missions in 2019 and was scheduled to fly 11 in 2020. But the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the U.S. withdrawal have kept flights grounded this year.
President George H.W. Bush negotiated the treaty after the Cold War, reviving an idea first raised by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s. It was signed in 1992.
Two WC-135 radiation detection aircraft were converted with the installation of aerial cameras, called sensors, built to uniform standards. Since the first flights in 2002, more than 1,500 missions have been flown.
The treaty enjoyed a low profile and bipartisan support until about three years ago, when a small group of hard-line Republicans used Russian violations as a cudgel to kill it.
Treaty supporters felt that the violations were side issues, resolvable through the Open Skies dispute resolution framework.
The effort to end the treaty “was a very small conspiracy, and a very well-placed one,” said Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan Washington think tank focused on international peace and security issues.
The arguments found a receptive audience in President Donald Trump, who has expressed skepticism of international treaties that he believes limit American action.
Nebraska’s all-Republican congressional delegation conducted a rearguard action to save the treaty.
Sen. Deb Fischer and Reps. Don Bacon and Jeff Fortenberry secured partial funding for the purchase of two new planes to replace the 60-year-old OC-135s, which are prone to dangerous and inconvenient breakdowns at Russian airfields.
And in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, they inserted a provision requiring the Trump administration to give Congress advance notice of intent to pull out of the treaty and meet other conditions as well.
Last week, Jones published an article proposing that the treaty members freeze the clock on the treaty from Saturday until the new administration takes office.
It’s a tactic that’s sometimes used by legislators or diplomats running up against a deadline.
“It’s a fiction, and everybody knows that, but it’s a fiction that everyone agrees to,” he said.
Jones said his article has prompted some discussion among members of the Vienna-based international committee that oversees the treaty, but so far, they haven’t moved to implement it.
Krepon thinks that Biden’s best route is to have State Department lawyers review Trump’s withdrawal. If they found that it was done improperly — if, for example, his administration didn’t follow the law in notifying Congress — then they could nullify the withdrawal.
Brookes believes that Trump’s State Department made a convincing case for leaving. He said Russia had added new provocations in 2019 by refusing to allow a U.S.-Canadian treaty flight over one of its military exercises and by directing U.S. aircraft to use an airfield in Crimea, which Russia occupied and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“You contrive to let the Russians get away with violating the treaties, and they get away with it. You create a moral hazard,” Brookes said.
But Krepon believes that the U.S. withdrawal plays into Russia’s hands by pulling the U.S. apart from NATO allies that don’t have spy satellites and rely on the photo imagery for intelligence on Russian activities.
“Trump’s withdrawal was a gift to Putin,” he said.
Fischer has supported U.S. participation in the treaty, but she sees it now as very nearly a dead issue. Although the end of the treaty means the loss of two aircraft for Offutt’s 55th Wing, she’s excited about the base being a finalist for the new headquarters of the U.S. Space Command and about the addition of a third aircraft capable of monitoring atmospheric radiation.
“I guess I’m looking ahead,” she said. “We have millions of dollars in new construction. We’re getting a new runway. It was a fight. The fight has turned.”
Offutt Air Force Base through the years
Offutt Air Force Base is named for Lt. Jarvis Offutt — the first airman from Omaha killed in World War I.

1891

The area now known as Offutt Air Force Base was first commissioned as Fort Crook, an Army post to house cavalry soldiers and their horses. This photo, circa 1905, shows mounted officers and infantry troops assembling on the parade ground. The officers' quarters in the background still stand today, but the closing of Offutt's stables in 2010 ended the base's equine tradition.
1952

Painter Frank Anania places the final bolt in the SAC emblem, newly placed on the command building at Strategic Air Command headquarters. After the command was created in 1946, SAC headquarters were moved from Andrews Field, Maryland, to Offutt Air Force Base. SAC's high-flying reconnaissance planes and bombers would go on to play a global role from the onset of the Cold War through the last bomb of the Persian Gulf War.
1956

The Strategic Air Command "nerve center" gets a new headquarters building at Offutt Air Force Base.
1957

Even since the late 1950s, Strategic Air Command has been holding open house events at Offutt Air Force Base to display and demonstrate aircraft for civilian visitors. Each year, the open house and air show at Offutt features aerial acts or reenactments, static displays, and booths showcasing military history and capabilities.
1959

The first SAC museum consisted of a section of abandoned runway near the north edge of Offutt Air Force Base outside of Bellevue. However, the outdoor display left the aircraft vulnerable to the elements.
1961

A Royal Air Force bomber crashes at Offutt Air Force Base. Beginning in the late 1950s, the RAF maintained small detachment and service facility for Vulcan bomber planes at Offutt, often participating in defense exercises and demonstrations at the base until their retirement and deactivation in 1982. This plane crashed at take-off at the northwest end of the main runway and then slid across Highway 73-75. All seven passengers survived.
1962

Just weeks after the Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy visits Offutt Air Force Base, accompanied by Gen. Thomas Power of Strategic Air Command, right.
1962

Actor Rock Hudson receives a B-52 bomber briefing during a visit to Omaha and Offutt Air Force Base. He began filming "A Gathering of Eagles" in May of that year.
1967

An early photograph of the Ehrling Bergquist military medical clinic in Bellevue. The clinic has served Offutt Air Force Base since 1966 and was remodeled in 2013, including a grand staircase, larger physical therapy and mental health areas, and a more private mammography waiting area.
1970

The world's largest aircraft at that time, the C5 Galaxy was displayed as part of the open house for civilian visitors at Offutt Air Force Base.
1989

A conference room in the SAC underground command post at Offutt Air Force Base. Strategic Air Command would be formally disestablished in 1992, but Offutt would remain the headquarters for the new United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM).
1992

The Strategic Air Command Memorial Chapel holds a Sunday morning service as a reminder of those who have given their service and those who have died during the Command's 46-year history. Founded in in 1946, the command was dissolved in a ceremony at Offutt Air Force Base.
1997

OPPD worker Craig Azure of Ashland holds a power line up across Platteview Road near Highway 50 so that an Albatross airplane can fit under it. After SAC was dissolved, the museum moved into a new indoor facility in 1998. Airplanes were moved from their old location at Offutt Air Force Base to their new and current home near Mahoney State Park off I-80.
2000

The parade grounds gazebo at Offutt is dedicated in honor of Airman 1st Class Warren T. Willis, who was killed in an aircraft accident the previous December.
2000

President Bill Clinton speaks at a rally at Offutt Air Force Base.
2003

More than 300 anti-nuclear protesters gather outside Kinney Gate at Offutt Air Force Base. The rally was part of a weekend of protest against nuclear weapons, and was organized in response to an extensive nuclear arsenal review being held at the base.
2006

Vice President Dick Cheney greets service men and women following a speech at Offutt Air Force Base's Minuteman missile in Bellevue.
2012

Dignitaries clap along to an armed forces medley as ground is broken for the new U. S. Strategic Command Headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base. From left: Neb. Rep. Adrian Smith, Rep. Lee Terry, Neb. Governor Dave Heineman, General C. Robert Kehler, Commander USStratcom, Sen. Ben Nelson, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, and Mayor of Bellevue, Rita Sanders.
2012

Chris Shotton created this thank you message to the airmen and troops flying in and out of Offutt Air Force Base. Employees of area Walmart stores have been writing giant messages in fields near Highway 370 for years.
2013

Senior Airman Kevin Chapman works the desk at the new Public Health Clinic located in the Ehrling Bergquist military medical clinic.
2014

The new MERLIN SS200m Aircraft Birdstrike Avoidance Radar System, with the control tower in the background, photographed at Offutt Air Force Base. The system was moved here from Afghanistan in order to help detect large flocks and prevent damages to aircraft from bids, which cost the Air Force millions of dollars each year.
2015

An aerial photo from late February of the construction site for StratCom's new $1.2 billion headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base. Despite numerous delays and setbacks, the building would be completed in 2018, six years after construction began. StratCom would then spend the next year outfitting the structure with more than $600 million worth of high-tech communications and security gear.
2016

President Barack Obama arrives in Omaha after landing at Offutt Air Force Base. While in Omaha, Obama met with the family of Kerrie Orozco, visited a local teacher, and addressed a crowd of about 8,000 at Baxter Arena.
2019

This year, U.S. Strategic Command unveiled a new Command and Control Facility located at Offutt Air Force Base. The "battle deck," shown here, features computer workstations, soundproofing, and the ability to connect instantly to the White House and Pentagon.
2019

Luke Thomas and Air Force Tech Sgt. Vanessa Vidaurre at a flooded portion of Offutt Air Force Base. In March, historic flooding included breaches of two levees protecting the base from the Missouri River.
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