this makes no sense like almost everything he says or does
I remember when some on the Dope (and elsewhere) were arguing that Trump was the peace candidate. It was ridiculous then, but it’s become utter flat-Earth lunacy now.
Well it makes sense. If we can do whatever we want, because we are America, why would we be party to a treaty that let’s others do things?
Is it good for Russia? Well, there’s your answer!
Looks like it’s not good for Russia actually.
The argument is that they’re restricting where the overflights can occur in Russia and we’re not, which gives them an advantage and is not in good faith or within the spirit of the treaty. So we’re pulling out.
I’m not sure what’s so bad about it; it’s kind of insane to allow the Russians or anyone else free overflight permission when you think about it.
As I understand it, it allows the Russians to overfly any and all US military bases in Europe (and Turkey for the Middle East) given that those countries are members of open skies. Its very bad for the US, if only because the US has the most overseas military bases stationed around the world.
they claim it’s no longer needed since satellites are so good at taking pictures now. And that Russia was not following the treaty anyway.
Trump really shouldn’t be making any major changes during the last few months of his presidency. It will become yet another piece of half-assed, unfinished business that Biden and his team will have to clean up.
It’s bad because it discourages military transparency. I wonder which country or countries would benefit from that.
“Open Skies” was never a Russian initiative. It was an idea that the United States pushed for and spent decades getting the Russians to agree to.
The idea was first proposed by Dwight Eisenhower. The Soviet government rejected the idea.
It finally became a treaty under George H.W. Bush. Who was the former head of the CIA.
Are we supposed to believe that Donald Trump saw flaws in the military and intelligence arguments that Eisenhower and Bush missed?
Trump [del]thinks[/del] feels he sees flaws looking through the lens of his limited zero-sum no-such-thing-as-win-win view of international relations, business, politics, and life generally. In other words, par for the course. 
That’s a feature, not a bug. In their eyes, probably the best feature of all.
Trump has made some huge mistakes but I’m not sure this is one of them. If Russia was breaking the treaty why should we allow them to do fly overs? Also, in game theory terms, Tit for Tat is a viable strategy here. Not “punishing” the other side for breaking promises can make the relationship between countries even worse.
Russia was not “breaking” the treaty, but it was being intransigent and difficult. I agree on that, but the treaty had definite value because it let us narrow down areas in which Moscow had ongoing operational security concerns, like Czechnya, Abkhasia, and South-Ossetia. Those are the areas where Russia made it difficult to do flyovers and these are the areas the west would want to put in supplementary (satellite) surveillance.
Thankfully, Russia is not replying with withdrawing from the treaty. Tit-for-tat is conflict escalation and we - Europeans at least - don’t want that with Russia. If we lost that ability to do flyovers, we’d have to resort to riskier espionage to figure out where their troops were, what they were doing. Now we can look in on them and see what they’re doing, they can look in on us and see what we’re doing and as long as nobody’s suddenly bunkering up, hoarding supplies or conducting en-masse maneouvers, we know that things are probably fine.
I disagree that Tit for Tat (both in game theory terms and here) is conflict escalation. In game theory, TFT begins with a trusting stance and assumes the best. It only turns negative after receiving a betrayal (negative response). It then forgives and returns positive as soon as it receives a positive response.
In this case both sides are trying to act in their own best interests. If breaking treaty terms have no negative consequences it is in Russia’s best interest to keep breaking treaties. A negative reaction may cause Russia to think twice before breaking other treaties and actually reduce the chance of war.
Not reacting to broken treaties delayed the (then future) Allies’ response to Germany in the late 1930s.
No one is suggesting that we should have just let Russia violate the terms of treaty with no consequences.
Responding to them violating the terms of the treaty by giving them something that want is what Trump is doing here. There is no game theoretical way to polish this turd.
Russia was doing something we didn’t like. Trump responded by giving them something that they wanted.
So how exactly do we get them to quit doing what we don’t like without giving them something they want? The status quo sucks- they get what they want in all ways- unhindered overflights of our stuff, and the ability to prohibit our overflights.
Diplomacy. Is that a real question.
They were restricting some of our flights, so in retaliation Trump is giving them the right to restrict all our flights.
This is a dumb move.
Russia was unhappy with the treaty so we tear it up. Boy, that’ll show those Russians.
Yes, Trump does think he’s smarter than everyone else. But the reality is he doesn’t know much of what’s going on. I doubt he knew this treaty existed a month ago. Somebody must have put the idea in his head that it was bad.
I’d like to know who that person is and have his financial records investigated. See if there are any unaccounted for rubles.