The opening skies: Third-party imaging satellites and U.S. security

• Main Author: FLORINI, Ann
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 1988
• Subjects: Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2094; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3351/viewcontent/the_opening_skies__1___1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Earth observation satellites, long a mainstay of U.S. intelligence-gathering, are now presenting new challenges for U.S. national security. The United States and the Soviet Union have long since reconciled themselves to being spied on by each other from space. Now, however, the advent of imaging satellite systems owned and operated by a variety of third parties, including governments other than the superpowers (France, Canada, the European Space Agency, India, and China) and private companies, is raising new concerns for U.S. peacetime foreign relations and military activities, and for crisis management and war- time operations. These new satellites, primarily civilian remote-sensing instruments, are intended to gather information on subjects ranging from agriculture to urban planning, but they can also observe scenes of military interest, and their data are publicly available. They have already been used to reveal new information about Soviet military facilities on the Kola peninsula and to publicize deployments in the Iran-Iraq war.