Do efforts to kill the Open Skies Treaty, and the al-Baghdadi raid, cross paths?

Steffan Watkins
8 min readMar 4, 2020

There have been a series of startling things in the media which have compelled me to document and draw attention to the timing of events.
Are they related, or a coincidence?

Aircrew members assigned to Russian air force Open Skies and Airmen assigned to the 15th Wing, pose for a group photo at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, Aug. 14, 2019. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Heather Redman)

Based on information from multiple leaks, during the 1st week of October, Tim Morrison, the National Security Council’s Russia and Europe director, put some sort of letter of intent to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty under Donald Trump’s fingers while a pen was in them, finishing off the paperwork that John Bolton had drafted before leaving, and progressing a personal quest of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has been on for years, to kill the Open Skies Treaty. Did I mention Tim, Tom, and John are all on the same page about the Open Skies Treaty? Well, they’re three peas in a pod.

On Friday October 4th, 2019 a meeting invite went out to several departments of the United States Government for an NSC meeting on October 7th, Monday, without a set agenda.

On Saturday October 5th, Turkish President Erdogan announced an operation involving Turkish forces in Northern Syria would commence, also on Monday October 7th.

By Sunday October 6th the public was aware that the US Military would be withdrawing, leaving the Kurds to fight the Turks, and it was…

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Steffan Watkins
Steffan Watkins

Written by Steffan Watkins

Steffan Watkins is a open source research consultant interested in the Open Skies Treaty and its implementation, among other things. #OpenSkiesTreaty

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