Caption: Interior of Open Skies Plane equipped with cameras, infrared imaging and synthetic aperture radar. (DTRA photo)

During the 1955 Geneva Summit, President Eisenhower proposed that the United States and Soviet Union conduct surveillance flights over each other's territory to reassure each country that the other was not preparing to attack. The fears and suspicions of the Cold War led Soviet leaders to reject Eisenhower's proposal but thirty-four years later, the Open Skies concept was reintroduced by the first President Bush as a means to build confidence and security between all North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Warsaw Pact countries. The treaty was signed in 1992 by Secretary of State, James Baker and 23 other countries, and responsibility for overall training, management, leadership, coordination and support for U.S. Open Skies observation missions was turned over to the On-Site Inspection Agency (OSIA), now a part of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).

Today, Open Skies is one of the most wide-ranging international efforts to promote openness and transparency of military forces and activities. In partnership with 34 State Parties, DTRA uses the Open Skies program to prevent conflicts and manage crises through reciprocal, unarmed observation flights. In addition, Open Skies teams have supported a variety of humanitarian and environmental missions around the world and responded to short-notice requests for imagery following natural disasters in the United States.