The U-2: America's Eyes in the Sky

I wrote the following for a class of mine when assigned a short paper "on anything". Being enamored by the history behind the U-2 and naturally the aircraft itself, I chose to write about the importance of the U-2s role in shaping the United States' history. While kind of cut and dry, it's about aviation and its going to be throw away otherwise. Enjoy.

The U-2 Spy Plane: America’s Eyes in the Sky

When pushing becomes shoving and the United States needs to take military action, the President can only count on the best and most accurate intelligence to make critical decisions for the nation. In the last sixty years this information has come from various sources to include photo satellites, intelligence agents, and most notably spy planes. Of all the spy planes used by the United States, one aircraft in particular has lead the way in providing Presidents with this time sensitive information. The Lockheed U-2 spy plane has dramatically helped to shape our nation’s history by giving multiple Presidents the missing pieces of information that they needed to make important decisions. This becomes very apparent during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the U-2 proved to be the center piece of information gathering and ultimately helped to decide the United States’ response. In 1962, U-2 spy planes captured the first photos of the Russian nuclear build up in Cuba. The types of ballistic missiles captured in the photographs put most major U.S. cities within striking distance of a nuclear attack. With the knowledge of the Soviet capabilities that the U-2 pictures had provided, “President John F. Kennedy ordered a blockade around Cuba to prevent any further Soviet shipments from reaching the country” (“Spy Planes”). The President’s choice to blockade Cuba rather than interdict through use of military forces was directly due to the knowledge provided by the U-2 flights and the proceeding executive actions and diplomacy proved to be successful in causing the Soviet Union to withdraw military forces from Cuba.During the conflicts in Kosovo and Bosnia the U-2 was monumental in identifying mass graves via aerial photographs and brought the genocide that was occurring to the forefront of the international community. Throughout the latter part of the 20th century, turmoil between ethnic races within the borders of Bosnia and Kosovo grew at a rapid rate. During the early 1990s, rumors began to circulate that mass genocide was being committed as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing being done by the Kosovo Liberation Army. Under the suspicion of such acts, the United States ordered aerial reconnaissance over-flights to be done by the U-2. In August of 1995, the flights over Kosovo and Bosnia proved to be successful identify the atrocities and in turn influenced the United States to intervene. In an article written in the same month, New York Times reported that “the photographs, from spy satellites and U-2 planes, coupled with interviews with Muslim refugees who fled after Srebrenica's capture, provide the most compelling circumstantial evidence that Serbian troops executed at least several hundred military-age men and boys as part of an ethnic-cleansing campaign” (Schmitt, “Spy Photos Indicate Mass Grave At Serb-Held Town”). The confirmation of these reported mass graves lead to President Clinton ordering an extensive United States bombing campaign and ultimately bringing war criminals to trial.During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush called on the U-2 once again to provide aerial reconnaissance to battlefield commanders. His decisions were limited and battlefield information was priceless as the United States prepared for the invasion of Iraq. Using U-2 aerial photographs the President felt secure in launching an attack into Iraq against Iraqi forces. This security blanket of constant reconnaissance photos was maintained throughout the incursion into Iraq. As reported by the New York Times, “During the war, intelligence teams at Beale supported six U-2 missions a day.” These missions sent back “more than 30,000 reports to commanders in the Persian Gulf region” (Schmitt "6,300 Miles From Iraq, Experts Guide Raids”). The information provided helped the President and battlefield commanders make their decisions on how to go into Iraq and then helped to keep American troops on the ground informed during the battles that ensued.The provision of support to the troops on the ground in Iraq is just a microcosm of the jobs that the U-2 currently does today. Its use in the past as a tool for Presidents, both past and present, to make timely and correct decisions remains historically unmatched by any other platform. Despite there being many other uses of the U-2 for both high altitude and atmospheric research, its military uses alone have played a vital to the National Security of the United States. It is for all of these reasons that the U-2 spy plane has been instrumental in providing the right information and allowing the Presidents of the United States to make the right decisions that have shaped our history.

"Attitude determines the altitude of life." - Edwin Louis Cole