On-Site Inspection Agency

Much of the second half of this rapidly closing century was dominated by the confrontation and the idealogical differences between the Soviet Union and the United States. Although the Cold War is over, there are a significant number of important treaties between the two countries and the USSR's successor states. It is the responsibility of the follow-on activity to a little known Department of Defense organization, the On-Site Inspection Agency (OSIA), to inspect the former Soviet Union and, where applicable, its former Warsaw Pact allies for the U.S. side. Both the Strategic Arms and Conventional Forces treaties involve, among other things, the inspection of aircraft. It is appropriate, therefore, that the history of this fine organization, the On-Site Inspection Agency, be presented in a resource about Russian aviation. The original text and photographs from the book are presented. The only difference between this copy of the history and the printed edition (sadlly, no longer available to the public from the U.S. Government Printing Office in a soft cover) is that the text has been hyper-linked to WWW sources for additional reading or background information.

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