In September 2019, several authors of the RISK report (Wolfgang Zellner et al.: Reducing the Risk of Conventional Deterrence in Europe: Arms Control in the NATO-Russia Contact Zones, Vienna: OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions 2018) presented the report in the United States. The aim was to stimulate debate on risk reduction through conventional arms control in the US, where decision-makers and analysts are preoccupied with other issues, such as the erosion of nuclear arms control.
Cornelius Friesendorf, Head of the Centre for OSCE Research (CORE), Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH), and Benjamin Schaller from the Arctic University of Norway presented the RISK report at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies on 21 September. The following day, they discussed its findings at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C., together with Professor Philip Hopmann (Johns Hopkins University) and Ambassador Philip Remler (Carnegie). The event stimulated a lively debate on options for arms control and risk reduction, especially in the Baltic Sea area. Participants included representatives of the United States Department of State and foreign embassies.