Strategic Trust-Building

200th Anniversary of US-Russia Diplomatic Relations

Overview

Ambassador John D. Negroponte, US Deputy Secretary of State, delivered the keynote address at the 2007 Awards Dinner on April 25 in Washington, DC.

The dinner was attended by dignitaries from business and government, including members of Congress and diplomats, media and civil society. It was part of EWI's US-Russia Constructive Agenda Initiative, a dynamic multi-year project bringing together leaders from various professions from both nations to craft new approaches to bilateral and global challenges. The initiative also includes public and private meetings, policy papers and conferences.

EWI Policy Study Group: Russia, Europe and the United States

Overview

For nearly 30 years, the EastWest Institute has worked to bridge the divide between the United States and Europe on the one hand, and on the other, the Soviet Union until 1991 and after that Russia. Yet, 2008 appears to be a year of rising tensions endangering international order: While the West accepted Kosovo sovereignty, Russia denied any legal value to Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence. In the meantime, the NATO Bucharest summit held out the prospect of Georgia’s and Ukraine’s membership.

The adoption of a new US National Defense Strategy in April 2008 was shortly followed by a new Russian Foreign Policy Concept in July 2008. We now have to deal with a “Georgian war” that was waged at the beginning of August and that resulted in Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

In order to discuss these recent developments, the meanings and security perceptions that Russia and Europe attach to them, as well as to investigate the broader implications it has for the East-West relationship, the EastWest Institute is setting up a EWI study group on Russia, Europe and the United States.

The study group will comprise invited specialists and officials with strong knowledge of the foreign policy and security approaches of these three actors, as well as of the evolving international security landscape. These specialists and officials will gather in three roundtable seminars from September to November 2008 with a view to preparing a report that will be presented to key governments. Based on the findings of EWI’s policy study group, subsequent activities for the study group might be identified as necessary to further a constructive relationship between Russia and NATO.

Themes:

  • Substantial changes in Russia’s foreign policy approach?
  • A dangerous act: NATO’s Bucharest agenda
  • The US anti-missile defense shield in Eastern Europe
  • The “Georgian War”: an application of Russia’s new foreign policy concept?
  • The US elections’ impact on the US-Russian relationship
  • Iraq, Kosovo, Iran and Chechnya - how much trust is left?
  • The re-emergence of an old superpower: what is Russia’s new place in the international system?
  • The East-West divide: Where are we heading?

Time and Venue:

EWI Brussels Center, rue de la Loi 85, 1000 Brussels

Tuesday, 30th September
 11-12.30 a.m., afterwards: informal lunch until 1 p.m.
 
Tuesday,28th October
 11-12.30 a.m., afterwards: informal lunch until 1 p.m.
 
Tuesday, 25th November
 11-12.30 a.m., afterwards: informal lunch until 1 p.m.

 By invitation only. Inquiries for participation welcome.

WorldWide Security Conference Pre-Meeting held in Beijing

Overview

Ambassador Zhang Deguang, Secretary General of the China Foundation for International Studies, and member of the EWI Board of Directors, in discussion with EWI staff members, including Ms Piin Fen-Kok (pictured), manager of EWI's China work, on potential collaboration between Chinese institutions and EWI in Central Asia.  

Ambassador Zhang is the former Secretary General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. EWI staff were in Beijing for a meeting with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association on new approaches to the control of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The meeting on WMD was a pre-meeting for a "Day in the Future", a special one-day session of EWI's fifth Worldwide Security Conference scheduled for 19-21 February 2008 in Brussels.

Trialogue21 holds second meeting in Beijing

Overview

EWI and the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), the think tank of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, held the second meeting of their Trialogue21 initiative in Beijing.  Trialogue21 is a multi-year initiative that was launched in 2006 by the two institutes to bring together top emerging leaders from the United States, Europe, and China to clarify perceptions, build trust, and identify areas of cooperation on global issues. 

In Beijing, nearly 40 private and public sector leaders from the three regions engaged in off-the-record discussions that explored a new framework for cooperation in promoting energy security, addressing the challenges of globalization, confronting security issues in the Persian Gulf and Horn of Africa, and managing China's development, and its relations with the United States and European Union. 

The next Trialogue21 meeting will be held in Washington, DC in December 2008. This meeting will seek further policy recommendations for the international community against the backdrop of an incoming new administration in the United States.

Third Annual Worldwide Security Conference

Overview

The Third Annual Worldwide Security Conference: Protecting People and Infrastructure: Achievements, Challenges and Future Tasks, will take place in Brussels from 21-23 February 2006. This conference, co-organized by the EastWest Institute and the World Customs Organization, has become of the landmark trans-tlantic event bringing together the private sector with leading government officials and high-level representatives of international institutions.

We are pleased to inform you that for the first time in a conference of this nature the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation will co-sponsor with us a third day’s program focusing on Public-Private Partnerships Against International Terrorism. This session is anticipated to feed into the Russian G8 Presidency and to significantly expand public-private partnerships against international terrorism. We believe that this special event will offer participants new ways of looking at public-private cooperation against terrorism.

Fourth Meeting of the Consortium on Security and Technology

Overview

The consortium worked to protect people, economies and infrastructure against international terrorism by discussing anti-terrorist security technology for public transport.

The Consortium on Security and Technology provides a forum through which public-private partnerships are created to enhance the protection of people, economies and infrastructure against international terrorism. The Consortium includes American and European companies with multinational operations and focuses on the application of new technologies in the field of public safety. These include: supply chain and border security, critical infrastructure protection, public transport security and cybersecurity. The fourth meeting of the consortium focused on technology and public transport security. It addressed effective approaches for preventing terrorist acts in public transport; currently used technologies such as CCTV; and which available technologies can help develop an anti-terrorist security system for public transport.

Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Threat Assessment

Despite the most recent tensions in the bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States, cooperation on counternarcotics has endured, developing slowly but steadily. The EastWest Institute’s report Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Threat Assessment focuses on the serious threats these two countries face from the flow of drugs from Afghanistan and its corrosive impact on Afghanistan itself. The contributors to the report point out that preventing an explosion in this opium trade is a prerequisite for improving the security of Afghanistan and its neighbors after the withdrawal of foreign troops next year.

Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Threat Assessment is a product of the Russian and American experts who participated in a working group convened by EWI. Leaders in this field from both countries, including representatives of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Russian Federal Drug Control Service, provided briefings and other assistance to the group.

According to EWI Senior Associate Jacqueline McLaren Miller, the project’s main coordinator, “This report demonstrates that cooperation between Russia and the United States is still possible when both countries are willing to focus on a common challenge.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov echoed the same sentiments at the February 2, 2013 Munich Security Conference when he stated the need for “closer cooperation with the U.S. on Afghanistan.” There are about 30,000 heroin-related deaths in Russia every year, and most of the heroin comes from Afghanistan.

Cooperation between the two countries is necessary to stem predicted growth of opium production in a post-2014 Afghanistan. The report includes a clear warning: “As NATO and U.S. troops prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan, which is still struggling with a highly volatile security situation, weak governance, and major social and economic problems, the size of the opium economy and opiate trafficking are likely to increase and pose an even greater challenge to regional and international security.”

This paper will be followed shortly by a Joint Policy Assessment report, which will offer specific policy suggestions for both Russia and the United States to curtail the flow of opiates from Afghanistan.

Click to Download

Building Momentum for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

In 2011, the EastWest Institute (EWI) and the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan launched the Nuclear Discussion Forum, a series of off-the-record meetings that brought together United Nations Member States committed to building trust, identifying milestones, and working to mobilize international political will for concrete, practical nuclear nonproliferation, and disarmament measures.

The Forum brought together representatives from 34 U.N. Member States. The aim: to establish a foundation of trust among these crucial states and identify the next milestones on the path to global zero.

 In an effort to make the Nuclear Discussion Forum an organic, Member State-led process, participants were asked to select five high-priority topics for discussion and form a core working group. This core working group met before each forum meeting to review the prepared “policy reference points,” raise specific issues to be discussed and suggest a speaker and discussant. Six Member States volunteered to serve in the group alongside EWI and the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan: Austria, Costa Rica, Egypt, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Uruguay.

 This short report is intended to capture a sense of the debate as it proceeded in the Forum, which has gained praise from key international leaders:

 “As a member of the core group, Egypt participated actively in the activities of the Nuclear Discussion Forum, which it sees as a commendable initiative facilitated through the partnership of the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan and the EastWest Institute, and expects the NDF to continue to contribute valuably to raising international public awareness on the merit of the goal of total and comprehensive nuclear disarmament.”

His Excellency Maged Abdelaziz

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations

 “The Nuclear Discussion Forum has provided a major and sustained opportunity for conducting a healthy exercise in the context of international relations: exchanging points of views on issues of great concern that  generate multiple positions. For a peaceful country as Costa Rica, deeply committed to disarmament and a world free of nuclear weapons, the Forum has opened an arena for discussion, not with the aim of convincing fellow countries or forging common proposals, but, rather, of deepening a constructive dialogue that will certainly contribute to our aspirations.”

His Excellency Eduardo Ulibarri

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations

 “The Nuclear Discussion Forum has contributed to the cultivation of an informal disarmament community among officials with relevant responsibilities both in the Permanent Missions and in the Secretariat’s office for Disarmament Affairs. And it has provided a welcome opportunity for all participants to receive briefings from outside experts on specific subjects on the international disarmament and nonproliferation agenda.”

Sergio Duarte

United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs

 “The debate on ridding the world of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and ensuring non-proliferation must continue with purpose among all stakeholders. My delegation was pleased to participate in the very constructive Nuclear Discussion Forum, the report of which aptly underscores the urgency of mobilizing political will to undertake the States’ stated commitments on achieving the vision of global nuclear zero. My commendation to the Mission of Kazakhstan and EastWest Institute for undertaking this highly important effort.”

His Excellency Hasan Kleib

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Indonesia to the United Nations

 “Austria has actively participated in the Nuclear Discussion Forum as a member of its Core Working Group. This commendable partnership between the EastWest Institute and the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan has underscored the urgent need for new progress in the field of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, and I hope that the Forum will continue its important functions next year”.

His Excellency Thomas Mayr-Harting

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations

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