Power Breakfast on Reducing the Risks of Conventional Deterrence in Europe

Intense Debate on OSCE Network RISK Study at Power Breakfast, Vienna, 12 February 2019 

On the morning of 12 February, Vienna hosted an intense debate on the OSCE Network report “Reducing the Risks of Conventional Deterrence in Europe: Arms Control in the NATO-Russia Contact Zones.” Approximately 70 diplomats accepted Swiss Ambassador Claude Wild’s invitation to attend a power breakfast on the subject. Switzerland currently holds the Chairmanship of the Forum for Security Co-operation. Among the participants were many heads of national delegations to the OSCE, OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger, Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre Marcel Pesko, and other OSCE officials. 

Network Coordinator Dr. habil. Cornelius Friesendorf (CORE/IFSH), Ambassador Philip Remler (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Prof. Andrei Zagorski (IMEMO) opened the meeting with a presentation of the key ideas in the report, which was written by 17 experts from 7 countries – Germany, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, USA – with Dr. Wolfgang Zellner (IFSH) as its key drafter. 

The starting point of the RISK study is the realization that the dominant military risk in Europe is no longer wide-ranging offensive action on a continental scale but the “eventuality of cross-border offensive operations in sensitive areas where Russian and NATO armed forces may directly engage with each other,” which is “particularly acute in the Baltic and Black Sea areas.” The debate in Vienna again highlighted the highly controversial, and to some extent mutually exclusive, positions taken by the European governments. The RISK study and the power breakfast were further Track II contributions from the Network to familiarize participants with these positions.

The RISK study was sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, the German Federal Foreign Office, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Offices in Vienna and Moscow.