In the early 1980s, when Thomas J. Watson Jr. returned from his post as President Jimmy Carter’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, he gathered policymakers and scholars at Brown University, where he had graduated in 1937, to take on what he saw as the most urgent global issue of his time. The Watson Institute, born of his mission to stop the Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States from leading to nuclear war, has since conducted extensive research and outreach on post-Soviet policy.
Dialogue among Americans, Russians, and Europeans (DARE)
DARE Project Consultant: Mary Ellen Connell
The first general DARE (Dialogue among Americans, Russians and Europeans) meeting "What Next in Transatlantic Relations? Recommendations on the Eve of the American Elections" met in Geneva on 24-25 October 2004, in partnership with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. More than 30 experts from Russia, Europe and the United States gathered to consider recommendations for change and new cooperation that should be enacted during the next presidential term.
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| Participants in DARE's first conference: "What Next in Transatlantic Relations? Recommendations on the Eve of the American Election." Geneva, 24-25 October 2004 |
Two American speakers opened the conference with comprehensive analyses of the American electoral process and its implications for the transatlantic framework. This was followed by evaluations of European expectations and desires regarding American foreign policy and political agenda. A panel on terrorism followed. Of particular importance to the American and Russian experts on the subject was the question of how best to deal with the growing threat of terrorism, nationally and internationally and the role of international cooperation in improving security. Five European and Russian speakers then addressed the sources of specific changes in the emerging transatlantic dialogue in general. They focused on the impact of the new European identity, Russia's own expectations about its place in the world, the overall debate on the relationship between security and democracy, and the consequences on Europe's growing defense ambitions, if not growing capabilities.
This successful conference is part of the larger DARE project, which aims to create a self-renewing, long-term policy forum involving American, Russian, and European decision-influentials and scholars in a new, wide-ranging dialogue about their common policy futures. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, its method involves the use of both larger general discussions and small expert working groups that will report to a broader annual conference at Watson. Over the next several years, the groups will delve into contemporary policy issues and suggest new agendas and specific recommendations that could be the basis for policy action. The task forces in particular will review and disseminate regularly the larger group's recommendations to policymakers, academics, journalists, and other important international actors and organization. DARE will on occasion work collaboratively with policy institutes on both sides of the Atlantic and with other Carnegie grantees.
Professor Kelleher's previous initiative -the German, American, Russian Dialogue (GARD)- was an innovative, trilateral approach to the political, economic, and social challenges in the transatlantic agenda. GARD was also generously supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Click here to read the Final GARD Report. DARE draws on groups of GARD alumni from Russia, Germany, and the United States, but it will also include younger, emerging leaders from old and new Europe.
- DARE Geneva conference agenda
- DARE Geneva conference list of participants
- DARE Geneva conference bios
- DARE's upcoming conference
Post-Soviet States: From the Past Into the Future
The Institute is home to leading Soviet historians and authors, providing a solid base for its study of post-Soviet states.
Senior Fellow Sergei N. Khrushchev, son of former Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev, has been at the Institute since 1991, and his work includes editing the three-volume English translation of Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev (Pennsylvania State Press, completed in 2007). He is currently working on his new book, Nikita Khrushchev’s Reforms. He is a frequent lecturer and media commentator on current policy issues affecting the region today.
Adjunct Professor Abbott Gleason, the Keeney Professor of History Emeritus, is co-curating, reinterpreting, and providing undergraduate instruction on Soviet propaganda posters and other works. He is editor of Blackwell's Companion to Russian History (March 2009).
Adjunct Professor Patricia Herlihy researches demographic trends in Russia and socio-political developments in the Ukrainian city of Odessa.