by Carl Conetta, Conference Report, in Defense and Disarmament Alternatives, the newsletter of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (IDDS), January 1989.
Report on the September 1988 conference, co-hosted by the Institute for World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) and Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (IDDS), of Soviet and US arms control and military policy specialists. The report summarizes the exchange regarding problems and prospects for conventional force reductions in Europe.
These meetings happened a little less than two months before President Gorbachev’s historic announcement at the UN in December of 1988 of substantial unilateral reductions and defensive restructuring of Soviet troops in eastern Europe – one of the most significant policy shifts in the process of ending the European Cold War. This international conference likely had more import than most.