On 21-22 September 2017, Dr. Pauli Järvenpää, Senior Researcher at the ICDS, participated as a panelist in the 9th Annual Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) Forum in Washington, D.C. The 2017 Forum focused on the theme of Preserving Atlanticism in a Time of Change.
Panels covered a wide range of pressing policy issues from “Reforming NATO for the 21st Century” to “Strengthening U.S.-Central European Relations” to “The Future of U.S. Military Presence in Europe: Effective Responses in a Changing Security Environment”.
Dr. Järvenpää’s contribution was on the panel covering the issue of “Frontier Defense: Local Realities, Local Solutions”, where he argued for urgent consideration of the next steps after the very successful European Reassurance Initiative (now the European Deterrence Initiative) and the equally successful Enhanced Forward Presence in the Baltic States and Poland. According to him, there is a need to build a stronger security culture across all parts of society, including robust resilience measures involving all members of the society. Likewise, it is important to create regional and local instruments of deterrence to raise the threshold against potential military or other threats against these societies.
More on the Annual CEPA Forum 2017 at www.cepa.org.