Cambridge, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; Reykjavík, Island; Frankfurt, Deutschland; Moskau, Russland - On July 1, 2020, six renowned academic institutions from the United States, Russia, and Europe join forces and welcome the inaugural cohort of the Arms Control Negotiation Academy (ACONA), a new, highly selective program that will train 16 emerging inter­national security leaders in arms control history, technology, and nego­tiations with the goal to identify new pathways that can reduce tensions between great powers.

ACONA is a multi-insti­tutional collaboration led by and hosted at the Negotiation Task Force at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (U.S.), in collabo­ration with the Woodrow Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program (U.S.), Höfði Reykjavík Peace Centre at the University of Iceland (Iceland), the Higher School of Economics (Russia), Moscow State Institute of International Relations (Russia), and Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (Germany).

The American, Russian, and European scholars are gravely concerned over the continuing dis­integration of the global arms control architecture, including the recent collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty, and the uncertain future of the New START agreement. “Scientists and civil society can and must play a leading role in creating new spaces for open dialogue to overcome this crisis,” said Harvard lecturer Arvid Bell, Director of the Negotiation Task Force and ACONA Executive Board member. “If we don’t act now, we could soon face a world without a single strategic arms control agreement for the first time since the 1960s.”

Born out of this crisis of arms control, ACONA is founded on the under­standing that global security depends on constructive engagement between the United States and Russia as well as the broader inter­national community. “We have to start from scratch and build a new generation of scholars, diplomats, and decision-makers who are familiar with the history, theory, and negotiation techniques of arms control,” said Professor Christopher Daase of Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, a member of the ACONA Executive Board.

The Academy solicited applications worldwide to fill only sixteen spots. The selected ACONA Fellows hail from eight countries—including four experts each from the United States and Russia—and a diversity of professional and academic backgrounds. "I am delighted that so many smart young people are interested in learning more about negotiating arms control agreements. We will need them—their brains, expertise and enthusiasm—to go forward," said Rose Gottemoeller, former Deputy General Secretary of NATO and former U.S. Under Secretary of State, and a member of the ACONA Inter­national Advisory Board.

Over the course of one year, Fellows will acquire advanced negotiation skills and collaborate on international research projects to generate new ideas about the future of arms control. They will meet virtually in August 2020 for the first “Negotiation Boot Camp,” a week-long intensive workshop. The second boot camp will take place in Iceland in January 2021.

The small Nordic state has served as a neutral meeting place for one of the most important historic achievements in global diplomacy. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan met in Reykjavík in 1986 for productive talks that led to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) Treaty.

“It's great to know that young people, some of whom were not even born when Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan met in Reykjavik, will be coming there to learn about the past and present of nuclear arms control and to discuss the future,” said Pavel Palazhchenko, ACONA International Advisory Board member and Mikhail Gorbachev’s chief English interpreter, who participated in all U.S.-Soviet summits leading to the end of the Cold War, including the 1986 meeting between Gorbachev and Reagan in Höfði House, Reykjavík.

Other ACONA International Advisory Board members in addition to Gottemoeller and Palazhchenko are Professor William C. Potter, Director of the James Martin Center for Non­proliferation Studies and Foreign Member to the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Russian Academy of Sciences member Alexei Arbatov, Head of the Center for Inter­national Security at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO).

ACONA is funded by Fondation "Avec et pour autres," the Negotiation Task Force, the Icelandic government, and the University of Iceland.