On 16 July 1982, when Paul Nitze and Yuli Kvitsinsky, the American and Soviet arms control negotiators, went for a walk in the woods near Geneva, it became a singular moment in the Cold War, according to Keith Krause, arms control expert and director of the Graduate Institute’s Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding.

“They speculated that if the Soviet Union withdrew some of the missiles they’d already deployed and the Americans withdrew some of the missiles they were planning to deploy, it would essentially stop the arms race. While their proposal didn’t bear fruit, the lesson from the walk is that success is not immediate and many of the processes of arms control or negotiations have to be seen in the long term. You need both the fear and the positive message that if we work together on this then there might be a solution that addresses all our concerns.”

You can watch a video below where Keith Krause retraces the “walk in the woods” with Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Graduate Institute alumnus. Their conversation coincided with Brad Smith’s lecture on global cybersecurity challenges at the 2017 Geneva Lecture Series, organised by UNITAR and UN Geneva in partnership with the Graduate Institute and the Geneva Internet Platform.