Asia & the Pacific

In March, as Washington and Moscow traded lists of people banned from traveling to their countries, a select group of U.S. and Russian retired generals met quietly in Morocco to discuss the looming crisis in Ukraine and its effect on U.S. and Russian strategic interests.  The Elbe Group, organized by the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School, has been meeting since 2010 to discuss sensitive bilateral issues. The members of the Elbe Group are senior retired military and intelligence flag officers, including three- and four-star veterans from the FSB, GRU, CIA, DIA, Ministry of Defense and Department of Defense, all with strong connections into their respective governments.

As U.S. and Soviet forces converged in Germany in the final days of WWII, both armies met at the River Elbe near Torgau. That meeting of comrades, united in the face of common threats, is the inspiration for the Belfer Center’s “Elbe Group,” whose purpose is to maintain an open and continuous channel of communication on sensitive issues of U.S.-Russian relations. In late March, the Elbe Group met in Jerusalem for its eighth meeting since its founding in 2010.