By Christine June
Public Affairs Office
George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies

MUNICH, Germany (Feb. 19, 2019) – The George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies’ and Munich Security Conference Foundation’s Loisach Group hosted its second annual side event at the Munich Security Conference 2019 held here Feb. 17.

Formed in 2017, the Loisach Group is a partnership between the Munich Security Conference and the Marshall Center, based in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. The Marshall Center is a 25-year old German-American security partnership that has produced generations of global security professionals schooled in American and German security policies.

‘Share Perceptions, Solutions’

“The Loisach Group is designed to provide a sustained opportunity to share perceptions and solutions, and to disagree,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, the Marshall Center director, who opened the side event at the Munich Security Conference. “We want to make sure we at least understand how the other side sees things.”

Each February, the Munich Security Conference brings together more than 450 senior decision-makers from around the world to engage in an intensive debate on current and future security challenges, according to the Munich Security Conference website.

This is the second time that Loisach Group held a side event at the Munich Security Conference.

The group held two roundtable discussions, engaging senior German and American military officers, and academics to support the strategic dialogue by discussing the lessons identified by this year’s Munich Security Conference.

“Our goal is to develop ideas on how we can better cooperate because the American-German relationship is the cornerstone of security in Europe and beyond,” Dayton said.

Topics were how the alliance should develop according to Germany and the United States, and what will be most important during the NATO summit in April, which will mark the 70th anniversary of NATO.

Loisach Group’s Past, Future

The name of the group refers to the river that flows through Garmisch-Partenkirchen on its way to Munich.

“Like we hope our thoughts from the Loisach Group flows to the Munich Security Conference,” Dayton said.

The first meeting of the Loisach Group was in May 2017, and the second meeting was a few months later in December. The third meeting was at the Munich Security Conference last year. The fourth meeting was in Berlin in June last year. The fifth meeting was in the Pentagon and U.S. State Department in November last year. This side event at this year’s Munich Security Conference was the sixth meeting of the Loisach Group.

There two more working group meetings planned at the Marshall Center in June and in Berlin during autumn.