Prof. Maria Mälksoo gave an invited lecture to the students and academic staff of the MAPIR (Master in Peace Research and International Relations) programme, Department of Political Science, University of Tübingen on 5 November 2025. The keynote was titled ‘Peacetiming for Future Deterrence’.
Prof. Mälksoo presented her book project, ‘Ritual Deterrence: All Unquiet on the Eastern Front’ at the Higher Research Seminar, Department of Political Science, Stockholm University on 29 October 2025.
Last week, Dr Cameron Hunter of the RITUAL DETERRENCE project spoke at two conferences. The first was a closed event sponsored by the UK Ministry of Defence on security in outer space, including deterrence. NATO, China, and to a lesser extent Russia, all utilise space for military purposes in both peace and wartime. Dr Hunter’s previous research was on US-China competition in orbit, with a more recent report on space-based nuclear weapons delivery vehicles. The conference was held under the Chatham House Rule.
The second event was held at Copenhagen University, sponsored by the Danish Ministry of Defence’s Centre for Military Studies. Bringing together international experts, the conference collectively compared the defence budgets of the US and China. Dr Hunter provided comments for Dr Jingdong Yuan’s lecture on the topic, and joined the plenary session at the end of the day to reflect on implications for the future.
Prof. Mälksoo gave a keynote ‘Russia’s Existential Imperialism at War in Ukraine’ at the conference ‘Empires: Experience, Memory and Idea’, organised by the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain on 2 October 2025. The conference examined the interplay between imperial histories and contemporary memory politics, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue.
The conference programme is available here.
22-24 September Mariia Vladymyrova joined the inaugural NUPI IR Theory Conference in Oslo.
Throughout three days and six panels scholars from Europe, North and South America shared their ideas on the relevance and pathways forward for constructivist theory amid increasingly assertive global competition and challenges such as climate change.
Mariia contributed to the panel on “Constructivism and Violence.” She presented an early draft of one of her dissertation projects’ chapters theorizing lawfare as means of ritualized coercive signaling, and looking into Russian approaches to lawfare within the framework of international laws governing peace- and wartime conduct at sea.
Prof. Mälksoo participated at the 18th Pan-European Conference on International Relations of the European International Studies Association (EISA PEC2025) at the University of Bologna, Italy on 26-29 August 2025. She presented two empirical chapters from her book project in progress (‘Making Deterrence Real: Wartiming NATO’s Readiness in the Eastern Flank’ and ‘Peacetiming for Future Deterrence’). She further contributed to two roundtables on the role of the emerging Nordic-Baltic nexus in the new European security order and the prospects of the critical security approaches in Europe in the present, respectively.
Maria Mälksoo spoke about her editor’s selection of articles on ritual published in the Review of International Studies at the journal’s podcast, hosted by Sebastian Kaempf. The episode is available here.
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Prof. Maria Mälksoo presented her book chapter in progress ‘Making Deterrence Real: Wartiming NATO’s Readiness in the Eastern Flank’ at the European Workshops in International Studies 2025, held at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland on 2-4 July 2025. The workshop was entitled ‘Reconfiguring Collective Deterrence and Defence on NATO’s Northern and Eastern Flanks: Towards a Resilient Force Posture’ (convenors: Tobias Bunde and Monika Sus).
Prof. Maria Mälksoo spoke at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) panel ‘Taming the Bear: Countering Russia’s Enduring Threat’ at the strategic dialogue hub ‘NATO in the Huis’ organised by the Munich Security Conference (MSC) and the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael on the occasion of the 2025 NATO Summit and NATO Public Forum in the Hague, Netherlands, 24-25 June 2025.
Half of the RITUAL DETERRENCE team presented research at the 50th anniversary conference of the British International Studies Association (BISA) in Belfast, UK. The conference took place on 18-20 June 2025.
Prof. Maria Mälksoo presented a paper ‘Envisioning Future Deterrence: Peace, Accountability and the End Times after the Russo-Ukrainian War’ in the panel investigating temporal security in international relations. She further participated in a roundtable on critical perspectives on NATO and another dedicated to Georg Löfflmann’s book ‘The Politics of Antagonism – Populist Security Narratives and the Remaking of Political Identity’ (Routledge, 2024).
Dr Cameron Hunter presented a paper ‘Ritual Interaction Chains in US-China Lunar Competition’ in the panel on a new space race convened by the BISA Astropolitics Working Group. He further chaired a panel ‘Middle Space Powers and Non-State Actors in Outer Space’ and presented at the ERC Third Nuclear Age Roundtable on understanding and addressing contemporary nuclear challenges.
(Image below courtesy of Lauren Rogers, picturing part of the editorial team of BISA’s flagship journal Review of International Studies meeting in Belfast).
(Image below courtesy of Bleddyn Bowen, picturing Third Nuclear Age Roundtable participants).
