Month: April 2025

Maria Mälksoo at the CBSE 2025 at Cambridge

Prof. Maria Mälksoo participated at the 16th Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe (CBSE) ‘Converging Paths: The Baltic Between East and West’ at the University of Cambridge, UK on 24-26 April 2025. She convened and chaired a panel ‘From the Margins to the Vanguard? The Security Politics of/on the Baltic states from the Early 1990s till Today’, presented a paper ‘The Baltic Politics of Post-War Accountability for Russia’, and shared her experiences as an ERC grant recipient at a panel dedicated to introducing European Research Council funding opportunities. She further participated at the Baltic Geopolitics Network meeting as the representative of the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

 

Maria Mälksoo’s Swiss Chair Lecture at the EUI

Prof. Maria Mälksoo gave an invited lecture in the framework of the Swiss Chair Seminar Series on ‘Envisioning Future Deterrence: Peace, Accountability and the End Times after the Russo-Ukrainian War’ at the European University Institute (EUI) in Fiesole, Italy, on 10 April 2025.

The talk revisited the political and academic exchanges during 2022-2024 about the envisioned endings, peace settlements, and Ukraine’s security-political future-related scenarios as distinctly charged political designs for the post-war interaction order between the United States, Europe, Russia, and the so-called Global South. The visions of future peace reflect definite temporal sources and reference points of ontological security for Ukraine, its regional neighbours, Europe, the US and the institutional West at large. The nature of the end of this war marks the ‘end times’ to wildly varying degrees for the engaged actors across the globe. Peace agreement as a ritual component of ending a war has become a political battlefield over envisioning future world order, demonstrating the malleability of the notion of deterrence therein.

 

Maria Mälksoo at Malmö University Global Politics Seminar

Prof. Maria Mälksoo presented her research on deterrence by means of memory laws and policies at the Global Politics Seminar, Malmö University on April 2, 2025. The talk focused on Russia’s ontological security-seeking through punitive memory laws.

Call for a research intern, Autumn Term 2025

The ERC RITUAL DETERRENCE project team is looking for a research intern for the Autumn Term 2025. The internship is part of the research internship scheme of the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. Its gist is supporting our political and sociological analysis of conflict simulations/wargames deterrence.

 

  • The intern would assist with data collection, observing a table-top wargame held at KU and providing observation notes as a rapporteur. The scenario will be NATO-Russia deterrence politics in the near future.
  • To achieve this, we would assign readings and undertake practice sessions with the intern to develop their skills in this area.
  • The ideal candidate would have a high level of empathy, emotional intelligence and keen observation skills – no prior experience of wargaming is necessary. The simulations are seminar-style, not computer assisted, so technical experience is also not required.

 

Please send a short expression of interest to: Dr Cameron Hunter (cpa@ifs.ku.dk; cc: Prof. Maria Mälksoo, maria.malksoo@ifs.ku.dk) by May 5th, 2025.

Cameron Hunter at OSU Workshop on Gaming and Learning in Security Studies

Dr Hunter attended a workshop at the Ohio State University (OSU) on the 28th February 2025. Organised by RITUAL DETERRENCE board members, Professor Dorothy Noyes and Professor Jennifer Mitzen, the workshop aimed to deploy new theoretical and practical approaches to the topic of games. Dr Hunter appeared in his capacity as a researcher on the RITUAL DETERRENCE project, showcasing work in progress on wargames as a form of ritual.

 

If you would like to learn more about the application of ritual theory to wargames as both a site of security politics, and as a practice, please follow this link to the project blog to read more.

Mariia Vladymyrova visits the Marshall Center in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

On March 23-25, 2025, Mariia Vladymyrova visited the George C. Marshall European Center For Security Studies where she presented her ongoing dissertation project to the faculty. She shared her preliminary insights into the activities of Russian fishing and research vessels as deterrence by proxy in the European High North. The visit also provided an opportunity to engage with faculty experts and discuss Russian military strategy and deterrence dynamics in Europe.

Mariia Vladymyrova at the Baltic Defence College

Between March 3 and March 21, Mariia Vladymyrova visited the Baltic Defence College, where she participated in the institution’s flagship event, the Annual Russia Conference.

During her stay, Mariia presented her research on the ritualization of Russian naval exercises in the Baltic Sea (2022–2024) to the faculty. She also gained insights into the College’s teaching methods and ongoing research. Additionally, the visit enriched the empirical foundation of her study, as she conducted interviews with academics, officials, and military representatives from Estonia.