Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on February 26, 2025 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Harriman Institute for a lecture by Dmitry Adamsky on his forthcoming book. Moderated by Valentina Izmirlieva.
Intervention by the military in Russian politics and the penetration of politics into the Russian military has reached an unprecedented scale. Nothing demonstrates the phenomenon better than a unique military organ of political officers – a directorate in the Ministry of Defense, replicas of which have been emerging in other parts of the Russian strategic community. This organ, which consists of political officers, priests and psychologists, is charged with maintaining the loyal minds, motivated hearts and stable psychology of Russian servicemen and citizens. How, why and when did this interplay of the politics, church, military, and ideology that this organ exemplifies, emerge? What are its implications for the future of the Russian political course, national elite, and military aristocracy? To explain the sources, essence and consequences of this phenomenon, “The New Commissars” embarks on a journey through Russian strategic culture, political mentality, ideology, civil-military and state-church relations before, during and following the war in Ukraine.
Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky is a professor at the School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at Reichman University, and a Head of the BA Honors Track in Strategic Studies. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, a visiting fellow at the Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University, and a visiting professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies, at the University of Zurich, and at Vytautas Magnus University. He has published extensively in the leading academic journals on military innovations, strategic culture, and the US, Russian and Israeli national security. He is a recipient of the 2012 Amos Perlmutter Prize of the Journal of Strategic Studies for his work on deterrence. His books “Operation Kavkaz and The Culture of Military Innovation” (Stanford UP) earned the annual (2006 and 2012) prizes for the best academic works on Israeli security. His book “Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy” (Stanford UP) won the 2020 International Studies Association best book award in the category of religion and international relations. His latest book is “The Russian Way of Deterrence: Strategic Culture, Coercion and War” (Stanford UP, 2023). His forthcoming book “The New Commissars” (Cambridge UP) explores militarization of politics and politization of military in Russia.
