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Please join the Harriman Institute and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies for a conversation with Distinguished Harriman Guest Speaker Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky. Moderated by Peter Clement and Kimberly Marten.
How are the Russian theory and practice of coercion likely to evolve after the war in Ukraine? Russia entered the war with a coherent framework of “strategic deterrence.” This was far from perfect, but was the most elaborated theory of nuclear, conventional, and informational coercion that the Russian strategic community has ever had. The war offered a reality check of this framework. This talk explores the impact of the war in Ukraine on the evolution of Russian theory and practice of coercion. First, Adamsky will discuss the effectiveness (or the lack) of Russia’s use of coercion prior to and during the war with Ukraine, including the prospect of the potential nuclear escalation. Then, he will hypothesize about the possible continuities, transformations and innovations in the Russian deterrence theory and practice in the conventional, nuclear, informational and non-military realms.
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 forthcoming books are The Russian Way of Deterrence (Stanford UP, 2023) and The New Commissars (Cambridge UP).
