Russian Defense of the Arctic Region: Military Aspirations vs Reality

Panelist: Marlene Laruelle, Ph.D.
Director, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES)
George Washington University

Area(s) of expertise: Russia’s ideological landscape, Russia’s outreach and soft power, Russia’s relation to Central Asia, Russia’s policy in the Arctic

Marlene Laruelle is Research Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. She has been co-PI on several NSF-funded grants on Arctic Urban Sustainability. Her research is based on yearly fieldwork conducted in Russia’s main Arctic cities: Murmansk and the surrounding Kola Peninsula mining cities, Arkhangelsk, Severodvinsk, Naryan Mar, Vorkuta, Salekhard, Norilsk, Dudinka, Yakutsk, and Mirnyi. She is the author of Russia’s Strategies in the Arctic and the Future of the Far North (M.E. Sharpe, 2013), ed. New Mobilities and Social Changes in Russia’s Arctic Regions (Routledge, 2016), and "Russia's Arctic Policy: A Power Strategy and Its Limits," Russie.Nei.Visions, No. 117, Ifri, March 2020.

Panelist: Mathieu Boulegue
Research Fellow
Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House - The Royal Institute of International Affairs

Area(s) of expertise: Russian foreign policy, Russian and Eurasian defence and security affairs, Arctic, Ukraine

Panelist: Professor Katarzyna Zysk, Ph.D.
Deputy Director & Head of Centre for Security Policy
Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS), Norwegian Defence University College

Area(s) of expertise: International security, defence and strategic studies; Russian military strategy and doctrines; military change and defence innovation (emerging technology); nuclear weapons; security and defence policies; modernisation of the Russian armed forces; the Russian Navy; geopolitics and maritime security in the Arctic; Russia’s Arctic policies; security in transatlantic relations; security and defence in Europe.

Katarzyna Zysk is a Professor of International Relations and Contemporary History at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS), which is part of the Norwegian Defence University College (NDUC) in Oslo. She has been at the IFS since 2007. Currently, she serves as Deputy Director and Head of the Cetnre for Security, and was Director of Research (2017–19). Prof. Zysk was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation/Stanford University and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre/ University of Oxford (2016–17). She is a member of the Hoover Institution’s Arctic Security Initiative and was a Research Fellow at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies/Strategic Research Department at the US Naval War College, where she also cooperated closely with the War Gaming Department. In 2016, she was Acting Dean of the NDUC, where she teaches regularly.

Following her PhD on NATO enlargement (2006), Prof. Zysk’s research has focused on security, defence and strategic studies, in particular Russia’s military strategy, warfare, the Russian Navy, geopolitics and maritime security in the Arctic, as well as military change and defence innovation. Her published research has appeared in SAIS Review of International Affairs, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Journal of Strategic Studies, Asia Policy, RUSI Journal, Politique Etrangère, International Relations, Jane’s Navy International, and others, including in books published by Cambridge and Oxford University Presses. 

Panelist: Heather Conley
Senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic & Director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Area(s) of expertise:  Arctic, Climate Change, Europe, European Union, Geopolitics and International Security, NATO, Post-Soviet Europe, Russia and Eurasia

Heather A. Conley is senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic and director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at CSIS. Prior to joining CSIS as a senior fellow and director for Europe in 2009, Conley served four years as executive director of the Office of the Chairman of the Board at the American National Red Cross. From 2001 to 2005, she was deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for U.S. bilateral relations with the countries of Northern and Central Europe. From 1994 to 2001, she was a senior associate with an international consulting firm led by former U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage. Ms. Conley began her career in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She was selected to serve as special assistant to the coordinator of U.S. assistance to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, and she has received two State Department Meritorious Honor Awards. Ms. Conley is frequently featured as a foreign policy analyst and Europe expert on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, and PBS, among other prominent media outlets. She received her B.A. in international studies from West Virginia Wesleyan College and her M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).