NISS call for papers for a Special Issue of the Strategic Panorama

Topic:

Hybrid war and democratic peace:

what the new phase of Russia’s offensive means for Ukraine and Europe and how to cope with it

The threat of a large-scale Russian invasion is a challenge not only for Ukraine, but for European security as a whole. The increasingly aggressive policies of the Russian Federation are shaking the foundations of the international order. Ukraine has entered the 9th year of living with the Russian military threat, but now the situation appears to have dramatically changed. Not only the scale of the potential military engagement but the concurrent diplomatic offensive on our Western partners, the demonstrable readiness to deploy a range of other subsidiary tools, which could be used on a deniable basis to undermine Ukraine’s capacity to resist, and the stepped up pressure on Ukraine’s non-EU neighbors, particularly, Belarus – all these elements may be seen as indications that Russia has embarked on an intense multilevel operation in line with its long standing aspirations to win a security zone broader than its internationally recognized perimeter. Regardless of whether or not another come-back of the Russian/Soviet Empire is seen as a realistic prospect or, perhaps, the true purpose of the current campaign both diplomatic and otherwise, there’s hardly any doubt that all these moves are stimulated by the hope to heal the moral and material wounds inflicted upon Russia’s current elite by the “greatest catastrophe of the 20th century”.      

Russia’s blackmailing of the Euro-Atlantic community has brought out internal discord within NATO, provoked debate regarding the choice of an appropriate strategy toward the RF and  created dilemmas around the issue of Ukraine and Georgia’s membership aspirations. Ukraine is in search of new formats of cooperation with other nations committed to international stability and the support of democracy in the face of increasingly more assertive global authoritarianism.

A cognitive offensive on democratic values, the blurring and reinterpretation of the classical vocabulary of war, including but not limited to the basic notions, such as aggression – call for a deep reflection and re-assessment. For young democracies, such as Ukraine, and for Ukraine, as a country that faces the most immediate threat on the part of an increasingly assertive authoritarianism, addressing these dilemmas and being part of global security debate is not merely a cognitive but an existential necessity.

This special issue aims to discuss aspects of the kinetic vs. non-kinetic countering of the new phase of the ongoing aggression, and assess the risks of a permanent crisis on Ukraine’s borders, which has placed the world on the brink of another world war.

The topics we propose to address in this issue include but are not limited to:

• Russia’s intentions in light of its foreign and security policy priorities and the Western and Ukrainian response: scenarios and optimal strategies for managing the emerging and probably long-term crisis.
• Russia’s capacity to generate crises such as the one around Ukraine and the attendant challenges for European democracies (including analysis of specific capabilities e.g. proxy forces, cyber-attacks, disinformation, weaponizing humanitarian crises etc.).
• Challenges to transatlantic solidarity. The future of NATO and its ability to react to crises. Effectiveness of the NATO toolkit in the face of kinetic and non-kinetic emerging threats.
• The price of peace: political, economic and axiological (physical safety vs. foundational values). The limits of pragmatism: should one “fight for Narva”? Risks of appeasement.
• The modern notion of warfare. The search for new terminology and conceptual means that would help make sense of the changing nature of war and peace.
• Cognitive aspects of confrontation and the role of strategic communications.
• Democratic institutions in the face of a persistent military threat.

Formatting and style guidelines: 

- Papers shall be written in English or Ukrainian and include the following elements:

• ORCID (optional);
• title of the paper (in capital letters);
• information about the author (authors) including the name (names), academic degree, academic rank, full title and affiliation, locality, country, and email address;
• abstract (250 words);
• keywords (three to eight);
• references listed at the end of the paper following APA 7.
  Each source you cited in the paper must appear in the reference list; each entry in the reference list must be cited in the text of the paper. Sources in the reference list should be listed in the alphabetic order according to the name of the first author and not numbered.

 - The length of the paper is 4,000 words minimum, 5,600 words maximum. Figures, tables and cited documents can be included as appendices.

 - Use Microsoft Word processing software: the font is Times New Roman, 14-point size, 1.5 line spacing; the page setup: top and bottom margins are 2 cm, left margin is 3 cm, right margin is 1.5 cm; first line indentation is 1.25 cm. Page numbering is bottom right.

Submission guidelines:

Deadline for submissions: June 15, 2022 (inclusive);

Contributions shall be submitted to the following email address: [email protected]. Please indicate “Strategic Panorama. Special issue” in the subject line.

Editorial procedure:

Contributions will undergo the procedure of double-blind peer review. The authors will receive a notification of acceptance (or rejection) as well as suggestions and recommendations for revision by email.  

Evaluation criteria:

• Relevance to the topic of the Special Issue and sufficiency of the content.
• Adherence to text formatting requirements
• Grammatical correctness and logical coherence of the paper

Authors of the papers approved for publication will be remunerated.  

The Special Issue will be published in two versions: Ukrainian and English. Papers may be submitted in either language.

This Special Issue will be published with assistance of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Ukraine.