The British International Studies Association (BISA) has just opened up submissions for its annual conference, which will take place in London in June 2019. At this conference BISA will be contributing to the celebrations of the centenary of the institutional founding of international studies in Britain, marking the one hundredth anniversary of the creation of the Woodrow Wilson Chair in International Politics at Aberystwyth – an anniversary that my colleagues and I will be doing our own bit to mark over the next twelve months or so.

In its call for submissions, BISA invites us to reflect on the discipline of IR, asking us to think about what it is and what kinds of stories we tell ourselves and others about it. I am confident that there will be many scholarly papers delivered at the conference that discuss the way that academics have developed, established and challenged disciplinary boundaries (and continue to do so) through their research, But it strikes me that this conference also provides us with a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how we create and re-create this discipline (including how we pose questions about whether ‘discipline’ is even an appropriate term to use) through our teaching. Although our research published in academic presses and journals clearly advances ideas among scholars, it is through our teaching that we are most likely to have a wider impact on the ideas and ways of thinking of many more of the citizens who make the world we all live in.

I am therefore very keen to see at least one session at the 2019 BISA conference devoted to this topic, and invite others who share that desire to get in touch with me. My aim is to have enough expressions of interest to submit a proposal for a roundtable – a roundtable requires four to six presenters and a chair, and represents a lesser commitment than a panel. Contributors to a roundtable are not expected to produce a written paper, only to prepare some reflective comments and to engage with the other contributors and the audience in discussion of the topic. Conference participants can also combine an appearance on a roundtable with giving a research paper – BISA rules limit appearances on the programme to three, with no more than one research paper in that number.

If anyone reading this would like to produce something more substantial on this topic, as part of a learning and teaching panel, please let me know because that is also a possibility. BISA makes an exception to the one paper per person rule for learning and teaching papers, so again someone can contribute a paper to a learning and teaching panel and still present a paper about their research.

If you are interested in being part of either a roundtable or a learning and teaching panel submission, please contact me (email: zzk@aber.ac.uk) no later than 31 October 2018, to give me time to put the submission/s together and upload everything onto the BISA website. Please tell  me whether you would like to be part of a roundtable or learning and teaching panel submission. For the roundtable I only need a sentence or two about the ideas you want to discuss. For a panel proposal I will need a full title and abstract of the paper, but we can discuss that by email.

I hope to receive some expressions of interest during the month of October!

So Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Helsinki tomorrow for a summit that is both long-anticipated and hastily-arranged. Ever since this meeting was announced, I have been contemplating writing an op ed piece about it, but have been a bit perplexed about exactly what to say – with no real policy agenda for the meeting and such mixed signals going into it from the American side, it could be a pivotal moment in US-Russian relations under Trump or vanish into obscurity almost immediately.

As the meeting has come closer, I have done a few radio interviews that have helped me to focus my thinking – so thank you, BBC Radio Wales for giving me the chance to try out these ideas!

One persistent thought is that this summit is, first and foremost, going to be a piece of political theatre. Summits always serve this purpose, in part, and can be as important for the signals that they send as they are for substantive changes that may follow. It is very clear what is wanted from the Russian side: Putin will use this meeting to demonstrate to audiences at home and abroad that Russia continues to be important, that Moscow’s opinions matter and that they must be consulted over the major issues of global politics. Throughout the Cold War, Moscow used superpower summits and nuclear arms control negotiations and treaties to make this sort of statement to world, so the elements of continuity are obvious.

What is new on this occasion, though, is that the US President also seems to be seeking affirmation and approval – but in this case, it is Donald Trump who is looking for the affirmation. Trump has a long history of expressing admiration for Putin and his leadership style, which Trump seems to regard as the epitome of strength. Everything I have seen about Trump’s comments about Putin and the American president’s behaviour towards him suggests that Trump sees Putin as the undisputed leader of the international club of strong man leaders, and craves a sign that Putin approves Trump’s membership application.

A second point about this upcoming summit is to wonder what kind of policy outcomes there might possibly be, if indeed substantive issues are discussed and decided. Putin’s likely agenda seems clear enough: a relaxation or even lifting of economic sanctions, a softening of the US position on Ukraine, perhaps the withdrawal of US forces from Syria and a further backing away from US commitments to its NATO members. There are many issues that the United States should be interested in pursuing, but the problem with generating lists of US foreign policy interests is that Trump himself is so erratic, especially when it comes to foreign policy, that it is almost impossible to identify an underpinning logic that might help us understand what he might be trying to achieve.

An end to the suffering brought about by the civil war in Syria would be a very important and worthwhile aim to work for, and as a key actor in that conflict, Russia could play a role in such a process, but on whose terms would a peace be agreed? Russia clearly wants to keep Assad in power. The US does not. Trump’s personal agenda when it comes to Syria seems to veer between wanting to demonstrate that he is not afraid to use military force, but worried about the high cost of continued US military involvement and wanting to bring the troops home. He also seems concerned about Iran’s influence in Syria and the region, and about Islamic State terrorism. But how these different factors are weighted by Trump – if, indeed, he thinks of them as connected at all – is a mystery.

Bringing an end to the conflict in Ukraine would also be very welcome, but again, on what terms? Trump has approved the supply of lethal arms to Ukraine’s forces fighting Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas, but has also indicated that he might agree to recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

As part of the discussion of the upcoming summit this morning on the radio with Vaughan Roderick, Stephen Kinnock, MP pointed out the limitations of foreign policy pursued on the basis of short-term transactions without underpinning values providing some strategic guidance. While I agree completely about the importance of values-led foreign policy, I do not discount the potential value of shorter-term transactions. Where Trump is concerned, however, the parameters of those transactions can change radically from day to day, so even that potential value is dubious.

Like so many others, I will be watching closely to see what we learn about the Helsinki summit after it happens. For at least part of the summit we will have to rely on the accounts of the two leaders themselves, though, as Trump and Putin have decided to meet one-on-one, with only translators present, before aides are allowed to join them. This means we may never have a definitive account of who said what, and who agreed to what.

What should we be looking for, then? Body language when the two men appear together, especially if there is any sense of one deferring to the other. Whether they seem comfortable in each other’s presence – Trump’s obvious levels of comfort vary dramatically depending on the company he is in. If they do have a joint press conference after they meet, as has been suggested, the language that they use to describe their discussions and agreements, if any, will be revealing. Both leaders enjoy playing up their image as hyper-masculine alpha male – how will they perform their masculinity on this occasion, when each will be the prime audience for the other?

Finally, I can’t wait to see what gift Trump is bringing for Putin. The Russian leader is famous for his love of animals and we are overdue a photo opportunity with Putin and a puppy.

When one of my former PhD students asked for some advice about working with the media as an academic before her first radio interview, I was prompted to get out some notes from a talk I gave to university colleagues on this topic and turn them into a blog post in case others might find my thoughts and experiences useful. So here goes.

I do a fair amount of work with the media – mainly short radio interviews giving commentary and analysis on current events (mostly current events involving Russia, although Trump has been giving me plenty of media work since November 2016), but occasionally in other radio broadcast formats such as roundtable discussions and political week in review programmes. From time to time I write op-ed pieces for newspapers and online publications, such as the Huffington Post, and sometimes get interviewed by journalists for stories that they are writing.

Academics who want to start doing media work are often keen but uncertain that they have anything valuable to offer, and may lack confidence in their ability to communicate with broader audiences than the ones who read their thoroughly-researched and tightly-argued books and journal articles. It is true that media work requires more direct language than academic publishing, but I find that speaking to the general public via radio, television or newspapers is not much different from giving lectures to undergraduates. In both cases there is an element of introducing an audience to something unfamiliar, finding ways to break it down into digestible pieces and adding some insights or context (or maybe an amusing anecdote) that will illustrate the point I am making. Of course, in a radio interview that lasts perhaps 3-5 minutes, I don’t have the luxury of a long lead in, a prepared script or total control over what I say (in that an interview is a series of responses to questions, not a monologue), so there are some important differences. Nevertheless I maintain that if you can teach (especially undergraduates, who may have little prior knowledge of your topic), chances are you can find the right pitch and tone for media work.

One of the most important pieces of advice for someone who wants to do media work is that they should be willing to say “yes” when they are asked. Flexibility (within reason) is important, and we (academics) need to be aware that journalists and broadcasters often work to very short deadlines – especially in news and current affairs. If I am lucky I will get half a day’s notice before doing a piece of radio commentary on a news item. Sometimes it is quite a bit less – the least notice I have had was about 10 minutes, when I got a phone call as I was arriving home one evening asking me to comment on some breaking news about Russia for the 6pm broadcast. I had just enough time to put down the groceries and try to think of something reasonably intelligent to say before I was on air. Although I do not cancel existing commitments such as teaching or meetings with colleagues in order to do a media interview, I am willing to get up early or take calls in the evenings or on weekends. But it’s important for anyone pondering media work to think about what they regard as a reasonable infringement on their professional or personal time.

The other side of being asked to do a media interview at short notice is being stood down at short notice. This is something to be aware of, again particularly for providing commentary on current events. Sometimes a bigger story than the one you have been asked to comment on comes along and nudges everything else out of the way. I have also had the experience of sitting in the radio studio, minutes away from being on air when breaking news comes through and having my piece pushed down the running order while the fresher story is being discussed. It’s important not to take these things personally!

I would advise anyone facing a media interview (either for commentary on current events or about their own research) not to spend a lot of time in preparation. Although I do, of course, take a quick look at recent news to make sure I haven’t missed a relevant development and might write down a few names, dates or other little bits of information to jog my memory during the interview, my rule of thumb is only to accept media invitations to discuss topics I am comfortable talking about based on what I already know.

It’s important also for academics to be aware of what the media wants from us – in my case, it tends to be some broader context and analysis to help the listener/viewer/reader make sense of something that is in the news. I sometimes get asked by fellow academics how to handle hostile or confrontational questions. I tend not to encounter these – after all, I am not a politician trying to defend a policy or a party line, so there is little reason for an interviewer to treat me like a hostile witness. However, there are some programmes out there with more confrontational formats that do use academics, so it is wise to know or find out about the programme one has been invited onto before accepting. (And plenty of academics enjoy the chance to get involved in a more full-on debate, so I’m not advising against programmes with this format – just be aware of what you are signing up for and make sure you are comfortable with it.)

The most difficult questions I have had are the ones that look at the topic from an angle that I haven’t previously considered – so they are difficult in the sense that I don’t have a thought-through position to start from. Fortunately, one of the most valuable features of nearly all of the current events commentary I have done means I rarely face totally unexpected questions. I am referring to the pre-interview chat with a researcher who works on the programme. This usually happens when the phone call comes through with the invitation to be interviewed. At the same time that we sort out the details of when and where (in the studio, over the phone, using Skype or FaceTime) the interview will take place, I am asked to give a sense of what I might say in the interview. This is an important conversation, because it allows me to start thinking through what I will say later but also because my pre-interview comments get written up as notes and shown to the interviewer. The interviewer, of course, has the job of presenting a news programme and interviewing lots and lots of different people about a wide range of issues and stories. The interviewer cannot be expert on all of them and so is looking for some ideas for the interview in the notes from my pre-interview comments. This means that some of the comments I make before the interview might come back to me during the interview in form of questions. “The biggest problem facing Putin at this point is X” I might say in the pre-interview chat. “So, is X the biggest problem facing Putin at this point?” the interviewer might ask me on air. In other words, the pre-interview chat gives me the chance to steer the interview, subtly, towards aspects of the topic that I think are most interesting and that I want to discuss.

One of the rewarding aspects of doing fairly regular work with particular programmes, journalists and presenters is that you can build up a rapport over a period of time that makes the short interview format a lot more rewarding than it otherwise might be. During the height of the crisis in Ukraine, I was interviewed frequently by the same small group of presenters over and over and we did get to the stage where a presenter would say, “now the last time we spoke about this you said X”. This gave a sense of continuity to the experience and made me feel that I was having an ongoing conversation about this topic rather than making a set of disconnected remarks.

The final piece of advice I give to academics who want to do media work is not to judge yourself too harshly or set the bar too high. Five minutes after the interview is over we all think of things that we could have said more elegantly, or a further point that could have been made, but it’s not worth agonising over. Learn any lessons you can from each media encounter and apply them next time, by all means, but most of all try to enjoy the experience.

This week we had one of those guest speakers in the Department who really excite the students: Martha (Marti) Peterson, a former CIA agent and author of a book, The Widow Spy, that gives her own account of her experiences working for the CIA in Moscow in the 1970s. The undergraduates and MA students are in the midst of their exams, and my colleague Meighen McCrae, who chaired the event, was making contingency plans for an audience of very small numbers, but the turnout was impressive. Nearly 80 (mostly) students crowded into the room, sat spellbound as Ms Peterson spoke for about an hour, posed some challenging and insightful questions that she responded to with good humour, and then crowded around her after the formal end of the talk to chat, unwittingly delaying her escape to the tea and cakes that we had organised as a small reward for entertaining and informing us.

Practitioners are always popular speakers with the students, who crave that authenticity of hearing from people who are out there, doing international politics. Practitioner speakers are also extremely useful for academic staff, who also, dare I say it, look for validation that what we teach has some resonance with what is happening in the wild, where our subject is being formed.

The most popular guest speakers are undoubtedly the ones who have some link with the world of insecurity and danger, especially those with personal experience of the intelligence services. In this respect, Ms Peterson was ideal – as a case officer for the CIA placed in the US Embassy in Moscow during Brezhnev’s leadership, she had lived a life of insecurity and danger for nearly two years. The main focus of both her talk and her book was her experience working “with” (although she never met him) a Soviet diplomat who spied for the US, with the code name TRIGON. She did all the things that outsiders find so compelling about spies in fiction and in real life: she led a double life, unable to tell friends and family the true nature of her job; she regularly handled gadgets (miniature cameras that fit inside fountain pens, hollowed out logs, special paper that concealed the messages written on it); she had to take exceptionally roundabout routes to “dead drop” points, involving multiple forms of transport and several hours of travel each way; and she lived under the constant threat of being discovered by the KGB while undertaking her duties for the CIA. Eventually she was arrested by the KGB and was brought to Lubyanka prison for a carefully staged interrogation, which brought her time in Moscow to an end.

A significant theme of her talk and her comments in the Q&A session afterwards was the distinctive challenges and pressures that she faced as a woman in her CIA role. She was not just a woman among other women doing the same job but the only woman and indeed the first woman that the CIA sent to Moscow as a case officer. But if her fellow CIA agents at times were openly sceptical that a woman might be capable of carrying out the range of actions required to do the job, the KGB apparently simply could not imagine such a thing. While the KGB routinely followed her male counterparts (as well as male Embassy staff who had no connection to the CIA) and clearly regarded them with great suspicion, Ms Peterson was virtually ignored by Soviet intelligence agents. This meant she was able to hide in plain sight, which is surely the greatest possible asset for someone in that line of work. But while being underestimated by her opponents provided Ms Peterson with some operational advantages in the field, being underestimated by her colleagues meant she had to endure a significant gap in pay and never-ending struggles to have her abilities acknowledged; she lived everyday sexism before it was a hashtag.

One of challenges that Ms Peterson clearly felt she needed to work hard to overcome in speaking to an audience (most of) whose members could not remember life before smart phones and wifi was to spell out just how different the world was in the 1970s from the life that we now take for granted. The world that she was describing to us was doubly or trebly different from our own, really, considering she was operating in the USSR. The main continuity that she emphasised was the importance of human intelligence and having one of your people “in the room” to gather details and nuances that drones and electronic surveillance can never convey.

But I think another continuity that Ms Peterson deeply believes in was inadvertently revealed during the Q&A, when she was asked what she thought of President Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey. She immediately brushed aside the question with the statement that she supports her president. A tiny shock wave went through the room at the response. How could Ms Peterson, someone who had sacrificed much and seen others sacrifice even more in order to secure valuable intelligence for the United States, express support for a man who has repeatedly demonstrated contempt for the very agency she had worked for – and, it is now being suggested, might have given away valuable and sensitive information when he met with Russia’s Foreign Minister and Russia’s Ambassador to the US recently in the Oval Office. I think, though, that her response was not so much an expression of support for the individual as it was an expression of loyalty to the institution of the presidency and indeed institutions of the state in general and a patriotic loyalty to her country. This kind of loyalty that transcends personal and political affiliations is essential for the smooth functioning of government agencies of all sorts, and not only in the United States, of course. The problem, though, is that Donald Trump doesn’t seem to value, or even understand, this key feature of governments, and we can only hope that it survives his presidency more or less intact.

When I heard the news that Prime Minister Theresa May had announced a surprise General Election, the thought did cross my mind that I could expect to take a break from media work for a while, since I am in no way an expert on British politics. In contrast to the United States, where the campaign starts ridiculously early but doesn’t entirely drown out all other news, general election campaigns in this country are short-lived and so intense that they almost completely dominate current events coverage. But these days there is a Russia angle to so many news stories, and so I found myself speaking to Jon Holmes at talkRADIO this afternoon about whether the UK general election might be on the receiving end of Russian interventions.

One of the things that I want to do with this blog is to use it to expand on points that I make in media commentary, so let’s see how this works in practice.

There are several parts to the question of whether Russia might seek to influence the results of the upcoming British election. One part is capability – and based on recent precedents, Russia is clearly able to make such interventions. The US presidential elections demonstrated how the leaking of hacked emails can damage a candidate, but while some kind of cyber attack is certainly possible in the UK setting, it is not necessary for Moscow to choose such a complicated course of action. Russia has developed a degree of expertise in using open media (through outlets such as RT and Sputnik) and social media to disseminate messages in Western countries. As we become more and more dependent on our Facebook and Twitter feeds to access the news, Russia’s trolling tactics have more opportunities to succeed in creating confusion and uncertainty and perhaps in gaining acceptance for completely false narratives. Russia already has the infrastructure for this type of intervention, so it would be fairly cheap and easy to extend its focus to the UK general election.

Another part to this question is motive – why would Russia seek to influence the outcome of the British elections? Here I don’t think there is an obvious candidate for Moscow to support or to oppose, as there was in the US or as there has been in France, Germany and the Netherlands. This may be where my lack of in-depth knowledge of British politics lets me down, but I haven’t noticed any of the leaders of the major parties clamouring for an end to economic sanctions against Russia, or talking about the wasted opportunities for closer cooperation with Moscow. On the specifics of dealing with Putin’s Russia, there seems to be a pretty broad consensus in mainstream UK politics.

Even the issue in the campaign likely to be of greatest interest to Moscow – how British voters feel about Brexit one year on from the referendum and with a better sense now of what it might mean in practical terms to leave the European Union – cuts across party lines in confusing ways. But while there may not be a straightforward protege for Russia to praise or an opponent to disparage, there is some benefit to Moscow in sowing dissension and dissatisfaction in the West. In general, Russia prefers not to face the West as a solid bloc united in opinions that do not serve Moscow’s interests. Issues and events that create or exacerbate social, economic and political tensions within a given society can open up the possibility for Russian advantage. As Katarzyna Zysk pointed out in an interview with E-IR, the use of disinformation/propaganda is part of Russia’s New Generation Warfare approach (often referred to in the West as “hybrid warfare”), which places emphasis on non-military means of gaining an advantage over adversaries.

Every time the issue of Russian intervention in Western elections comes up, it is swiftly followed by discussions about what can be done about it. Experts in communications and public relations have particular strategies to suggest to expose and counter fake news (informed perhaps by the Ukrainian experience), while those who know about cyber security can advise on making systems less vulnerable to attack. At this point in the discussions, my feminist side usually pushes its way to the fore and makes me want to issue a reminder that the best way of avoiding the exploitation of underlying tensions is to deal with those tensions at their sources. If groups in society feel ignored or marginalised and believe (or know) that they do not get fair treatment and opportunities, they are much more likely to be receptive to messages that question the status quo and the established authorities. Let’s not fool ourselves that this is a problem that can be solved by short-term, technical fixes. If we want Western societies that are strong enough to resist these kinds of interventions, we need to put more effort into finding long-term solutions to problems of injustice and inequality.

Recently I  have been thinking a lot about masculinities, how they are constructed and maintained and how they operate in everyday politics and international relations. To a large extent this interest comes from a book I am co-editing with Veronica Kitchen at the University of Waterloo on heroism in global politics, and the chapter I am contributing to the volume, which is about how the military masculinities of the contemporary American warrior hero have been constructed through the narratives in medal citations.

But as I have been reading, thinking and writing about these very specific military masculinities, I have also been watching Donald Trump construct the public face of his masculinity, first as candidate, then as president-elect and finally as sitting president.

Towards the end of the presidential campaign, I wrote a blog post for the Huffington Post UK site by the way that candidate Trump combined some stereotypically “female” behaviours and traits, such as a reliance on emotion, perception and irrationality, with more traditionally macho actions and attitudes, especially in the way that he describes and relates to women.

Since his inauguration, President Trump has continued on in this vein, with the added advantage that he can now command the use of military force – that most traditionally masculine of all institutions of the state. We have seen him call the US armed forces into action on several occasions already: spectacularly in Syria and Afghanistan, as well as in a lower-key but no less destructive way by increasing the frequency of drone strikes and reportedly considering changing the guidance for the use of drones in ways that would make “collateral damage” (the deaths of those who are not designated as targets for the drone strikes) more likely.

As Sarah Kendzior has argued, Trump reaches for military force to deal with other countries because he craves praise and the media and the public will consistently admire him for this behaviour. To that I would add that he uses the military to demonstrate his personal strength, toughness and manliness, as well as the power of the country that he leads. As I see it, the only way that Trump can maintain his continued and excessive reliance on emotional and irrational behaviour without the risk of appearing “weak” is by balancing it with equally excessive demonstrations of the most extreme alpha male speech and actions.

There is another aspect of Trump’s behaviour that has received more attention as a result of his use of military force against Syria, and that is his unpredictability. Repeatedly during the election campaign, Trump indicated that his foreign policy would take the world by surprise and that he did not intend to give away too much about his intentions, suggesting that this would make it more difficult for other countries to out manoeuvre the United States.

In this Trump may be getting some inspiration from Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly taken the West by surprise, for example by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military intervention in Ukraine and Syria. The West has found Putin difficult to deal with, in part perhaps because he refuses to conform to the norms of the hegemonic masculinity of the international statesman.

It seems to me that there is a recognised way of being an appropriately masculine international statesman, as defined by the major Western powers, and it involves a particular combination of diplomacy, alliance-building and enemy construction as well as the threat and measured use of force under certain circumstances and after appropriate warnings have been delivered. Putin breaks many of these conventions, particularly through his willingness to use force too quickly, without going through all the rhetorical steps that normally precede military operations. Western leaders find Putin too aggressive, too hyper-masculine and struggle to find ways of persuading him to conform to gender norms.

So far Trump’s swift resort to military force in Syria and the reversal of his previous policy positions that this represents are largely being treated as standing outside the gender norms for Western world leaders. But what if that changes? Could Trump’s presidency be instrumental in redefining this particular form of hegemonic masculinity?

As an academic who does a fair amount of media work – mainly radio commentary on current events which touch on my areas of research and teaching expertise – I often finish an interview or submit an op-ed piece feeling that I have more to say that doesn’t fit within the time or word length constraints I am given, or that might not make sense to the particular audience I was addressing. With this blog I would like to create a space to explore further some of those ideas, as well as to try out aspects of research projects I am working on and reflect on teaching and the insights that come from interacting with students and trying to figure out, together, how to interpret the world around us, using the academic tools that we craft and refine every day.

My academic interests began with a very conventional interest in a topic of great importance at the time – Soviet nuclear weapons (ballistic missile defence policy to be more precise) during the height of the Cold War. Those interests began to expand in the early 1990s, when I noticed that all the uniformed officials who check passports in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport changed from being only men to being only women. My curiosity was piqued, and in beginning to ask what was going on here and why, I started down the path of research projects that led me increasingly towards feminist and gender-focussed approaches. Through an interest in women in the Russian armed forces I developed a fascination with women in state and then non-state militaries, and then more broadly still with the way that conflicts – and the way that we think about conflicts – is gendered. My current project – a book length exploration of the Ukraine crisis from the perspective of Feminist Security Studies – brings together my continuing interest in issues of security and politics related to Russia and its immediate neighbours with my focus on gender.

Most of my media work is linked to my expertise on Russia – anytime Putin does something that makes headlines in the West, I usually get a request for commentary. But since the autumn of 2016, my interest in gender and my US citizenship have opened up a new line of commentary on the US presidential elections and now, on Trump and the gendered dimensions of his rhetoric and policies.

This blog – like my research and my media work – is likely to go in many different directions, but I hope that fellow academics and others may find some things of interest here.