Russia at War: Strategic Competition, Confrontation, and Conflict

Connections, the journal of the Partnership for Peace Consortium (PfPC), invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to exploring the characteristics and implications of Russia’s war of imperial aggression in Ukraine and confrontation with the Global West.  This edition will focus on Russia's current and evolving threat potential in the nuclear, conventional, and sub-conventional (hybrid/irregular) domains and how market-oriented democratic states can respond and counter in ways that not only avoid escalation and miscalculation, but that manage and reduce the threats by deterring Russia.

The issue will consider a range of perspectives, including Russia’s evolving relationship with Belarus, Iran and North Korea, the implications and Russian disinformation operations in Romania.  We seek papers that also examine this agenda with regards to Moldova and Georgia in the Black Sea region, and these that can focus on the nuclear domain. As strategic competition between democratic and non-democratic regimes intensifies, and populist movements rise across Europe and beyond, this issue aims to bridge a significant gap in current research.

We encourage submissions on topics such as:

• Countering Russian hybrid attacks in Moldova and Georgia
• Evolving Russian nuclear threat potential and arms control
• Alternative Russian future scenarios and implications for the “Global West”.

Connections is a peer-reviewed publication. Articles are unclassified, and readers can access the open-source articles from all over the world. The journal is published in English and then translated and published in Russian in order to increase its coverage and impact.

Articles should be original manuscripts in the range of 4,000 to 6,000 words, in the English language, written in a lucid and clear style for a target audience of informed defense and security affairs practitioners and academics.

The publication of this issue is planned for early 2025.

Additional author guidance is available on the Connections website at https://connections-qj.org/guide-authors

Submitted manuscripts will undergo a rigorous peer-review process to ensure the quality and relevance of the contributions. Articles will also undergo a military prepublication review, to prevent the publication of classified or sensitive information.

For inquiries and submission-related matters, please contact connections@marshallcenter.org

We look forward to receiving your proposed article.