Aktuell
09.10.2025
Institutskolloquium IfP (05.11.25) – Peacetiming for Future Deterrence
Speaker: Prof. Maria Mälksoo, University of Copenhagen
MAPIR Keynote
Wednesday, November 05th 2025, 16:00 c.t. / Room 124, Institut für Politikwissenschaft or online via Zoom
About the lecture: Timing peace during an ongoing war is a crucial, yet understudied deterrence management ritual. The Russo-Ukrainian war has been accompanied by competing global visions for the post-war settlement, discrete articulations of the parameters of the desired peace, and the debates over appropriate ways of establishing accountability for the aggressor. The nature and ambitiousness of the envisioned peace, along with varying understandings of Russia’s strategic defeat and the possibility of Ukraine’s victory, have been part and parcel of the discussions about future deterrence and containment strategy of Russia, the post-war condition of (eastern) Europe and the international order at large. In this talk, I investigate the recurring exchanges during 2022-2025 about the projected endings, peace plans, and Ukraine’s security-political future-related scenarios as distinctly charged political designs for the post-war interaction order between the United States, Europe, Russia, and the so-called Global South. Various peace plans, such as Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s Peace Formula, the Chinese-Brazilian ‘Friends of Peace’ plan, and US President Trump’s ceasefire mediation bid mark the ‘end times’ to notably different degrees for the engaged actors. Peace settlement as a ritual component of ending the Russo-Ukrainian war has become a political battlefield over envisioning a future world order. Competitive peacetiming efforts frame peace and accountability as key components of future deterrence to varying degrees, with most initiatives alluding to deterrence through Ukraine, rather than for it.
About Prof. Maria Mälksoo
Maria Mälksoo’s research focuses on Critical Security Studies (ontological security, securitization of historical memory), political anthropology (liminality, rituals), and the political practice of deterrence, particularly with regard to NATO’s eastern flank.
She is the Principal Investigator of the ERC Consolidator Grant RITUAL DETERRENCE (2022–2027) and the Volkswagen Foundation-supported MEMOCRACY project (2021–2024).
Her publications include The Politics of Becoming European (2010) and Remembering Katyn (2012), as well as edited volumes on the politics of memory.
She holds a PhD in International Studies from the University of Cambridge (2008) and has previously worked at the University of Kent and the University of Tartu.
Currently, she serves as Associate Editor of the Review of International Studies and sits on several major editorial boards in the field.
The lecture will be held in English