Tactical nuclear weapons have burst onto the international stage as Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing battlefield losses in eastern Ukraine, has threatened that Russia will 'make use of all weapon systems available to us' if Russia's territorial integrity is threatened. Putin has characterized the war in Ukraine as an existential battle against the West, which he said wants to weaken, divide and destroy Russia. U.S. President Joe Biden criticized Putin's overt nuclear threats against Europe. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg downplayed the threat, saying Putin 'knows very well that a nuclear war should never be fought and cannot be won.' This is not the first time Putin has invoked nuclear weapons in an attempt to deter NATO. I am an international security scholar who has worked on and researched nuclear restraint, nonproliferation and costly signaling theory applied to international relations for two decades. Russia's large arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, which are not governed by international treaties, and Putin's doctrine of threatening their use have raised tensions, but tactical nuclear weapons are not simply another type of battlefield weapon....

"Our field has traditionally been male-dominated, and many women in security studies today still find themselves in rooms of mostly men," says Sara Plana, a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the MIT Department of Political Science. Women pursuing careers in security studies — especially women of color — confront greater challenges than men in publishing research and scoring coveted public policy or teaching positions, she notes. These longstanding institutional barriers to women have proven dauntingly resistant to change. But recently, Plana and Rachel Tecott, also a fifth-year doctoral candidate in political science, came up with a plan to address the issue. In 2018, they launched the Future Strategy Forum (FSF), an initiative amplifying the expertise of women scholars and practitioners in international security while creating opportunities for connection. At a conference held each spring in Washington, all-women panels and keynote speakers discuss substantive research organized around specific themes. Sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), with support from the Bridging the Gap Project and MIT’s Security Studies Program, the forum also brings graduate students to the nation's capital for a day of cutting-edge presentations. "Before the FSF I'd never been to an event about international security where all the speakers are women," says Tecott, who is writing her dissertation on U.S. efforts to build partner militaries. "It’s a powerful experience for an audience to hear all-women panels discuss the rise of China, economic statecraft, or military technology. Eventually, we hope it’s not such a novelty." The first year's forum, The Future of Force, examined the changing nature of warfare and strategies for the U.S. and its allies. Last year's conference focused on The Future of Statecraft, and featured a keynote conversation with former national security advisor and UN ambassador Susan Rice. This year's forum, The Future of Cooperation and Conflict in the Time of Covid-19, will be held virtually from June 2nd through June 5th. "We have multiple goals with the forum," says Plana, whose PhD research investigates the ways that states sponsoring nonstate armed groups try to control the behavior of these groups. "We want to connect scholars and practitioners who wouldn't otherwise be speaking to each other, a lateral kind of network, and also vertically foster mentorship of women graduate students eager to learn about career paths in policy and academia." A new conference concept The Future Strategy Forum emerged from the efforts of Plana and Tecott as co-chairs of a Boston-based organization of graduate students, Women in International Politics and Security. This group, funded by the MIT Center for International Studies and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, "brings women together to workshop each other's research, address issues facing women in our field such as publishing bias, or specific difficulties conducting fieldwork,” says Tecott. "It's a space where women can lift each other up." The group, which had limited resources, hosted meetings in Boston to which they invited women in the field of international relations from around the country, including D.C.-based security practitioners. But Tecott and Plana realized they could accomplish more by inverting the concept: "We were spitballing, and thought it might work better in terms of expenses to bring our membership down to D.C. to meet a bunch of women experts at one time, rather than bringing individuals up here," says Plana. "We saw that it would be possible not only to bridge the academic-to-policy divide, but also to incorporate junior and senior voices, as well as diverse perspectives from around the country,” says Tecott. “That kind of cross-pollination makes for more creative conversations.”...