Artificial intelligence may operate in the digital world, but it leaves a massive and very real physical and societal footprint. What does AI’s rapid growth mean for the future of humanity? How can it be steered towards a more prosperous future for all? 

To learn more about Nunn School Professor and Regents' Entrepreneur Kirk Bowman's work on the exhibit, watch a video of Bowman and National Center for Civil and Human Rights curator Daniel Fuller discussing the exhibit. You can also read more here.

Kirk Bowman, professor and Regents’ Entrepreneur in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, served as the sole academic consultant for "The People's Game: Soccer and Human Rights," an exhibit on display at Atlanta’s National Center for Civil and Human Rights through June 2027.

The exhibit tells the story of soccer programs and fans from around the world and how they have interacted for good, from Brazilian soccer players who served as a catalyst for democratic reform in Brazil to fans who rallied around Afghan women soccer players after the Taliban took over and disbanded the club to Atlanta’s own Soccer in the Streets — a non-profit that provides opportunities and mentorship to disadvantaged youth through soccer.

“As a college professor, this is a dream come true,” said Bowman. “It’s probably the single biggest impact my work will ever have.”

“Dr. Salomone was one of the best professors and best people I met in my time at Georgia Tech, from his ability to capture a room with battle descriptions to making everyone laugh with stories about his own life,” said Bryn Thornburgh, INTA 2018.

What many might not know, however, is he was also a consummate food and wine connoisseur. He loved to hold court at the now-defunct Veni Vidi Vici restaurant in Atlanta following university events, said his former Nunn School of International Affairs colleague, Professor Emeritus Brian Woodall. 

“Whenever I dined with Mike, it was my standard practice to try to be seated next to him. I never had a regrettable meal when heeding Mike's menu recommendations,” Woodall said.

Salomone, who retired in 2025 after more than 36 years of service to Georgia Tech, the Nunn School, and its students, passed away recently. 

A Cornerstone of the Nunn School

He was the last remaining member of the School’s original 1991 roster, having joined Georgia Tech in 1989 at the behest of his former Carnegie Mellon University colleague, —then Georgia Tech President John Patrick Crecine — to help form a new international affairs school at Georgia Tech.

Salomone’s foundational work at the intersection of technology and international affairs served as a model for the new Nunn School, according to Adam N. Stulberg, Sam Nunn School Chair in International Affairs.

“Dr. Salomone’s deft skill at managing organizational change enabled the School to make the smooth transition to embracing the STEM moorings at GT while preserving excellence at advancing social science teaching and research on international affairs,” Stulberg  wrote President Ángel Cabrera in a letter recommending Salomone for emeritus status. 

“The latter helped to pave the way for a future interdisciplinary programming profile that simultaneously speaks to the strengths of GT and distinguishes the Nunn School from peer professional schools of international affairs.”

‘Glad and Grateful to Have Learned From Him’

Alumni say Salamone’s lectures were legend.

“They were theatrical, dynamic, and unforgettable,” said Tarun Chaudhary, M.S. International Affairs 2009, Ph.D. IAST 2019, a part-time lecturer in the Nunn School who first encountered Salomone as an undergraduate student 25 years ago. 

Chaudhary recalled Salomone lying across classroom tables to reenact the likely apocryphal dying words of German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, who supposedly foreshadowed Germany's failed invasion of France by obsessing over the army's flank: “Remember, keep the right wing very strong.”

“The energy and curiosity he brought into the classroom translated into students reading deeply, asking questions, and participating fully,” Chaudhary said.

Henri Korhonen, IAML 2009, said he took as many classes with Salomone as possible, his favorite of which was a semester-long wargaming exercise.

“I made lifelong friends in that course and it is my favorite academic memory of my time at Tech, both for how hard we had to work at it and how much fun we had doing it,” 
Korhonen said. “He was brilliant and engaging and I am glad and grateful to have learned from him.”

Salomone’s passion for teaching landed him a spot in Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine’s  2018 feature on “Transcendent Teachers,” in which he spoke of his love for academia, advice for students, and his affection for teaching, even at the age of 73.

“Yes, I'm really old,” Salomone told the magazine. “But I never tire of this job; I love it.”

A Half Century of Scholarship

Salomone’s remarkable career began in 1967 with bachelor's and master’s degrees in international affairs from Lehigh University. He went on to earn his master’s degrees and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh, with a brief interruption between them by a stint in the U.S. Army after being drafted.

Following jobs at Pitt and the federal government, he joined Carnegie Mellon University in 1979, where he remained in a variety of roles until joining Georgia Tech.

Once here, Salomone served as executive assistant and senior counsel to Crecine, as assistant chair of the Nunn School, and as a professor, where he taught more than two dozen different courses over the years.

He developed many of them, including his signature courses on scenario writing and path gaming and modeling, simulation, and military gaming.

“Mike was very much ahead of his time in embracing experiential learning and his courses were extraordinarily popular with engineering and computing students captured by his ability to bring the links between technology, organization, and strategy across centuries of warfare to life in a classroom,” Stulberg said.

His work was also influential beyond the classroom, with his research and insights informing the work of practitioners in the defense industry, in Congress, and elsewhere, according to Stulberg.

Salomone was also an important mentor to other faculty members. Nunn School Associate Professor Jenna Jordan said Salomone’s work on scenario writing and path gaming has become a central pillar of her own teaching and research.

“Few people have had as profound an impact on the direction of my career, my academic interests, and the way I think about the world as Mike,” said Jordan, who is also the School’s Associate Chair. “He gave me opportunities that stretched me professionally and instilled in me a confidence that I did not always have in myself. His faith changed the trajectory of my career and, in many ways, changed my life.”

Chaudhary said he still hears Salomone’s advice in his head each time he steps to the front of a classroom: “Explain it like you’re talking to your mom across the table at Thanksgiving, but throw in a little P. T. Barnum to keep it interesting.”

The 2026 SEEDS conference brought together social scientists from a variety of fields, including economics, international affairs, public policy, and sociology, who are conducting research in the broad area of development. The conference is a joint initiative between the Ivan Allen College, the School of Economics, and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.

“The SEEDS Conference is a signature event at Georgia Tech and the longest-running interdisciplinary conference within the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts,” said Shatakshee Dhongde, associate dean for academic affairs in the Ivan Allen College and professor of economics. “The SEEDS conference began in 2019 with a small gathering of 15 to 20 scholars from institutions across the Atlanta area, brought together to share research in global development. Since then, those initial ‘seeds’ have taken root and flourished. The conference has grown significantly in both size and reputation.”

This year, the SEEDS Conference received more than 70 submissions from scholars and researchers. 

Ambassador Isobel Coleman, former deputy administrator of USAID and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was the conference’s keynote speaker. Prior to USAID, Coleman was the chief operating Officer of GiveDirectly, where she helped scale the organization’s innovative model of providing direct cash transfers to the extreme poor. A former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, she has written extensively about foreign affairs.

Her talk was titled: “Getting the Most Bang for the Buck: Using Evidence to Promote Cost-effectiveness in Global Development.”

The conference included a variety of lightning talks and presentations. 

Topics included:

• Health and education in South Asia
• Conflict, displacement, and inequality
• Education, reforms, and crime
• Agriculture, climate, and food security
• State capacity, bureaucracy, and corruption
• Land, institutions, and conflict
• Energy, climate policy, and natural hazards
• Politic; networks, partisanship, and resource allocation (fiscal and aid)
• Labor, markets, and entrepreneurship
• Government programs and service delivery
• Schools, identity, and socialization

The SEEDS conference is committed to supporting emerging scholars, with about half of the accepted papers presented by graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and assistant professors. The conference also features research and scholarship from a number of distinguished senior scholars — associate and full professors, as well as policy professionals.

“We all have different backgrounds, skills, and experiences, but we’re all united by our core interests in global development and social impact,” said Anjali Thomas, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and director of the Nunn School Global Development program. “And we’ve all chosen to lean into those interests despite all the challenges we are experiencing.”

Work on your character, be honest with yourself, and never stop reading. That was the advice from retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal at a recent fireside chat in the John Lewis Student Center’s Walter Ehmer Theater. 

Before dawn on March 1, 2026, Iranian Shahed drones struck two Amazon Web Services data centers in the United Arab Emirates. A third commercial data center in Bahrain was hit, though it is less clear whether it was deliberately targeted. This is the first time that a country has deliberately targeted commercial data centers during wartime.

Iran state media issued a statement on March 31 that it will target American companies, including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Meta, Oracle, Intel, HP, IBM, Cisco, Dell, Palantir and Nvidia. The Financial Times reported that an additional Iranian drone struck an Amazon data center in Bahrain on April 1. And Iranian state media claimed that Iranian forces attacked an Oracle data center in Dubai on April 2.

Iran has also been on the receiving end of such attacks. A data center in Tehran operated by Iran’s state-run Bank Sepah was struck by a missile – apparently fired by U.S. or Israeli forces – on March 11, according to a report in The Jerusalem Post.

Data centers have been targets of espionage and cyberattacks in the past, notably when Ukrainian hackers destroyed data stored in a Russian military-affiliated data center in 2024. These strikes in the Persian Gulf region, however, were physical attacks. Drones damaged buildings.

Advances in artificial intelligence have increased the importance of data centers. The U.S. military, in particular, has made great use of AI systems for decision support in its attacks on Iran and Venezuela. Given how important data centers are, Iranian forces could be targeting the infrastructure Iran’s leaders believe is supporting strikes on Iran.

It is not altogether clear that these particular data centers were used by the U.S. military. Instead, the attacks may have been part of a broader effort to punish the United Arab Emirates for its ties with the U.S.

In my experience as a Ph.D. candidate at Georgia Tech studying how technology drives changes in international security, I don’t think the attacks signal any significant change in the nature of warfare. But they are forcing nations to recognize that data centers are targets of war – even if they don’t directly support military operations.

Data Centers and the Cloud

The United States military is increasingly incorporating advanced AI capabilities into its decision support systems. From the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to supporting military strikes against Iran, the U.S. has been using AI, especially Anthropic’s Claude, for intelligence analysis and operational support.

AI is unlocking faster ways to carry out operations in war, but the AI tools the military often uses are not located on a plane or ship. When a service member uses Claude, the computing infrastructure that powers the model and its analysis usually goes to a secure Amazon Web Services cloud that hosts secret government data and software tools.

Commercial data centers are where the cloud lives. The next time you pull up Netflix and watch your favorite shows, you are likely streaming the programming from a data center, possibly AWS. When AWS data centers go down, outages affect all sorts of entertainment, news and government functions.

With AI as a driver of economic growth, data centers are key forms of infrastructure. They ensure that AI can continue to run, as well as much of the underlying internet that governments and industry rely on. When Iran attacked the UAE’s data centers, it caused widespread disruption to the local banking system.

Commercial data centers enable most of the technology that runs the modern world, including AI systems. Disrupting them is key to disrupting a country’s military and society. Given that AWS provides and operates many of the commercial data centers where the cloud lives, it is likely that its data centers will continue to be targeted in conflict.

Going After US Allies

Researchers at Just Security noted on March 12, 2026, that the United States requires cloud-computing service providers to store government and military data within the U.S. or on Department of Defense bases: “Moving such data to Amazon data centers in the Gulf region would require special authorization; we are unaware if that has been granted.”

Nevertheless, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the strikes were against data centers supporting “the enemy’s” military and intelligence activities. And 10 days after the initial attack on the data centers, an Iranian news agency claimed that major tech company data centers and other physical assets in the region were considered “enemy technology infrastructure.”

Instead of military reasons, Iran may well have targeted the UAE to rattle the global economy and garner attention. Given the prominence of the Gulf as a major recipient of U.S. technological investment, the attack may also have been a symbolic one aimed at the heart of U.S.-Gulf cooperation. AI infrastructure such as commercial data centers is a growing part of U.S. leadership in the region, and this war could jeopardize the future of AI infrastructure in the Gulf.

Growing Importance, Easy Targets

Though data centers are increasingly important for national security, the economy and society at large, it can be tempting to suggest these strikes represent a fundamental shift in the nature of war. While that is a possibility, it is important to remember that Iran launched thousands of missiles and drones at targets in the UAE and Bahrain. Though the vast majority were intercepted, the four that struck data centers are a small portion of the ones that got through to civilian targets in those countries, including strikes on airports and hotels.

The relative vulnerability of commercial data centers – they are large, relatively fragile and lack dedicated air defenses – suggests that the ones in the UAE and Bahrain may have been targets of opportunity or convenience. In other words, they were hit because they could be hit.

Nevertheless, it seems likely that as the use of AI tools and other cloud-based resources continues to grow in importance for countries around the world, commercial data centers will be targets in future conflicts.

This article has been updated to include news of Iran’s statement about targeting U.S. tech companies and subsequent drone strikes on other data centers.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

He will be joined by the Honorable John Tien, former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security and Nunn School Distinguished Professor of the Practice, for a fireside chat to discuss his book On Character: Choices that Define a Life.

Together, they will explore the insights found within its pages and examine the lessons learned from a lifetime of service.

After a career of service, retired four-star general Stanley McChrystal had much to contemplate. He pondered his successes and failures, his beliefs and aspirations, and asked himself, "Who am I, really? And more importantly, who have I become? When I die, how will I be measured?"

In the end, McChrystal came to a conclusion as simple as it was profound: the reality of who we are cannot be recorded in dates or accomplishments. It is found in our character—the most accurate, and last full measure, of who we choose to be.    

On Character offers McChrystal’s blueprint for living with purpose and integrity, challenging us to examine not just our deeds but who we become through them. Drawing from a lifetime of experience, he distills profound insights on setting and meeting standards, aligning actions with beliefs, and offers practical advice on overcoming obstacles and pursuing self-improvement.    

According to McChrystal, character is not a trait inherited at birth, nor does it automatically come from education, position, or experience. Character, instead, comes down to a succession of choices, most mundane, several momentous, that reveal the deep truth of our capacity for virtue.    

In an era where understanding and upholding our ideals is more crucial than ever, On Character offers an inspiring roadmap for personal growth and integrity—a call to become our best selves, both as individuals and as Americans.

Registration required.

Amid all the excitement, researchers at the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts are also leveraging the "world’s game" as a sophisticated lens for understanding and advancing global development.

In his recent edited book, Soccer, Globalization, and Innovation, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs Professor and Regents’ Entrepreneur Kirk Bowman argues that soccer provides a unique "contested space" to show how communities can use innovation and collective action to achieve unexpected outcomes.

For instance, soccer’s global dominance is often attributed to practices such as the system of promoting and relegating teams to higher or lower leagues based on their performance, its unique way of using single-elimination tournaments to create drama, and the evolution of the fluid and aggressive “total football” style of play. 

“Why is football the people’s game with 4 billion fans?  It’s because of these and other innovations,” Bowman said.

For more about the book and global development at Georgia Tech, read the full story.

If history tells us anything, it’s the right place at the right time.  

“This team steps into a void,” said Declan Abernethy, lecturer in Georgia Tech’s School of History and Sociology. “It’s nice to see women’s soccer be valued as a commercial spectacle and exciting for fans in Atlanta.” 

Atlanta holds a place in women’s soccer history as host of the 1996 Summer Olympics, where the U.S. Women’s National Team won its first gold medal — the introduction to women’s soccer for many Americans. 

Since then, the soccer ecosystem has expanded exponentially, in Atlanta and beyond. Atlanta United began playing in 2017, winning the MLS Cup in its second year as a franchise.  

The Business of Soccer 

Arthur Blank, who owns Atlanta United and the Atlanta Falcons and purchased the rights for the new women’s team, paid $165 million for this expansion team. Just two years ago, that cost was nearly a third. The total investment will ultimately be more than $330 million. But as Abernethy points out, the purchase price and timing show that this is a serious endeavor. 

“It shows Blank is a smart business owner — he’s willing to invest in doing things the right way,” said Abernethy, who has studied and published about both Atlanta United and the U.S. Women’s National Team. “In five years, this team could be a leader in how it is run and how it spends money. We have such a strong legacy of professional women’s soccer in Atlanta and so much youth talent, it could get very competitive.”  

Why Atlanta Is Ready 

It’s not the first time a women’s soccer team has made its home in Atlanta. The Atlanta Beat played at Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium in the early 2000s, and the Atlanta Silverbacks Women followed.  

Since those attempts, Atlanta has welcomed a professional men’s team in Atlanta United, along with its ATL UTD 2 reserve team and extensive youth development programs. A $50 million contribution from Arthur Blank is helping build a new home for U.S. Soccer south of the city in Fayetteville with the Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center. 

“It’s hitting at this opportune time with the U.S. training facility, sparks of excitement for the men’s national team, a strong run by the women’s national team with players from Atlanta, and six World Cup games being hosted in Atlanta next year. It could have a nice impact on the soccer ecosystem here,” said Kirk Bowman, Regents’ Entrepreneur and professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.  

Bowman also points to the culture that has grown from Atlanta United and the infrastructure that supports it. Team flags adorn houses, the BeltLine and MARTA connect in-town fans to a downtown stadium that is surrounded by new development at the Gulch — not to mention a growing pool of legacy soccer players around the metro area, and the surrounding perennial success of ACC women’s soccer teams.  

“You’ve now had cohort after cohort of female soccer players of all ages, and families with mothers and daughters who have played soccer and are eager to go to games,” he said. “If they brand it correctly, there’s a lot of enthusiasm and a built-in audience that loves the game.” The WNBA also had record-high viewership last year, with its most-watched game garnering nearly 3 million viewers, demonstrating the increasing popularity of women's professional sports.

The team also enters an open market for fans, without another professional women’s team nearby. Abernethy notes that it takes time to build economic success and fandom, and with more than 50 years of women’s soccer now played, it may have finally hit its stride.

Adam N. Stulberg is the Sam Nunn Professor and School Chair at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. He is an expert on Russian security and energy politics, contemporary great-power competition, and “gray zone” conflict in Eurasia. He previously served as a Political Consultant at RAND from 1987 to 1997 and as a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey from 1997 to 1998. He has also worked closely with former Senator Sam Nunn, drafting policy recommendations and background studies on future directions for the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and on building regional and energy security regimes in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Stephan De Spiegeleire previously worked for the RAND Corporation for nearly ten years, with additional stints at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik and the WEU’s Institute for Security Studies. He began his career as an expert in Soviet policy before moving into work on strategic defense management, security resilience, network-centrism, capabilities-based planning, and the transformation of defense planning.

Background

The central question guiding the research was whether Russia’s frequent invocation of “red lines” represents meaningful strategic signaling, political theater, or some other form of coercive communication. By combining traditional strategic analysis with large-scale AI-driven text analysis, the project aims to move beyond the anecdotal interpretations often seen in other reporting and provide a more systematic understanding of Russian messaging.

Stulberg began with an overview of Russian “red line” messaging. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian officials such as Vladimir Putin and members of the Russian elite have repeatedly warned that Western actions could cross Russian “red lines.” However, these statements often appear inconsistent or cryptic, as well as divorced from specific nuclear threats. The term itself is used frequently but often without precise definition, and the language surrounding red lines is ambiguous and formulaic while nuclear threats appear more systematic. The statements also at times appear disconnected from actual Russian military behavior or strategic logic of deterrence and brinkmanship.

Stulberg highlighted how this creates confusion over whether such statements should be interpreted as credible deterrent threats or as rhetorical signaling. In Western strategic theory, deterrence typically relies on clarity and credibility: threats must specify what actions are prohibited and what consequences will follow. Russian statements, however, often lack this clarity (as applied to threats, ines, and consequences), making them difficult for Western policymakers to interpret. This led to the central question the researchers sought to answer about “red line” rhetoric: are these statements ineffective political theater, as they are often portrayed in Western media, or are Russian policymakers operating with a different conception of coercive diplomacy in which such statements serve a strategic function?

Western Debates

The speakers then examined the current state of Western debate regarding “red lines” and nuclear-threshold signaling, which typically draws on classical deterrence theory from thinkers such as Thomas Schelling. They identified three major schools of thought: strategic bluffs, clear and substantive threats, and calculated brinkmanship.

The “strategic bluff” school argues that Russian threats are largely bluffs. According to this view, Russia uses rhetorical escalation to deter Western involvement but has little intention of following through, and the West should therefore remain firm and continue expanding military assistance to Ukraine. The second school, “clear and substantive threats,” argues that Russian statements may signal a genuine willingness to escalate, including the potential use of nuclear weapons. This perspective emphasizes caution and restraint in order to avoid triggering escalation. The third school, “calculated brinkmanship,” argues that the threats are designed to push adversaries toward compromise while leaving room for diplomatic off-ramps. This view aligns most closely with the classical Schelling tradition of “threats that leave something to chance,” though it does not necessarily prescribe a specific course of action. The problem with all three interpretations, the speakers argued, is that they assume the Russian government is operating according to Western strategic logic, which may not be the case.

Mirror Imaging Critique

The speakers also emphasized the danger of “mirror imaging,” in which Western analysts project onto adversaries the same frameworks and incentives that guide their own decision-making. Much Western scholarship assumes that Russian leaders use red line rhetoric in the same way Western policymakers would. However, drawing on their extensive background in Soviet and Russian studies, the presenters argued that Russian strategic culture may approach coercion and signaling in fundamentally different ways. Rather than issuing clear deterrent threats, Russian messaging may intentionally blur the boundaries of escalation. This ambiguity can shape the strategic environment by influencing how opponents interpret risk and uncertainty. The question of which school of thought is correct was a significant driver of Stulberg and de Spiegeleire’s decision to build an AI model to analyze Russian statements.

Russian Coercion Methods

The presenters suggested that Russian red line rhetoric should instead be understood through the concept of “reflexive control.” Developed during the Soviet era, reflexive control is a strategic approach focused on influencing an adversary’s perceptions and decision-making processes. Rather than coercing an opponent through clear threats, the goal is to manipulate the information environment so that the opponent voluntarily chooses actions that benefit the strategist. Within this framework, ambiguity and confusion are not weaknesses but strategic tools. Russian messaging may therefore be designed to introduce uncertainty into Western decision-making, shape perceptions of escalation risk, and encourage Western restraint without requiring the credible enforcement of threats. The speakers did note, however, that based on their analysis, this strategy appears ultimately self-defeating. At the same time, Putin’s explicit nuclear saber-rattling appears more consistent with “threats that leave something to chance.”

Analytical Methodology

The second portion of the presentation, led by Stephan De Spiegeleire, focused on the technical methodology used to analyze Russian rhetoric. The research team assembled an unprecedented corpus of official Russian communications using automated scraping tools, ultimately collecting approximately 250,000 documents from 36 official Russian sources, including the Kremlin website, government agencies, and official Telegram channels.

The team then pioneered the use of large language models to analyze these texts in multiple stages. First, in an initial filtering phase, the AI system scanned document segments to identify those potentially containing Real Red Line Statements (RRLs) or Nuclear Threat Statements (NTS). The flagged sections were then classified along approximately 30 different dimensions (source, target, intensity, theme etc.). Human researchers conducted rigorous quality-control checks throughout this pipeline to validate the AI classifications.

Once completed and validated, this process yielded a searchable, curated dataset of 1,924 Red Line statements and 357 nuclear threat statements that enabled systematic analysis of Russian rhetorical patterns. To deepen the analysis, the researchers integrated this with approximately 30 heterogeneous datasets documenting the war (conflict events; diplomatic signals; sanctions; military aid; territorial control; cyber operations; equipment losses; refugee flows; etc.). The combined data, comprising over 52M rows, was transformed into a temporal knowledge graph containing 1.1 million relational “triples” representing structured relationships among entities, actions, and contexts. This dataset was then analyzed through a graph neural network with 5.1 million parameters across 210 weekly snapshots to detect patterns over time. This temporal analysis allowed the researchers to determine whether Russian rhetoric was triggered by or responded to external events. They emphasized that this method made it possible to move beyond isolated statements and instead examine the broader complex dynamics of rhetorical escalation, representing a significant advancement over previous approaches in the field.

Findings

The speakers then outlined their findings and the conclusions practitioners might draw from them. One of the most striking results was that Russian red line rhetoric appears overwhelmingly reactive rather than proactive. The statistical analysis suggested, with 99.9 percent confidence, that Russian red line statements tend to occur in response to Western actions rather than preceding them. This may indicate that RRL and NTS statements do not operate according to the typical Western understanding of coercive diplomacy, but instead function as rhetorical responses to events themselves.

The presence of RRL and NTS statements was also identified as reflecting two distinct categories within Russian rhetoric. Red Line Statements (RRLs) tend to be formulaic responses to Western political actions or military aid to Ukraine, while Nuclear Threat Statements (NTS) are more strongly correlated with Ukrainian military actions, particularly attacks on Russian territory, and appear to carry greater weight.

The researchers also identified a recurring pattern they described as a “self-defeating rhetoric cycle.” In this cycle, the West takes an action, such as providing military assistance to Ukraine; Russian leaders respond with red line warnings; Western media outlets amplify these warnings; and Western governments then respond by increasing military support. Rather than deterring Western behavior, Russian rhetoric may inadvertently reinforce Western resolve, suggesting that red line statements may fail to achieve their intended coercive effects.

Policy Implications and Conclusions

Adam Stulberg and Stephan de Spiegeleire opened their discussion of the implications of these findings by emphasizing the risks of misunderstanding adversary rhetoric. Western analysts often assume that threats must be credible and clearly defined to influence behavior. However, the Russian approach may prioritize ambiguity and psychological influence over traditional deterrence logic. As a result, Western responses to Russian rhetoric may at times misinterpret the purpose of these statements, at the risk of potentially blundering into escalation that neither side is seeking to manipulate.

Several policy lessons followed. First, analysts and policymakers should avoid mirror imaging and be cautious about assuming that adversaries share the same strategic logic. Second, analytical methods should improve. Traditional approaches to intelligence analysis often rely heavily on selective interpretation of statements, whereas AI-driven analysis can help identify patterns across large datasets and reduce the risk of cherry-picking evidence, particularly when analysis is grounded in thousands of linked statements and events. Third, the researchers emphasized the value of open data sharing, arguing that accessible and consistently maintained datasets can help social scientists work more efficiently and pursue more reliable findings.

To conclude the presentation, the speakers answered questions from the audience, including whether actual military events could be linked to rhetoric through a similar model, how confident they were in their conclusions, and how tone might be analyzed across other databases.

This article is republished from Tufts Russia and Eurasia Program. Read the original article.

While the trip will remain a cornerstone experience for many interested in Europe and international affairs, the program now offers more opportunities for students, including STEM majors, to gain deep on-the-ground insight into international technology governance by directly engaging with the global bodies that regulate tech.

The program, which is accepting applications through Feb. 15, now also includes an optional research extension with two tracks — economic security and space policy.

“Despite the rapidly changing international system, the European Union remains the key trade and investment partner of the United States, an indispensable ally, and an essential area of study,” said Vicki Birchfield, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the program’s director.

“With talented new faculty like Carly Potz-Nielsen and Thomas González Roberts, it is an opportune moment to evolve the program and incorporate a new focus on technology governance where their respective expertise can provide intellectual depth and dynamism," said Birchfield, who also is co-director of the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies.

The program allows students to earn 12 credit hours in 10 weeks, with the possibility of earning up to three more credit hours through an optional research add-on. 

A seminar course on the European Union (INTA 4230/6320) and a class on Human Rights in Europe (INTA 3031/6803) will return. However, to accommodate the new focus on tech governance, a European security course previously taught during the study abroad will be folded into the Transatlantic Relations course (INTA 3223/6833). 

That will free up space for a new technology governance class taught by Potz-Nielsen and Roberts: Global Politics of Technology (INTA 3044/8803).

"The added focus on technology governance taps into some of the biggest challenges future policymakers will face,” said Potz-Nielsen. “With tech woven into almost every part of our lives and digital markets booming, understanding the roles that governments can — or should — play in regulating technology tackles fundamental questions about privacy, security, and fairness.” 

Students participating in the program will visit centers of European power, influence, and culture, including Metz, Strasbourg, and Paris in France; Brussels; The Hague and Amsterdam in the Netherlands; and Bucharest, Romania, where students will visit Romanian military headquarters, research firms, and cultural sites. The program also visits Munich and Berlin, as well as Geneva and Bern, Switzerland.

Those stops in Switzerland will be particularly interesting to students interested in technology and space policy, said Roberts, an assistant professor and director of the new Engineering Space Policy Laboratory.

“Switzerland plays a unique role in shaping how technology is governed worldwide, from outer space to the digital economy,” he said. “This program is a chance to see that innovation and governance evolve together — and showcase how both liberal arts and STEM students have a vital place in shaping that future."

Students may also extend their program with a two-week research option, choosing between a track on economic security and digital economies offered by Potz-Nielsen, as well as Roberts’ track on space policy. 

Both tracks will guide students through a full-cycle research experience, utilizing semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and structured observation with partners throughout the 10-week itinerary to develop a final project.

Applications for the program are due Feb. 15, with payment due on April 15.