Katarzyna Zysk

Katarzyna Zysk is Professor of International Relations and Contemporary History at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS, since 2007) which is part of the Norwegian Defence University College (NDUC) in Oslo. At the IFS, she also served as Deputy Director (2017-2021), as well as Head of Centre for Security Policy, and Director of Research. In 2016, she was also Acting Dean of the NDUC, where she teaches regularly.   

Following her 2006 PhD thesis on NATO enlargement, her research has focused on international security, defence, and strategic studies, with a special focus on Russia's military doctrine, strategy, armed forces; security and defence policies; nuclear strategy; naval strategy, security in the Arctic; as well as AI and emerging technologies and defence innovation.  

Prof. Zysk was visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, The Changing Character of War Centre (CCW) at the University of Oxford, member of the Hoover Institution’s Arctic Security Initiative, The Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), and at Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the The US Naval War College (USNWC). She has served as Advisory Board Member of the Transatlantic Deterrence Dialogue Initiative, and she is Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Core Group Member of the Russia Transatlantic Forum at the Center for a New American Security. 

Her published research has appeared in peer-reviewed and popular outlets, including SAIS Review of International Affairs, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Journal of Strategic Studies, Asia Policy, RUSI Journal, Politique Etrangère, Jane's Navy International, War on the Rocks, and others, including a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies she co-edited on ‘Defence Innovation and the 4th Industrial Revolution. Security Challenges, Emerging Technologies, and National Responses’, where she also contributed a case study on Russia’s EDT, AI and defence innovation. 

Selected publications  

Struggling, Not Crumbling: Russian Defence AI in a Time of War, Russia Military Report, RUSI Commentary (2023)  

High Hopes Amid Hard Realities. Defense AI in Russia, Defense AI Observatory, DAIO Study 23/11 (2023)   

Defence Innovation and the 4th Industrial Revolution in Russia (also co-editor of the special issue), Journal of Strategic Studies (2021), published by Routledge as a book in 2022    

Russia’s Military Build-Up in the Arctic: To What End?, Center for Naval Analyses (2020)    

Escalation and Nuclear Weapons in Russia's Military Strategy, RUSI Journal (2018)    

Prof. Zysk is a frequent commentator in international media, including in The New York Times, BBC World Service, Euronews, Deutsche Welle, CNN, NPR, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, Le Monde, El Pais, Sydney Morning Herald, Die Zeit, Bloomberg, France Culture, Le Figaro, France 24, Politico, Vice News, Defense One, Slate, Radio Canada International, and in others, including contributions to documentary movies (most recently for Discovery Channel and Bloomberg TV).   

She is fluent in English, French, Norwegian, Polish, and Russian.