2022 CDSN Early Career Book Workshop Winner: Thomas Hughes
Thomas Hughes is a Postdoctoral student at the University of Manitoba and the 2022 CDSN Postdoctoral Fellow, having received his PhD from Queen’s University in August 2021. His primary areas of research are on confidence-building, deterrence, and strategic culture, with his award-winning dissertation focusing on how military exercises have been used to shape the political and security environment in Europe since 1975. His current research focuses on Arctic defence and security.
The manuscript addresses two tightly interconnected topics. The first section examines why the terms of the regime of Confidence- (and Security-)Building Measures (C(S)BMs) in Europe developed as they did, and how the regime has been viewed and used by participants. The second section is an assessment of the way in which the Soviet Union, Russia, and NATO have used military exercises as signaling mechanisms. This analysis highlights the differences in the way in which each actor perceived others’ exercises, as well as identifying when and why certain exercises were seen as particularly threatening.
Dr. Hughes plans to publish his book in 2023.