Janessa Singley

Janessa Singley is a Master of International Affairs candidate at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University studying international security policy with a regional specialization in Russia. Janessa has previously worked at the Department of Defense US Central Command as an intelligence analyst and currently works at the US Army War college as a research assistant. Her research interests include the period of late Soviet history during which dissidents began to challenge ongoing conceptions of Marxism-Leninism through the formation of their own political subjectivities. She is particularly interested in how dissidents developed these novel interpretations, specifically those actors who once opposed the oppressive structures of socialism only to formulate a type of illiberalism that is distinct to Russia’s history, geographical position, and political identity. That transition to fascist ideology continues to inform many facets of post-Soviet Eastern European politics, most consequentially; military posturing, planning, and doctrine. As such, she seeks to explain how this ideological shift impacts military posturing.