Nicole Grajewski est professeure assistante au Centre de recherches internationales (CERI) de Sciences Po. Ses recherches portent sur les relations entre la Russie et l’Iran, ainsi que sur les politiques nucléaires et militaires des deux pays, avec un accent particulier sur la manière dont la doctrine, la technologie et la culture stratégique façonnent la prise de décision nucléaire et les dynamiques d’escalade.

Elle est l’auteure de Russia and Iran: Partners in Defiance from Syria to Ukraine (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2026).

Auparavant, elle a été fellow au sein du Nuclear Policy Program du Carnegie Endowment for International Peace à Washington, D.C. Elle a également occupé des postes au Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs de la Harvard Kennedy School, au European Council on Foreign Relations, ainsi qu’au Notre Dame International Security Center.

Nicole a obtenu son doctorat à l’Université d’Oxford, au département de politique et de relations internationales.

Soviet and Russian Thinking on Limited Nuclear War: This project examines concepts of limited nuclear war, with a focus on Russian thinking about escalation management, war termination, and the controlled use of nuclear weapons in regional and theater conflicts. Drawing on Russian-language military doctrine, professional journals, and operational concepts, the research analyzes how Soviet and Russian planners conceptualize limited nuclear use alongside conventional operations, and how these ideas shape risk-taking, signaling, and escalation dynamics in contemporary conflict. Russian Counter-Space Capabilities and Conventional-Nuclear Entanglement: This line of research analyzes Russia’s counter-space capabilities and their implications for conventional-nuclear entanglement. The project assesses Russian military thinking on space as a warfighting domain, the role of counter-space operations in escalation control, and the risks these capabilities pose for strategic stability and crisis management. Iran and Deterrence in the Middle East: This project focuses on deterrence dynamics in the Middle East, with particular emphasis on Iran’s nuclear threshold status, missile forces, and regional military strategy. It examines the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in shaping Iran’s deterrence posture, as well as how regional conflicts, proxy warfare, and external intervention affect escalation behavior. The research assesses how deterrence operates in a fragmented regional security environment characterized by asymmetry, ambiguity, and increasing overlap between conventional, missile, and potential nuclear domains.

Nuclear Weapons and International Security (college)

Russia and Iran: Partners in Defiance from Syria to Ukraine,Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2026 (forthcoming).

An illusory entente: The myth of a Russia-China-Iran “axis", Asian Affairs, 2022, 53 (1), 164-183.

MENA at the Threshold? Proliferation Risks and Great Power Competition, Texas National Security Review, 2025, 8 (4), 95-103.

Russia and the Global Nuclear Order Center for Naval Analysis, CNA’s Occasional Paper, March 2024.

Iran and the SCO: The Quest For Legitimacy and Regime Preservation, Middle East Policy, 2023, 30 (2), 38-61 .

[with Karim Sadjadpour] Autocrats United: How Russia and Iran Defy the US-Led Global Order

[with Or Rabinowitz]Will Iran and Russia’s Growing Partnership Go Nuclear? Foreign Affairs, 28 January 2025. 

[with James Acton] The Forgotten World War III Scare of 1980, Foreign Policy, 9 June 2024.

Russia’s Updated Nuclear Doctrine Isn’ta Blueprint for Weapons Use. Its Primary Value Is Manipulation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 26 November 2024.