News

Dr. Skye Cooley delivered a special guest lecture, "The Magic of Storytelling," as part of the UPAEP Global Summer program in Puebla, México. The session introduced participants to a framework connecting emotion, archetype, and narrative in strategic communication. Drawing on the work of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, communication scholar Walter Fisher, and psychologist Carl Jung, Dr. Cooley walked students through what he calls "emotional archaeology," a diagnostic tool for analyzing why some brand stories resonate and others fall flat. The lecture extended these foundational theories with insights from predictive processing and affective neuroscience, proposing that emotion functions as the primary mechanism through which people experience and construct reality, occurring before conscious thought takes shape. Students learned to apply a three-question diagnostic, examining a narrative's structure, its underlying archetype, and the emotion it generates, as a practical tool for building and evaluating brand stories.

Dr. Skye Cooley delivered an invited lecture at UPAEP's Global Summer program in Puebla, Mexico, on Russian gray zone warfare and the role of strategic communication in modern conflict. Drawing on MESA's ongoing research analyzing foreign media narratives for U.S. defense and homeland security partners, the talk traced how the Kremlin built its information apparatus over the past two decades and outlined the core tactics of contemporary gray zone operations, including coordinated inauthentic behavior, narrative inversion, and the "firehose of falsehood."

The MESA Group is proud to celebrate two members recognized at the Oklahoma State University Graduate College Awards Ceremony this spring. Anirudha Biswas received the GPSGA Graduate Teaching Assistant Phoenix Award, which recognizes an outstanding graduate teaching assistant each academic year for their dedication to teaching excellence and contributions to the graduate education community at OSU. Ani's recognition reflects his exceptional work in the classroom and his commitment to the students he serves.

Dr. Skye Cooley has been selected for the UPAEP Global Summer 2026 program. This selection reflects Dr. Cooley's commitment to Oklahoma State University's Mexico initiatives since the OSU Mexico Office began operations, including his leadership of the Media Literacy training grant for Mexican media and communications students and professionals, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.  

MESA Group researchers have published a new policy brief in the Russland-Analysen titled "Understanding Russia's Strategic Deterrence: Development, Culture, and Political Significance." Drawing on the analysis of 250 Russian military documents spanning seven decades, the piece traces how Russian military thinking on nuclear deterrence has evolved through seven distinct phases — from initial nuclear acquisition in the 1950s through today's hybrid strategic deterrence model. The brief explains how Russia's strategic culture, shaped by a deep sense of vulnerability alongside an insistence on great power status, has produced a conception of deterrence that is fundamentally different from Western frameworks.

MESA Research Group is pleased to highlight new research from Dr. Skye C. Cooley and Jonathan McCoy, titled "Emotion as Constitutive of Consciousness: A Predictive Processing Framework for Autonomous Experience." This paper offers a bold reconceptualization of emotion's role in consciousness, arguing that rather than simply responding to reality, emotion actively generates the experiential world through predictive processing. Drawing on Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle and Lisa Feldman Barrett's constructed emotion theory, the authors demonstrate that affective states function as a primordial prediction layer — shaping embodied meaning before conceptual thought emerges.

The MESA Research Group has published a study in The Journal of Slavic Military Studies examining the evolution of Russian understandings of strategic deterrence from the 1950s to present day. The article, "From Nuclear Proliferation to Hybridity: The Evolution of Russian Understandings of Strategic Deterrence," traces seven distinct periods in Russian military thinking, analyzing over 250 Russian-language military documents to reveal how deterrence concepts have transformed from nuclear proliferation strategies to contemporary hybrid strategic deterrence approaches.

A new chapter examining strategic intelligence challenges in the nuclear age has been published in Safeguarding National Security Through Strategic Intelligence, edited by Konur Alp Demir. "Strategic Intelligence Challenges in the Nuclear Meta-Crisis Era: Navigating Deterrence Amid Multipolar Competition" addresses how emerging technologies and shifting geopolitical dynamics are fundamentally reshaping nuclear deterrence strategies and creating new intelligence requirements for national security professionals.

Skye Cooley, Ph.D., Resident Fellow, delivered a keynote address on Russian gray zone warfare at the Institute for American Universities' American College of the Mediterranean (IAU-ACM) speaker series. The presentation examined the evolution of Russian strategic thought and information operations, tracing how concepts from Soviet-era reflexive control theory have been adapted to contemporary digital environments. Cooley analyzed the integration of information warfare into broader strategic frameworks, exploring how state actors employ coordinated campaigns across multiple domains to achieve political objectives while remaining below the threshold of conventional military conflict.