Speaking at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus underscored the importance of partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region and need for an adaptable force to meet the rapidly changing security environment around the world.

Mabus began by recognizing William J. Perry, a Stanford emeritus professor and former U.S. secretary of defense, with a Distinguished Public Service Award for his exceptional record of public service and collaboration on alternative energy initiatives, and set the stage for a conversation on innovation in the Navy and Marine Corps.

Throughout his remarks, Mabus highlighted the challenges of preparing for today’s security landscape and offered examples of how the Navy engages them.

The Navy must not be complacent in its ways, he said, especially in a context of eroding trust in multilateral institutions, unpredictable threats, and increasing competition for resources as sea levels rise.

“You’re not going to be able to tell what those next threats are. You never will. But what you can do is make sure that whatever they are you can respond,” he said. “You’ve got to be flexible.”

Mabus, who has led the Navy administration for the past seven years, said four “Ps” – people, platforms, power and partnerships – have guided his approach to improve force capabilities and rapid-response time.

Reviewing his own record as secretary, he cited updates to policies that extend family leave time, boost diversity in the force, and explore alternative energy sources for Navy aircraft and ships, including the earlier launch of the “Great Green Fleet,” a carrier strike group that uses biofuels.

Partnerships in Asia

Implementing the U.S. rebalance to Asia strategy has been a focus of the Navy’s interaction in the region.

“We’re doing it diplomatically, we’re doing it economically, we’re doing it in every region that we as a government are active in,” said Mabus, who formerly served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and governor of Mississippi.

Sixty percent of the United States naval presence is located in the Asia-Pacific region and it is poised toward growth, Mabus said. Three more guided missile destroyers will be stationed in Japan and be "on station when North Korea launches one of its missiles," he said.

“If something does happen, if a crisis does erupt, we’re already there,” Mabus said, emphasizing the importance of force readiness.

Responding to crises effectively, however, requires an awareness and interoperability between many countries, he said. To practice and prepare, around 500 naval exercises occur between the United States and other countries each year, including Malabar, a trilateral exercise between India, Japan and the United States, and the biannual 27-nation Rim of the Pacific “RIMPAC” exercise, which China joined last year.

South China Sea issues

Answering a question from the audience about fortifications being built by China on land features in the South China Sea, Mabus said, “We don’t think any one country should try and change the status quo.”

Mabus reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to both sail and fly over the land features in accordance with international law. The American naval presence in the region has been there for 70 years and will remain steadfast, he said.

He noted the importance of upholding international law and warned of the dangers of setting a precedent of reinterpreting the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea regarding the South China Sea, attempting to do so would have “a really dramatic impact, not just there, but around the world."

A main goal for the U.S. Navy is to continue engagement between China and the United States, he said. The two countries already collaborate on a number of bilateral measures, such as scheduled passing exercises and visits by the navies to each other’s ports of call.

“What we want China to do is to assume the responsibilities of a naval power, to work with us, and to make sure that freedom of navigation is ensured.”

Gi-Wook Shin, a Stanford professor of sociology and director of Shorenstein APARC, concluded the event by thanking Mabus, and recognized the secretary’s friendship with the late Walter H. Shorenstein, after whom the center was named.

Report Published by Students Participating in The Europe Center's Undergraduate Internship Program

Each summer, The Europe Center sponsors Stanford undergraduate students to complete internships with partner organizations in Europe. For summer 2016, TEC and the European Security Initiative sponsored two internships with the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), a think-tank in Tallinn, Estonia, devoted to developing cutting-edge knowledge and analysis of international security and defense issues. During their time at ICDS, Caitlyn Littlepage and Sarah Manney worked on a project examining the implications of the U.S. presidential election for Transatlantic security relations. Based on this research, Caitlyn and Sarah wrote a policy analysis paper that was subsequently published by ICDS.

Executive Summary
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, a maximalist both in political background and campaign rhetoric, is likely to maintain the status quo of U.S. NATO assistance and possibly increase allied presence along NATO’s eastern flank to deter Russian aggression. Surrounded by a team of hawkish foreign policy advisors and partnered with a traditionally pro-NATO Congress, the former Secretary of State should face few obstacles to advancing deterrence and responding decisively in the event of a crisis. In contrast, Republican nominee Donald Trump vacillates between two dangerous extremes: hair-trigger impulsivity and sycophantic flattery of Vladimir Putin. The former is an unfortunate personality quirk with the potential to spark international incidents without warning while the latter is actively encouraged by Trump’s entourage. The candidate and his core team of advisors share deep economic and personal interests in Russia and appear to prioritize the country over established U.S. allies. While Clinton presents NATO’s borders as inviolable, Trump indicates that anything is negotiable, putting the onus on NATO members to prove their worth rather than on Russia to justify its actions. The Kremlin appears to have received the message. When discussing the candidates, the Russian media primarily praises Trump and derides Clinton for their respective security policies likely because Trump’s enables Putin to more easily carry out his aggressive foreign policy objectives while they believe Clinton’s are more likely to tie their hands. For NATO members along the eastern border with Russia, a future with President Clinton is the preferable option. However, as the race is yet to be decided both these states and NATO as an entity must plan for the expected security implications of President Trump.

The full report is available for download on the ICDS website.

For more information about The Europe Center's Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe, please visit our website.

Featured Faculty Research: Anna Grzymala-Busse

We would like to introduce you to some of The Europe Center’s faculty affiliates and the projects on which they are working. Our featured faculty member this month is Anna Grzymala-Busse, who is a Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Anna earned her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2000 and joined the faculty at Stanford University this year. In her research, Anna is interested in political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics. Her most recent book, Nations under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy, Anna examines the conditions under which churches are able to exert influence on public policy. Using the cases of Ireland and Italy, Poland and Croatia, and the United States and Canada, she demonstrates that neither religiosity nor public demand for church influence in the state nor any of several alternative factors can explain why the church exerts strong influence on public policy in Ireland, Poland, and the United States, but not in Italy, Croatia, and Canada. Rather, she finds that churches are able to influence policy when they have direct institutional access. Gaining institutional access, however, requires that national and religious identities are intertwined such that the church is identified with the national interest. Such fusion between national and religious identities occurred where the church came to the defense of the nation, as the Catholic Church did in both Ireland and Poland. Anna won the 2016 Best Book Award for the European Politics and Society Section of the American Political Science Association for Nations under God. Anna is currently working on a project entitled “The Dictator's Curse? Authoritarian Party Collapse and the Nation State,” for which she received a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.

Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2015. Nations under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.

Featured Graduate Student Research: Lindsay Der

We would like to introduce you to some of the graduate students that we support and the projects on which they are working. Our featured graduate student this month is Lindsay Der (Anthropology). Lindsay earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology (Archaeology track) at Stanford University in summer 2016. She is currently working as a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and is a Researcher with the Çatalhöyük Research Project.

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For more information about The Europe Center's Graduate Student Grant program, please visit our website.

Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, a former CISAC Stanton nuclear junior faculty fellow and Stanford MacArthur Visiting Scholar, wrote a Washington Post op-ed about why some dictators are more likely to get nuclear weapons. Below are the opening paragraphs:

Many dictators have sought nuclear weapons; some succeeded, some came close, others failed spectacularly. A careful examination of two such regimes illuminates why. Today, many dictatorships are becoming personalist, in which leaders dominate decision-making at the expense of formal state institutions. According to recent research, personalist dictators are more likely to pursue nuclear weapons and are less likely to get them, but they can become increasingly dangerous and unrestrained if they succeed.

In my recent book, Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya failed to build nuclear weapons, I revisit the unsuccessful attempts in those two countries. Libya failed badly at its nuclear-weapons program, whereas Iraq came dangerously close to a major breakthrough when its program was interrupted by the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire.

Using documents and interviews with scientists, doctors, journalists, academics, military officers and ex-officials, I reconstruct the history of both countries’ nuclear programs. The stories that emerge challenge key assumptions in the conventional wisdom about these projects and regimes. At the same time, this account brings important differences between the two cases to light.

Personalist leaders weaken their states to concentrate power in their own hands, but they do so in different ways. Saddam Hussein fragmented Iraq’s state apparatus, whereas Moammar Gaddafi dismantled Libya’s state institutions. Such strategies weaken states in distinct ways, which affect their capacity to build nuclear weapons. Gaddafi’s efforts to create a “stateless state” were particularly damaging. Personalist dictators use different strategies to manage their nuclear programs. But they share some common challenges, as weak state institutions make micromanagement very costly and oversight difficult. Read more.

Braut-Hegghammer is now an associate professor of political science at the University of Oslo.

The Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) has named Yong Suk Lee as the deputy director of its Korea Program for a three-year term, starting Oct. 1.

Lee, the SK Center Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, will work closely with Director Gi-Wook Shin to continue to expand the program’s research and teaching activities on policy-relevant topics on Korea.

Additionally, Thomas Fingar, a distinguished fellow at Shorenstein APARC, will be the acting director of the China Program when Director Jean Oi is on sabbatical leave during winter quarter this academic year.