The Korea Program is part of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.
FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.
Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.
David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, tells AP that China and North Korea have ulterior motives in demanding the replacement of the Korean peninsula armistice agreement with a peace treaty.
The sixteenth session of the Strategic Forum brings together distinguished South Korean and U.S. West Coast-based American scholars, experts, and former officials to discuss the U.S.-South Korean alliance, North Korea, and regional dynamics in Northeast Asia. The session is hosted by the Korea Program in association with The Sejong Institute, a top South Korean think tank.
Seventeen faculty members and researchers from Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies were hosted at U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) Headquarters in Hawaii for an intensive orientation on Feb. 4-5. The visit aimed to advance collaboration and to offer a deeper understanding of USPACOM’s operations to Stanford scholars who study international security and Asia.
Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr., Commander of USPACOM, together with his commanders and staff, welcomed the delegation. Harris’s meeting with Stanford faculty is the second in recent months. The USPACOM visit and earlier speech at Stanford Center at Peking University are part of a series of activities driven by the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative. Led by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, the Initiative seeks to provide constructive interaction between academic and governmental experts on the many and diverse security challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region.
“Engaging deeply in conversations with those who are on the frontlines is incredibly valuable,” said trip participant Coit Blacker, FSI senior fellow and professor of international studies. “This is especially true for academics who focus much of their attention thinking about the prospects for international peace and security but not necessarily considering their direct application on a military-level.”
[[{"fid":"222122","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"type":"media","attributes":{"width":"870","style":"line-height: 1.538em;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]
Top: (Left) The Stanford delegation watches a demonstration of a 2-minute drill. / (Right) Karen Eggleston boards a UH-60 Blackhawk helpcopter enroute to the Lightning Academy with her colleagues. Bottom: The delegation takes a group photo on-site.
On the first day, FSI scholars spoke with military officers about the command’s strategies and challenges it faces, such as population aging and sovereignty disputes over the South China Sea. Discussions were followed with a tour of USS Michael Murphy, a guided missile destroyer which routinely conducts operations in the Western Pacific including the South China Sea.
Karen Eggleston, FSI senior fellow and director of the Asia Health Policy Program, was one of the discussants on the USPACOM trip. Her research focuses on health policy in Asia, specifically the effects of demographic change and urbanization.
“As a health economist, the visit yielded for me a behind-the-scenes sense of how members of the military respond to pandemics and humanitarian situations, and of the ongoing dialogue with their counterparts in Asian nations,” Eggleston said. “I think that kind of military-to-military engagement provides an area rich with questions and best practices that could in some ways be shared as a model among other nations.”
Other activities on the first day included a briefing by the U.S. Pacific Fleet command, informal presentations and dialogue between the Stanford participants and the USPACOM staff, and working with senior leaders of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces command.
On the second day, the group visited the U.S. Army’s installation at Schofield Barracks. There, they observed a command post simulation and field exercise including units of the 25th Infantry Division. Graduates from the U.S. Army’s jungle survival training school also shared their impressions of applying lessons in the field. Researchers from the Asia-Pacific Center for Strategic Studies (APCSS) joined the Stanford delegation later in the day. Both sides discussed research outcomes and avenues for future exchanges. The day concluded with an extensive tour of USS Mississippi, a Virginia-class attack submarine. FSI has long engaged military officers through a senior military fellows program. Started in 2009 by the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the program remains active today with five fellows conducting research at Stanford.
Lt. Col. Jose Sumangil, a 2015-16 U.S. Air Force Senior Military Fellow, participated in the Stanford delegation at USPACOM.
“The trip was an excellent opportunity to showcase how the U.S. ‘rebalance to Asia’ strategy is implemented on a day-to-day basis – for example, providing a look into the decision-making process that could occur should a situation arise in the South China Sea,” Sumangil said. “It’s incredibly important to build this kind of understanding among experts studying Asia, and I think we helped do that here.”
USPACOM is one of the largest U.S. military commands with four major service components (U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Pacific Air Forces, U.S. Army Pacific, U.S. Marine Forces); it is tasked with protecting U.S. people and interests, and enhancing stability in the Asia-Pacific Region.
In a recent interview with Yonhap News, David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, says "Although the United States and the PRC certainly have differences [in dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue], they pale in copmarison to U.S.-Soviet differences."
Yonhap News article in English (February 12, 2016)
Straub also offers, in an extended interview with South Korea's Segye Ilbo newspaper, his thoughts on Pyongyang's motivations for pursuing nuclear weapons. He argues that the appropriate policy response is to continue to increase pressure on the regime to convince it that nuclear weapons will bring more costs than benefits, while holding open the door to good-faith negotiations to resolve peninsular issues.
Segye Ilbo article in Korean (January 8, 2016)
Dr. Van Jackson is an associate professor in the College of Security Studies at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, specializing in East Asian security, U.S. foreign policy, defense strategy, historical institutionalism, and international relations theory. He is also an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington, as well as a senior editor for the online defense daily, War on the Rocks. From 2009 to 2014, Dr. Jackson held positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as a strategist and policy adviser focused on the Asia-Pacific, senior country director for Korea, and working group chair of the U.S.–Republic of Korea Extended Deterrence Policy Committee. He has previously taught at Georgetown University and the Catholic University of America, and has held fellowships with the Council on Foreign Relations, CNAS, and Pacific Forum CSIS. He is also widely published in leading disciplinary and area studies journals.
Daniel Sneider, associate director for research at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, provides an in-depth analysis of how the agreement on the “comfort women” issue between Japan and South Korea was reached late last year. In Japanese publication Toyo Keizai Online, Sneider writes that – after at least four years of negotiations between the two governments – political leadership in Seoul and Tokyo as well as pressure from the Obama administration can be credited for the breakthrough.
Read the article in English and Japanese.
Earlier in December, David Straub, associate director for the Korea Program, said the agreement is a sign of progress. He said it vindicates the victims and is a positive development for Korea-Japan relations.
Read his comments in reporting done by Yonhap News and Voice of America.
The breakthrough agreement on the comfort women issue between Japan and South Korea on Dec. 28, 2015, was the culmination of at least four years of negotiations between the two governments. South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushed for the agreement; the Obama administration provided persistent pressure while resisting a mediation role. The danger of the agreement falling apart is apparent to officials in Washington and Seoul, and hopefully Tokyo too, writes Sneider.
David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, says that the recent "Comfort Women" agreement vindicates the victims and should be good for overall Korea-Japan relations.
The fifteenth session of the Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum, held in Korea on November 17, 2015, convened senior South Korean and American policymakers, scholars and regional experts to discuss North Korea policy and recent developments on the Korean Peninsula. Hosted by the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, the Forum is also supported by the Sejong Institute.
Shorenstein APARC's center overviews provide detailed information about Shorenstein APARC's mission, history, faculty, financial support, organizational structure, projects, and programs.