Schar School News July 2021

At the Schar School: Teaching Climate Change as a National Security Issue

Andrew J Schappert — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 15:20:49 +0000

At the Schar School: Teaching Climate Change as a National Security Issue Andrew J Schappert Fri, 07/30/2021 - 11:20

In This Story

Ellen Laipson: ‘[I]t's been a gradual process of adaptation to embrace the notion that climate needs to be integrated into the field of security studies.’

It was something that no foreign adversary has been able to do: In recent weeks, not one but two domestic U.S. military bases were evacuated after coming under heavy fire. The fire was all too literal: The summer California wildfires posed threats to Camp Pendleton and Beale Air Force Base, causing hundreds of service personnel and their families to abandon their posts and flee for their lives.

What is left unsaid is the vulnerability—temporary as it may have been—in the U.S. national security strategy.

The wildfires are thought to be the result of the culmination of climate and environmental challenges. In other words, climate change and its unavoidable outcomes is not just a quality-of-life problem, but a national security question.

The issue isn’t news: In a 2015 speech to the Coast Guard Academy, President Barack Obama declared that climate change "constitutes a serious threat to global security [and] an immediate risk to our national security. Even as we meet threats like terrorism, we cannot, and we must not, ignore a peril that can affect generations."

Similarly, this isn’t news to the professors and policy experts at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University either. In the last few years, climate change has been addressed as an increasingly grave national security issue on multiple fronts, in the classroom and through informed exploration at several research centers.

Erin Sikorsky: ‘[T]he first pathway is direct risks to military and civilian infrastructure, and military readiness…’

“Within the academic community that focuses on international security, it's been a gradual process of adaptation to embrace the notion that climate needs to be integrated into the field of security studies,” said Ellen Laipson, director of the Schar School’s Master’s in International Security program. She observes that questions of war and peace, where nuclear weapons were long considered the only truly existential threat to states and societies, “are slowly ceding some space to this profound global challenge that does not fit neatly into geopolitical categories. ‘Climate and National Security’ is now an elective course, but we are likely to see more attention and more resources devoted to it in the near future.”

Adjunct professor Erin Sikorsky has been studying the relationship between climate and national security for years. As deputy director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Climate and Security, Sikorsky has mapped climate’s attack on the military.

“Domestically, the first pathway is direct risks to military and civilian infrastructure, and military readiness, as you see in California right now, with the fires and the drought,” Sikorsky said. “And we’ve had that on the Gulf Coast. There’s been billions of dollars in damage to military bases there due to hurricanes over the past few years.”

“The climate hazards we're facing, as they become more frequent and more intense, will put our military infrastructure under risk, but also our civilian infrastructure,” Sikorsky added. “Our electric grid, our distribution of water systems, all of these things were not designed for the climate changes that we're seeing—and will see in the future.

Louise Shelley

“So, they're going to be increasingly stressed, and potentially fail, as we've seen in Texas in the winter storm earlier this year. And that poses real risks for the U.S.”

Climate change and its impact on national security starts at what causes the damage to the environment. Louise Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at the Schar School, identifies transnational crime on a massive scale as a significant culprit.

“The most important form of illicit trade contributing to climate change is illegal logging,” she said. “It’s estimated to be a $50 billion to over $150 billion business annually.”

Transnational criminal syndicates compromise climate security while also disrupting local and national economies, encouraging political and corporate corruption, and damaging entire cultures.

“Presently, 60 percent to 80 percent of the trees in the Amazon are being cut illegally, contributing to the destruction of a rainforest that is needed to absorb carbon from the air,” Shelley said. “The fate of the Amazon is repeated throughout the world as trees in rainforests and hardwood forests are cut illegally at a rapid rate to supply timber for consumer markets and provide land for food production.”

Climate hazards intersect with other strains on national security, said Sikorsky, “whether it's around COVID in the past year, whether it's around political polarization, and the disinformation environment, whether it's around economic streams and inequality and communities. When you layer climate shocks on top of that, how does that pose risks in terms of creating further instability and insecurity within communities and creating pressures on government to deliver more to local communities, particularly when they’re already strained quite a bit?”

Those are the questions Sikorsky poses to her students as she prepares the next generation to address these challenges.

“The class itself is designed to bring a climate lens to international relations and national security issues,” Sikorsky said. “A key way in which the students will be prepared to enter the workforce and understand these issues is if they can bring what I called ‘climate competence’ to whatever career they pursue. Because climate change is an issue that's going to crop up no matter what your career path is.

“Even if climate is not your main focus for your job, it will be something you need to understand and be able to bring to bear in your work. And if you can do that, I think you'll have a leg up in in this job market, frankly, because it is so important.”

Additional reporting by Buzz McClain.

Topics

Climate Change

International Security

Schar School News July 2021

Mason Momentum

New National Security Monograph: Confronting China’s Gray Zone Strategy

Andrew J Schappert — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 14:21:10 +0000

New National Security Monograph: Confronting China’s Gray Zone Strategy Andrew J Schappert Wed, 07/28/2021 - 10:21

Screenshot from the Stimson Center by Buzz McClain/Schar School of Policy and Government

The Center for Security Policy Studies at the Schar School of Policy and Government is pleased to announce a recent publication by author Raymond Kuo, an independent political scientist based in Minneapolis. Kuo’s book, Contests of Initiative: Confronting China’s Gray Zone Strategy, is the third in a series of monographs published by CSPS. Each of the publications is available at the CSPS website.

In Terror Vanquished, Simon Clark analyzes how General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa successfully led the Italian state in its effort to eradicate the Red Brigades, an Italian domestic terrorist organization. These insights may prove useful to other states, including the U.S., which increasingly experience rising polarization and extreme political thoughts and behaviors.
In A Question of Time, Schar School assistant professor Michael Hunzeker and others argue that Taiwan, and the rest of the world, can expect an escalation of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, including the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. They conclude with recommendations for how the Taiwanese government can prepare for such an eventuality.

In Contests of Initiative, the newest publication, author Kuo recommends three distinct courses of action that the United States can take to defeat and deter Chinese coercion tactics in the South China Sea.

The three strategies Kuo advocates are distinct from those previously considered. First, the U.S. could seek an accommodation strategy, wherein Washington acknowledges some of China’s territorial claims and in exchange, the Chinese accept American naval dominance and allow for freedom of navigation. While it may sound somewhat like appeasement, and Kuo acknowledges that smaller regional states will object, adopting such a strategy would allow the U.S. to focus national security resources elsewhere.

Second, the U.S. can rebuff its strategy of pivotal deterrence. The U.S. can place more naval forces in the region, both to serve other strategies and to enforce the agreement struck by Kuo’s first strategy of accommodation. Placing more naval forces in the region would also ensure two major policy goals: ensuring freedom of navigation and deterring Chinese coercion.

Third, the U.S. can act strategically by closely aligning itself with regional partners, in what Kuo calls a shift from pivotal to extended deterrence. Kuo acknowledges that due to Chinese coercion, regional states in South East Asia are already seeking closer ties to the U.S. However, this may be the most difficult strategy to implement, as it requires that the U.S. develop its own coercive capabilities to come to the support of its allies.

The Washington, D.C.-based Stimson Center recently held a discussion with Kuo on his book. A recording of the discussion is now available online.

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Schar School News July 2021

Center for Security Policy Studies

In Memoriam: Government Professor D.R. Butler

Melanie Balog — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 16:28:52 +0000

In Memoriam: Government Professor D.R. Butler Melanie Balog Wed, 07/21/2021 - 12:28

Longtime ��AV adjunct professor and benefactor Col. (ret.) Douthard R. (D.R.) Butler died on July 10 at age 86.

Dr. Butler, a 1992 Doctor of Public Administration graduate from Mason, retired from the classroom in December 2020, having taught undergraduate government classes in the Schar School of Policy and Government for 20 years. In 2010, Dr. Butler established the Butler Family Endowment in Women’s Athletics, which now totals more than $125,000.

Dr. Butler entered Texas’ Prairie View A&M at age 16, joined the campus ROTC program, and entered the Army after receiving his degree in mathematics. After a military career of flying helicopters—including a stint in the Vietnam war—and serving at the Pentagon, he retired as colonel in 1985.

Dr. Butler was the author of The Butler Report, a 16-page statistical analysis of a selected segment of the Army’s ofﬁcer evaluation rating system. The ﬁndings of the report revealed startling disparities in the ratings given to white and black ofﬁcers. These disparate ratings resulted in a pernicious, devastating impact on black ofﬁcers’ promotions, career enhancing assignments, accessions into the Regular Army, selections for advanced military schooling, and, ultimately, and underrepresentation in the leadership of the Army’s ofﬁcer corps.

Over the years, Dr. Butler taught thousands of students, including 2018 government and international politics graduate John Hollinrake. Hollinrake, now a regional director for U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), recalled that Dr. Butler required students to submit term papers in a memo format instead of the common academic structure.

“His background in the military, serving as an Army officer stationed at the Pentagon, gave him decades of first-hand knowledge about the inner workings of federal bureaucracy,” said Hollinrake. “He understood how to effectively communicate in a large, bureaucratic environment and taught that as part of the course.

“Now that I work in the U.S. Senate, the ability to write memos in order to communicate clearly and concisely is a critical skill. I owe a lot of my training on this to Professor Butler.”

Dr. Butler is survived by his wife Jo Butler, daughters Carolyn Butler, Barbara Marshall, and Katherine Jourdan (Donald), and two grandchildren.

The family will receive friends at the Harvest Assembly Baptist Church, 8008 Fordson Road, Alexandria, Va. on Saturday, July 24, from 9 a.m. until the service at noon.

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Faculty and Staff News

Schar School

Schar School News July 2021

Remembering Public Policy PhD Alumni Kevin Fandl

Andrew J Schappert — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 13:49:45 +0000

Remembering Public Policy PhD Alumni Kevin Fandl Andrew J Schappert Fri, 07/09/2021 - 09:49

In This Story

Stuart Malawer

Jack A. Goldstone

Kevin Fendl

The faculty and staff at the Schar School of Policy and Government were saddened to learn of the death of Kevin Jon Fandl, 45, who passed away on June 29 after a seven-month long fight with leukemia. Dr. Fandl received his PhD in Public Policy from the Schar School in 2010 and went on to complete a Fulbright fellowship to Bogota, Columbia, to teach. He also earned his master’s degree and juris doctorate from American University, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Lock Haven University.

Before passing, Dr. Fandl was working at the Fox School of Business at Temple University as an associate professor of legal studies and strategic global management. He was an Irwin Gross Research Fellow, Academic Director of Global Immersions, and Executive Director of Temple’s Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER).

Prior to his work at Temple University, Dr. Fandl worked at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in various roles, including Chief of Staff for International Trade, and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary. He authored more than 45 journal articles in his impressive career, and five books on topics related to law and public policy.

“I’ve had many very senior professional lecturers in my global trade and international law classes over the years,” said Stuart Malawer, Distinguished Professor at the Schar School. “Without a doubt he was the most liked by my students. He was clearly one of the most prolific scholars in the law and public policy field. He left us way too young. He will be sorely missed by many, many people.”

“Kevin was one of my most successful, productive students, and became a wonderful scholar and colleague. It’s a tragic loss to all of us who knew him and worked with him,” said Jack Goldstone, Hazel Professor of Public Policy at the Schar School.

Dr. Fandl is survived by his wife, Monica, their two daughters, Isabella (14) and Daniela (6), and his dog, Blue. Dr. Fandl dedicated his Schar School dissertation to his family, thanking them “for their support of my ideas, their patience in my research endeavors, and their unconditional love, which made all of this possible.”

—Mason Goad

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Appreciation

Alumni

Schar School News July 2021

What Were We Thinking? Selected Schar School Op-Eds (June 2021)

Andrew J Schappert — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 14:55:36 +0000

What Were We Thinking? Selected Schar School Op-Eds (June 2021) Andrew J Schappert Tue, 07/06/2021 - 10:55

In This Story

From the Kansas City Star:

Before Desegregation, Black Kansas City High Schools Dominated Science Awards

What we learned shocked me to my core. With the prejudice of the times, I remembered clearly assuming that Kansas City’s Black schools had to be inferior to the white schools. Now I could not avoid the conclusion that, in all probability, those Black students received an educational experience superior to mine—and mine got me into Harvard.

—Frank T. Manheim

From The Conversation:

Fifty-Nine Labs Around the World Handle the Deadliest Pathogens—Only a Quarter Score High on Safety

The vast majority of countries with maximum containment labs do not regulate dual-use research, which refers to experiments that are conducted for peaceful purposes but can be adapted to cause harm; or gain-of-function research, which is focused on increasing the ability of a pathogen to cause disease.

—Gregory Koblentz and Filippa Lentzos (King’s College London)

From the Moscow Times:

Depoliticizing Russian Gas in Europe

Nord Stream 2 has sparked bitter controversy. Biden’s waiver has stirred howls of protest from Congress, but it is unlikely to override the action. Now, policymakers may be wise to focus on finding compromises that protect essential interests of all key stakeholders.

—Richard Kauzlarich and William Courtney

From the Guardian:

Whether Covid Came from a Leak or Not, It’s Time to Talk About Lab Safety

In addition, gain-of-function research with coronaviruses, and other zoonotic pathogens with pandemic potential, is likely to increase as scientists seek to better understand these viruses and to assess the risk they pose of jumping from animals to humans or becoming transmissible between humans.

—Gregory Koblentz and Filippa Lentzos

From the Washington Post:

Peru’s Military Says Shining Path Insurgents Kill 16 Civilians. Others Are Not So Sure.

The campaign to blame the Shining Path for the Vizcatán killings—and Castillo by association—seems aimed at using long-standing public fears of terrorism in Peru for political advantage. The politics of fear may pay off for Fujimori: In the run-up to the final vote Sunday, public opinion polls put her neck and neck with Pedro Castillo.

—Jo-Marie Burt

From the Hill:

The National Security Risks of the U.S. Drought

The security risks of the drought are high, but not yet inevitable. Assessing and understanding these risks is the first step toward tackling them. Rapid action to scale up funding for adaptation and resilience measures should follow, as should efforts to build climate competence across domestic security practitioners in the U.S. military, the Department of Homeland Security, and others.

—Erin Sikorsky

From the National Interest:

What U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Talks Reveal About the Iran Nuclear Deal

How the Biden administration, Congress, and American policy analysts, in general, think about these questions should be informed about a similar situation that occurred during the 1970s when the United States was pursuing the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT) with the Soviet Union at the same time as Moscow and its allies were intervening militarily in the Third World.

—Mark N. Katz

From Asia Times:

Diplomacy Is Back in Middle East, With or Without U.S.

Other countries may be taking up the slack where they see a vacuum of leadership, or they may take the initiative, knowing that their interests in a particular conflict are quite different from America’s. Will the Biden administration try to reverse the trend with its “We’re Back” message?

—Ellen Laipson

From the Hill:

Israel, Democrats, and the Problem of the Middle East

But without any discernible peace process, the two-state solution seems to have become less and less realistic. Given ongoing settlement activity and annexations, Israel appears to be moving closer and closer to a one-state outcome.

—Bill Schneider

From the Washington Post:

The Virginia GOP’s Diverse Ticket May Present a Problem for Democrats

Even before McAuliffe secured his party’s nomination, he began depicting Youngkin as a Donald Trump loyalist in a state that has soundly and repeatedly rejected the former president. Though a potent weapon in the past, can it generate a turnout large enough to win with Trump out of office and a GOP ticket now headed by an unthreatening, well-funded candidate?

—Mark J. Rozell

From WOLA.org:

After June 6 Elections, Peru’s Democracy Hangs in the Balance

A losing candidate attempting to steal an election by asserting fraud without any evidence may sound all too familiar.

—Jo-Marie Burt and John Walsh

From the National Interest:

How Would Brezhnev Have Assessed Putin’s Foreign Policy?

Brezhnev might point out, though, that when he was in charge, the Soviet Union came to be the sole external power with influence in Syria, whereas Putin has to share influence there with Iran, Turkey, and even the United States.

—Mark N. Katz

From the Washington Post:

Glenn Youngkin’s Difficult Pivot

Youngkin’s attempted pivot is complicated by Trump. It is one thing for a GOP nominee in the general election to soften his or her rhetoric on hot-button issues to win over moderate swing voters, but it is something entirely different to be with Trump for months and then take the former president’s base voters for granted after.

—Mark J. Rozell

From the Cipher Brief:

The Cost of Inaction in Myanmar

As much as Beijing has a stake in Myanmar, the global community also needs China’s cooperation to effectively end the crisis.

—Master’s of Public Policy Student Christopher Kernan-Schmidt

From the Hill:

Who Benefits—Buyer or Seller—from Gas Pipelines and Dependency Relationships?

They fear that if Germany imports more gas via the Baltic Sea pipeline, Russia can reduce its gas exports to Europe via Ukraine and Ukraine will lose the transit revenue it now earns from Russian gas. The theory continues that Moscow then would have greater leverage to cut off gas sales to Kiev if it doesn’t need Ukraine’s pipelines to export gas to Europe.

—Mark N. Katz

From the Hill:

The Wild Card That Might Save Democrats in the Midterms

The odds don’t look great for Democrats in next year’s midterm elections. There’s a good chance that Republicans will win control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. That could mean the virtual end of the Biden presidency.

—Bill Schneider

From DAWN.org:

Why the U.S. Should End Its Unconditional Military Aid to Israel

It's time for the United States to fundamentally reassess this relationship, and recent events show why—morally, legally and strategically. Besides violating existing U.S. laws that are supposed to bar Washington from providing security assistance to countries that commit human rights abuses, military aid to Israel serves little to no strategic purpose for the United States.

—PhD Student Jon Hoffman

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News

Op-Eds

Faculty

Schar School News July 2021

The Dickens You Say? Yes, Professor Emeritus Hugh Sockett Wrote a Sequel to Great Expectations

Andrew J Schappert — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 19:40:06 +0000

The Dickens You Say? Yes, Professor Emeritus Hugh Sockett Wrote a Sequel to Great Expectations Andrew J Schappert Thu, 07/01/2021 - 15:40

Professor Emeritus Hugh Sockett takes on Dickens with a sequel trilogy.

Even Schar School professor emeritus Hugh Sockett calls what he has done since retiring “a bit cheeky.” “Daunting” is another word for it: In an astonishing act of self-confidence, Sockett, who taught political science and morality in education, has written a sequel to Charles Dickens’ 1861 classic novel, Great Expectations.

And not just a sequel, but a trilogy. Yes, three books. And it’s his first attempt at writing fiction. “Cheeky” doesn’t begin to describe what the English ex-pat has accomplished in taking on one of literature’s most revered stories by one of its most beloved authors. But an early review characterized the first volume as “Dickensian while being a thoroughly modern novel as well,” concluding that “Sockett has proven equal to the task.”

The Estella Trilogy, Volume 1: Pip and Estella went on sale on Amazon and Kindle in June; Volume II: Better Expectations will emerge in August; Volume III: Estella, the Star That Would Not Dim will be released in November.

Sockett, 83, said he was inspired to explore the fates of Pip, Estella, and Young Pip after watching the 2012 movie version which he found “disappointing.” He put aside his other post-retirement projects—a memoir of his father (“I was stuck at the Battle of the Somme, which he attended”) and a book on education and civil society, his academic area of interest—to extend Great Expectations. “I was certain only at that stage that Pip and Estella would marry,” he said.

In addition to extending Dickens’ adventure, Sockett addresses in his volumes aspects of Victorian society that Dickens did not, or did so only tangentially: religion, sexuality, prostitution, and the subjection of women (and the subsequent suffrage), among them.

With the story firmly in mind, Sockett familiarized himself with the process of having a book published. He obtained, at a large fee, a spreadsheet of “well over 800 literary agents grouped in three categories,” he said. “I suppose I sent out somewhere around 400 queries.”

About a third of the agents replied, but it wasn’t always what Sockett wanted to hear. One said that a trilogy would be “a seven-year task.” Another seemed interested in representing the work but after nine months still had not read the manuscript.

Finally, Sockett stumbled on Waterside Productions, a California-based publisher that enhances publication on Amazon’s print-on-demand service by developing marketing materials and campaigns as well as, possibly, representing the work to Hollywood. With Waterside’s help, the process of bringing his work to market accelerated.

Now that the first book is in virtual bookshops, Sockett is deep into the second volume. “It is such fun,” he said.

Topics

Literature

Schar School News July 2021