Gaston Sigur, in buff and blue color scheme

In Honor of Gaston Sigur’s Legacy

Portrait of Gaston Sigur in a suit

It is no secret that the Elliott School of International Affairs (ESIA) is one of The George Washington University’s most prestigious schools, and the Sigur Center is proud to have been its helm for Asian studies since 1991. Today, the Sigur Center coordinates the largest Asian Studies program in metro DC area, and has long established their reputation for exceptional education, academic and policy research both at home and abroad. But what does the “Sigur” in Sigur Center stand for, and who is the man who started it all?

Gaston Sigur was born in Louisiana in 1924. At the age of 19, Sigur joined the US Army, where he was pulled from the ranks to study Japanese, irreversibly launching his career in East Asian studies. After World War II, Sigur returned to the US and received his Ph.D. in Japanese History from the University of Michigan in 1957. He was then employed for many years by the Asia Foundation, with postings across the globe including Afghanistan, Japan, and Washington, D.C. It was not until 1972 that Sigur arrived at George Washington University to teach and direct the Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies. While serving in this position, Sigur wrote several major works on U.S. foreign policy in Asia and was a regular contributor to Orbis, a leading journal of world affairs.

On January 24, 1986, Sigur was nominated by President Reagan as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In this position, Sigur is widely credited for having negotiated advantageous economic deals for the United States with Japan — even as he strengthened the overall US-Japan alliance — and for promoting the democratization of the Republic of Korea via his personal and forceful interaction with South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan. After the 1988 election, Sigur went on to serve as Assistant Secretary under President George H.W. Bush and continued to act as an informal adviser for him despite officially stepping down from his position one year later.

In 1989, Sigur retired from public service and promptly returned to George Washington University. Although Sigur wished to resume his active involvement with the Institute of Sino-Soviet Studies, in light of the new geopolitical environment after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the George Washington University began to restructure its teaching and programming on Asia and Russia, eventually forming two separate institutes for the study of these regions.

Recognizing Sigur’s contributions to Asian studies, the George Washington University, and public service, the university administration decided to name the new Center for East Asian Studies, established in September 1991, in his honor. Sigur was appointed Senior Counsellor of the Sigur Center, while Professor Young C. Kim was appointed founding director. William R. Johnson, professor of Chinese history, was made Associate Director.

On October 3, 1991, President George H.W. Bush wrote to Sigur to offer his congratulations, stating that “the Center is fitting recognition of your success in promoting stronger ties between the peoples of the United States and East Asia” and that he was “pleased to be counted among your many admirers.” University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg also commented that “we see the Center as a primary place in the Nation’s capital to educate a new generation of students, scholars, policymakers, and analysts prepared to cope with the expanding role of East Asia.”

After several years of actively promoting the Sigur Center, Sigur passed away in April 1995. His death was intimately felt across the university and within the Center, which noted that “while cognizant that no person can fully replace the leadership, wisdom and contributions of Dr. Sigur, we are now even more determined than ever to continue to strengthen this Center and its role in the academic and policy community of this country as a living testimony in his honor.”

What “Sigur” stands for to the Sigur Center is the continuous dedication to Dr. Gaston Sigur’s legacy of promoting education, academic and policy research, and public service in Asian affairs. It is forever a reminder of our mission and a constant challenge for us to further it. In 2018, together with the GW Institute for Korean Studies (GWIKS), the Sigur Center received the prestigious designation of National Resource Center (NRC) for East Asian Studies from the U.S. Department of Education. Sigur Center for Asian Studies has also evolved from focusing solely on East Asia to covering the entire region of Asia.

This year, we honored our namesake, Dr. Gaston Sigur, with the 24th Annual Gaston Sigur Memorial Lecture, which featured Dr. Sunil Amrith as the distinguished speaker discussing the topic of “Water and the Making of Modern India.” 

portrait of Sean Roberts with blue border

2/4/2019: Professor Sean Roberts Quoted in SCMP on Ilham Tohti Issue

Sean Roberts, pictured in professional attire

Professor Sean Roberts, affiliated faculty member at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, was quoted in the South China Morning Post article, “US lawmakers nominate jailed Uygur Ilham Tohti for Nobel Peace Prize, seeking global pressure on China” by Jodi Xu Klein. The article takes a look at U.S. lawmakers nominating Uygur academic Ilham Tohti for the 2019 Novel Peace Prize.

portrait of David Shambaugh in professional attire with white border

1/30/2019: Professor David Shambaugh Reflects on the Past and Future of U.S.-China Relations

David Shambaugh, Gaston Sigur Professor of Asian Studies, Political Science & International Affairs at George Washington University, gave a speech at the Carter Center and Emory University Symposium on “The United States & China at 40: Seeking a New Framework to Manage Bilateral Relations.” In it, he discusses what the 40th anniversary of U.S.-China Relations means for him personally, as well as how the two countries can forge a constructive path forward during a time of increased divisiveness. The symposium in Atlanta, Georgia was held from January 16 – 19, 2019. Read the full speech here!

The views expressed are solely those of the speaker and not of the Sigur Center. In the spirit of open academic debate and dialogue, the Sigur Center shares and highlights the works of its affiliated faculty. However, the views expressed within articles and highlights are those of the faculty member and not of the Sigur Center. 
Donald Trump speaking on TV about his plan for Afghanistan

1/10/2019: Trump’s Bullshit-Savant Moment on Afghanistan

Headshot of Ben Hopkins with blue background

Benjamin Hopkins is the Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and an Associate Professor of History and International Affairs at the George Washington University. Dr. Hopkins is a specialist in modern South Asian history, in particular that of Afghanistan, as well as British imperialism. His first book, The Making of Modern Afghanistan, examined the efforts of the British East India Company to construct an Afghan state in the early part of the nineteenth century and provides a corrective to the history of the so-called ‘Great Game.’ His second book, Fragments of the Afghan Frontier, co-authored with anthropologist Magnus Marsden, pairs a complex historical narrative with rich ethnographic detail to conceptualize the Afghan frontier as a collection of discrete fragments which create continually evolving collage of meaning. He has additionally co-edited Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier with Magnus Marsden.

 

Trump’s Bullshit-Savant Moment on Afghanistan

By: Professor Benjamin Hopkins

This article was originally published on the History News Network (January 10, 2019). 

 

Once again, the President put his factually-challenged relationship with the past on public display. In a January 3rd Cabinet meeting, Trump offered a tour de force with a fanciful alternative history of Afghanistan. According to him, the Soviets invaded in late 1979 because of cross-border terror attacks. The subsequent decade-long war, the President insisted, bankrupted the USSR and led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trump clearly had no idea what he was talking about. If the past is a foreign country, then in Trump’s parlance, he is an illegal immigrant trespassing upon it.

Picture of Donald Trump speaking on TV

To briefly correct the President’s (mis)understanding of Afghan history: The Soviet Union invaded the country on December 26, 1979, ostensibly to support a friendly communist government under threat from a domestic insurgency provoked by unpopular reforms and the violent suppression of political dissent. Fearing the collapse of an allied regime on its southern border, the Soviets replaced the Afghan communist leadership with a more moderate and pliable cadre. Though initially planning for a swift withdrawal, Soviet forces soon found themselves sucked into a quagmire which proved impossible to escape. Over the next decade, they deployed roughly 100,000 troops, losing 15,000 of them, in a bloody counter-insurgency against the so-called mujahideen– American supported ‘freedom fighters’. The war forced over 7 million to flee as refugees, created an unknown number of internally displaced persons, and killed, maimed and wounded an untold number of Afghans. The Soviet war ended with the Geneva Accords in 1988, allowing the USSR to feign ‘peace with honor’ which covered an ignominious retreat.

The United States and its allies immediately denounced the Soviet invasion, which made Afghanistan a battleground in the increasingly hot Cold War. American policy-makers saw the potential of turning Afghanistan into the Soviet Vietnam. Beginning with the Carter administration, and significantly ramped up under Reagan, the US secretly funneled $3 billion to the Afghan mujahideen. By bleeding the soft underbelly of the beast, American Cold Warriors hoped to strike a mortal wound to the evil empire. Following the end of the Cold War, some conservative commentators characterized the Soviet defeat as a consequence of Reagan’s tough stance which forced them to spend an incessant, and unsustainable amount on defense. These analysts contend that the Afghan war, along with the cost of Soviet military aid to Central America and the US deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe, bankrupted the Soviet Union and led to its collapse.

It was this interpretation of history which Trump’s stream of consciousness soliloquy rather clumsily tipped his hat to. Nevertheless, the President’s alternative history almost immediately earned him a scathing rebuke from a no-less august stalwart of the right than the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. The Journal’s willingness to take him to task for a position loosely held by many on the American right over the years is notable. Doubly so for a publication which has repeatedly proven reticent to fact-check the man.

Yet the Journal’s response is a non-sequitur. What has been lost in the consternation provoked by the President’s remarks is the fundamental question which remains unanswered – namely, what the hell is the US doing in Afghanistan? Though he got his facts wrong – Trump does not seem to care about them anyway, and is thus the bullshitter-in-chief in the Harry Frankfurt sense – the essence of his question is correct. The US has lacked a clear policy on and purpose in Afghanistan since the early 2000s, making the President’s rambling, historically uninformed remarks something of a bullshit-savant moment.

Now entering its eighteenth year and one of the costliest wars in American history, the President has reportedly grown frustrated with a continuing conflict which he seemingly does not understand. While his ignorance provides fodder for detractors and evokes the concern of the national security establishment, it also allows him to ask basic questions regarding the purpose of that war which have long been considered settled within Washington circles of power. The President’s ignorance of Afghanistan, though extreme, is far from unique amongst the American policy establishment. Such ignorance is the consequence of a larger failing of American policy in the country – the lack of a clear publicly pronounced purpose and end-goal for the continued American presence in Afghanistan.

Despite nearly two decades of war in the country, American policy is largely driven by a noxious combination of inertia and sunk costs. A large part of the problem is that America’s civilian political leadership long ago abdicated its war-fighting responsibilities regarding Afghanistan. It is the role of civilian elected officials to formulate, articulate and communicate the fundamental purpose of an armed conflict and to direct the military and security apparatus of the government to execute that vision. But this has not been the case with Afghanistan. Since the quick victory over the Taliban in 2001, America’s political attentions quickly wandered elsewhere, most importantly Iraq. This meant that the Afghan war has largely been farmed out to the generals to fight a war whose aims and purpose they have not been instructed in. The military has thus continued to do what the military knows best – fight a war. It is no wonder then this conflict goes on, with no end in sight.

What the hell is the US doing in Afghanistan? The President clearly does not know. But this is the central question. The one the President himself, along with the other elected officials of the US Government, needs to answer. It is neither the responsibility nor the place of the US military leadership to do so. In his bullshit-savant moment, Trump has set himself a challenge. Sadly, it is one he has demonstrated little interest in or ability to rise to.

Please note that any views expressed in highlighted articles, interviews, or such posts are solely those of the author and not of the Sigur Center. In the spirit of open academic debate and dialogue, the Sigur Center shares and highlights the works of its affiliated faculty.

Benjamin Hopkins, in professional attire against blue background

1/11/2019: Director Hopkins Publishes Article on Trump’s Afghanistan Comments

Benjamin Hopkins, Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, published an article titled “Trump’s Bullshit-Savant Moment on Afghanistan” on History News Network. In it, he addresses recent comments made by U.S. President Trump regarding the history of Soviet and U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. Read the full article here!

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and not of the Sigur Center. In the spirit of open academic debate and dialogue, the Sigur Center shares and highlights the works of its affiliated faculty. However, the views expressed within articles are those of the author and not of the Sigur Center. 
black book cover with color buildings on the bottom; text: Race by Martin Orkin and Alexa Alice Joubin

1/28/2019: Race and the Epistemologies of Otherness

logo of the sigur center

Monday, January 28, 2019 5:30 PM – 6:40 PM

National Churchill Library & Center
Gelman Library, 1st Floor
2130 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

 

book cover of race by martin orkin and alexa joubin

 

About the Event:

A light dinner reception will be from 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM, with food available on a first come, first serve basis. This event is open to the public.

Who produces knowledge about race? In what context? Race as a concept intersects with other social factors such as class, gender, and cultural citizenship to form narratives that contribute to how we think about otherness. Drawing on her latest book, this presentation examines narratives that reflect the impact of epistemologies of otherness upon our understanding of race. Please access the link below for a full description of the book.

Race (Routledge New Critical Idiom series) by Martin Orkin and Alexa Alice Joubin (London: Routledge, 2019).

 

About the Speaker:

Portrait of Alexa Joubin with colorful background

Alexa Alice Joubin is Professor of English, East Asian Languages and Literatures, and International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she is founding co-director of the Digital Humanities Institute. She holds the Middlebury College John M. Kirk, Jr. Chair in Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the Bread Loaf School of English, and was appointed Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Global Shakespeare studies at Queen Mary University of London. As research affiliate in literature at MIT, Alexa is founding co-editor of the open-access digital performance archive Global Shakespeares. Her latest book is Race, which is co-authored with Martin Orkin and is part of the Routledge Critical Idiom series.

Benjamin Hopkins, in professional attire against blue background

1/10/2019: Director Hopkins Quoted About Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

Benjamin Hopkins, in professional attire against blue background

Benjamin Hopkins, Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, was quoted in an article on Politifact titled “Trump Gets Facts Wrong on Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.” In it, he discusses how Afghanistan was viewed by the United States as an area of competition with the Soviet Union, and how rivalry for Afghanistan’s support developed between the two powers.

Deepa Ollapally, in professional attire against white background

1/4/2019: Associate Director Ollapally Published Article on India’s Near Region

Deepa Ollapally, Associate Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and Research Professor of International Affairs, published an article on East Asia Forum titled “India Needs to Keep its Friends Close and Its Rivals Closer.” In it, she discusses India’s diplomatic setbacks in its near region, and how a new approach with China could shore up India’s own influence. Read the full article here!

12/30/2018: Professor Mochizuki Quoted in The Japan Times on Assessing the CPTPP

Mike Mochizuki, pictured in professional attire

Mike Mochizuki, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and co-Director of the Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific research and policy project of the Sigur Center, was quoted by The Japan Times on the subject of Japan’s role in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and how Japan can be a regional “gyroscope” amidst US-China rivalry and competition.