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February 13, 2005

From the Hinterland to the High Seas: Thinking About Oceans and International Relations

Scott Borgerson arrived at Fletcher in 2001 fresh from life at sea. The Coast Guard lieutenant began his graduate education with a general interest in international affairs, but, he says, has since developed into “a student of the art of statecraft, a military officer with a yearning to better understand U.S. foreign policy, and a sailor fascinated with how the world’s oceans shape global processes.”

The journey first began in Scott’s home state of Missouri. His mother, a foreign language professor, encouraged him to look beyond his rural roots by bringing home a steady stream of exchange students and organizing family trips abroad. After high school, eager for new adventure, Scott entered the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and a career in maritime law enforcement. His first assignment upon graduation from the Academy in 1997 was aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Dallas. Although the ship is homeported in Charleston, South Carolina, it usually deploys to the Caribbean to carry out narcotics interdiction on the front lines of the drug war.

During this tour of duty, Scott often considered the broader significance of the assignments he was given. Major seizures of cocaine and marijuana (measured in tons) left him pondering how the “war on drugs” affected American foreign policy and international economics. Scott became interested in the history of U.S. diplomatic and military action in Latin America while working on nation-building projects in Haiti. An assignment repatriating migrants to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base led Scott to wonder how the U.S. made and enforced immigration policy, and why the U.S. maintained a naval base in Cuba.

In 1999, motivated by his experiences aboard the Dallas, Scott received the opportunity captain his own Coast Guard ship in the Gulf of Mexico. Based in Southern Louisiana, Scott’s ship was charged with enforcing U.S. laws and treaties in the maritime realm, including fishing regulations, environmental standards, and rules governing how vessels operate at sea. Scott feels that this experience further piqued his interest in “how nations manage the world’s watery frontiers, where the Law of the Sea originated and why the U.S. won’t formally accede to the treaty it helped create, who makes ocean policy and how the world community agrees to police international waters.”

Scott’s inquisitiveness led naturally to a desire for further education. Fletcher’s fields of study in law, economics, history, policy, and diplomacy, he says, made the School a perfect fit. Ultimately, says Scott, he decided on Fletcher “because of the advice he received from a trusted mentor, because of Fletcher’s incredible sense of community, and because of the school’s prestigious reputation.”

Once at Fletcher, Scott was immediately attracted to courses that addressed some of his perennial questions, including Professor Alan Henrikson’s “Foreign Relations of the United States,” and “Geography, Foreign Policy and World Order,” “Law of the Sea,” and especially Professor John Perry’s “Oceanic History” and “Contemporary Issues in Oceanic Studies.” He began thinking about maritime security and emerging environmental and maritime management issues after experiencing 9/11 at Fletcher and reading the then-newly-released Pew and U.S. Oceans Commission Reports.

Under Professor Perry’s leadership, Scott worked with other students who shared his passion for the oceans to launch Fletcher’s Oceanic Studies Program. Self-dubbed the “Neptunes,” this group meets regularly to discuss issues like the Strait of Malacca, the phenomenon known as flags of convenience, and the role of naval power in international affairs. They also have embarked on research seminars to New York City, The Netherlands, Iberia, and most recently, to Asian port cities. Scott says that their voyages have been intended “to understand how oceanic experiences have shaped past, present, and future societies,” and that “they were some of the most intellectually stimulating days of his life.”

Scott wrote his MALD thesis on how new technologies and waves of history have inexorably linked the earth’s seas into one “world ocean” that mirrors the economic, political, and social dynamics of the early Mediterranean. In the Ph.D. program he passed his comprehensive examinations in the fields of Political Systems and Theories, the United States, and Oceanic Studies. He is now researching and writing a dissertation about the effect of maritime history on the world-view of America’s global port cities. He is also thinking and writing about the enormous implications global climate change holds for Arctic maritime transit and the renewed potential of the Northwest and Northeast Passages.

He teaches American Foreign Policy and U.S. Maritime History and Policy at his alma mater the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. While Scott’s life is currently anchored in New England, Fletcher has helped him to appreciate our world’s interconnectedness and the need for an informed historical and nuanced approach in tackling our most pressing international problems. He feels he is on his way to answering those questions he first pondered at sea, and – while it might sound clichéd – that Fletcher is preparing him to be a leader with a global perspective.

Posted by jessica at February 13, 2005 10:05 AM