The second day of the conference began with a panel discussing polarization trends in different regions of the world. Panelists included Commander Rachel Gosnell, U.S. Navy, a Foreign Area Officer serving in the U.S. European Command and speechwriter for the 30th Chief of Naval Operation; Dr. Amitav Acharya, the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance and Distinguished Professor at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C.; and Dr. Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, College Park, and non-resident senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution.
The panelists provided a diverse look into contemporary polarization through their expertise on Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, respectively. The panel itself analyzed regional polarization trends, especially in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rising power of China on the global stage. Key takeaways included Russia’s reliance on long term costs to break the unity of NATO support, the non-alignment of Southeast Asian states in order to preserve peace in the region, and renewed diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran as a result of power imbalances since the Iraq War.
Following the panel, the delegates broke out into the second of three roundtable discussions. These discussions continued dialogue on the roots and implications of modern polarization, with some focusing on free speech, the Israel-Palestine question, and growing potential for polarization in the Arctic region.
After their discussion, delegates enjoyed a luncheon in Dahlgren Hall and tours of the Yard, where they continued to enjoy each other’s company and continue to facilitate powerful discussion.
The day culminated in the Honorable Stanley Legro Keynote Address given by Dr. Qamar-ul Huda and a breakout into roundtables to draw conclusions for this second day. The Honorable Stanley Legro Address is named after the late Honorable Stanley Legro, a Distinguished Graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Marine Corps artillery officer, Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and generous supporter of NAFAC. Dr. Qamar-ul Huda is the Michael E. Paul Distinguished Visiting Professor of International Affairs at the United States Naval Academy and co-founder of the Center for Global Policy, and previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor for Secretary of State John Kerry’s Office of Policy Planning. His expertise in conflict resolution and countering extremism provided insights into three major themes that can be linked to polarization: globalization, shifting power dynamics, and the popularization of polarization politics. He points out that the United States used to be proactive in securing agreements with other countries over basic human rights. Recently, thanks in large part to the Sino-Russian “strategic partnership without limits,” the United States chooses to work with strongmen leaders who can cooperate with national security goals easier over democratically elected leaders who are committed to human rights. He concludes that the destructive effects of polarization are mainly driven by contemporary norms of democratic backsliding and tribalism that are not identified and fought against enough.
The following roundtable discussions tackled not only questions of democratic backsliding and shifting power imbalances in the Middle East and the Arctic but considered the conflict between universal acceptance of cultures and the belief in certain universal human rights, the use of disinformation to secure the regimes of strongmen leaders, and populism as a seductively “easy way forward” for rising nationalist leaders.
