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MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. – Dr. Eric Shibuya, a professor at Marine Corps Command and Staff College, prepares to illustrate the complexity of international relations by juggling three different objects.

Photo by Photo by Eve A. Baker

Fulbright Scholar is security studies professor at Command and Staff College

24 Sep 2015 | Eve A. Baker Marine Corps Base Quantico

Marine Corps University hosts a large, diverse faculty, consisting of active duty, reserve and retired military personnel from all branches of service, as well as chairs from numerous federal agencies and scholars, and professors from the civilian academic community.

One of them, Dr. Eric Shibuya, a security studies professor at Command and Staff College, is a Fulbright Scholar who has been with MCU since 2007.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is a U.S. State Department initiative established in 1946 that sponsors exchanges between U.S. and foreign participants “in all areas of endeavor, including the sciences, business, academia, public service, government and the arts,” according to the program’s website. In 1999, Shibuya was awarded a grant to work at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, where he conducted research and taught on the topic of Oceania and small island states and environmental security.

Shibuya holds three political science degrees: a bachelor’s from the University of Hawaii, a master’s from Oklahoma State University and a doctoral degree from Colorado State University. According to Shibuya, after his Fulbright work in Australia, he returned to Hawaii and took a position at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, where he cofounded a course on responses to terrorism.

In early 2007, Shibuya “was looking for something new” to do with his career, and some friends in the Marine Corps steered him toward applying for a position with CSC, he said. The director of the school at the time happened to be in Hawaii when Shibuya was looking for a new position, and, as Shibuya said, “I walked across the street to the Hale Koa , met him for an interview and got the job.”

As a civilian working with and teaching Marines and other service-member students who rotate through the school on a yearly basis, Shibuya said he provides outside perspective and context to the students. “The students tend to treat every problem as if it is brand new,” he said, and “my expertise comes from the fact that I have studied the international system a lot longer” and can provide historical and situational context.

Shibuya’s areas of research and teaching focus are Oceania and Southeast Asia, political violence and terrorism, and post-conflict reintegration. In 2012, he wrote a book, titled “Demobilizing Irregular Forces,” on the topic of how to treat rebel groups and militias, as compared to regular military forces, after a peacekeeping agreement has been signed.

From working at CSC for the last eight years, Shibuya has learned a lot about the Marine Corps. In particular, he said, “You’re a lot more diverse than people think” in terms of political opinions and individual views on the role of the Corps. People outside of the Marine Corps community tend to think of Marines as all being the same, said Shibuya, but he has come to learn that they “are not just one unitary actor.” He has also come to realize that, regarding major military operations, there is “a lot of planning, forethought and strategizing that civilian institutes can’t do.”

Hailing from Waipahu, Hawaii, Shibuya is proud of his island heritage and frequently wears vivid ties with tropical prints to class. He keeps a stash of the ties in his office to rotate through for different occasions. Also filling his office are mementos from students and from his numerous world travel experiences. “Vanuatu is one of my favorite places,” he said, and he has also been to Kosovo, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur and “all over Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.” In addition to travelling, Shibuya enjoys juggling and meets regularly with the Object Manipulation Group at the University of Mary Washington.

— Writer: ebaker@quanticosentryonline.com
Marine Corps Base Quantico