“If you think these failed states look bad now…”
An excellent article in Foreign Policy by Stephan Faris provides unflinching analysis of the threats of climate change to some of the world’s most volatile regions, focusing on the looming Pakistan-India water crisis. Some highlights:
Traditionally, Kashmir’s waters have been naturally regulated by the glaciers in the Himalayas. Precipitation freezes during the coldest months and then melts during the agricultural season. But if global warming continues at its current rate…the glaciers could be mostly gone from the mountains by 2035. Water that once flowed for the planting will flush away in winter floods… Pakistan—unstable, facing dramatic drops in water supplies, caged in by India’s vastly superior conventional forces—will be forced to make one of three choices. It can let its people starve. It can cooperate with India in building dams and reservoirs, handing over control of its waters to the country it regards as the enemy. Or it can ramp up support for the insurgency, gambling that violence can bleed India’s resolve without degenerating into full-fledged war.
The Kashmiri water conflict is just one of many climate-driven geopolitical crises on the horizon. These range from possible economic and treaty conflicts that will likely be resolved peacefully…to possible outright wars. In 2007, the London-based NGO International Alert compiled a list of countries with a high risk of armed conflict due to climate change. They cited no fewer than 46 countries, or one in every four, including some of the world’s most gravely unstable countries, such as Somalia, Nigeria, Iran, Colombia, Bolivia, Israel, Indonesia, Bosnia…
A grim picture. But while “the U.S. military has come to recognize that weakened states—the Bangladeshes and Pakistans of the world—are often breeding grounds for extremism, terrorism, and potentially destabilizing conflict”, the threat of climate change to fuel upheaval and ignite war goes unmet by significant action from the United States. As Faris points out:
The U.S. military has been required by law since 2008 to incorporate climate change into its planning, but though Pentagon strategic documents describe a climate-stressed future, there’s little sign the Department of Defense is pivoting to meet it. “Most of the things that the military is requesting are still for a conventional war with a peer competitor,” says Sharon Burke, an energy and climate change specialist at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security. “They say they’re going to have more humanitarian missions, but there’s no discussion at all of what do you need?“
In its report A New American Arsenal released last year, the American Security Project put forward a three-pronged response to climate change, calling for the US to:
- Lead international efforts to create a policy framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Rigorously pursue domestic reforms to “green” the US economy
- Prepare the American government and military to address the consequences of climate change
The White House, Pentagon and Congress know the threat climate change poses – now we need funding, operational capacity and a national strategy to meet it.
In the meantime, we look forward to ASP President Vice Admiral Lee Gunn’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week as another call for decisive action on this issue.
