Sign Up for ASP Alerts Himalayan glaciers are melting at such a rate that fresh-water may be in short supply in South Asia in the next fifty years. Global fish-stocks are shrinking, threatening not just industries but entire ways of life. Demographic trends in America’s traditional allies raise serious concerns about their ability to sustain international security commitments well into the century. In other words, issues with long-lead times are emerging that challenge how we define security, regard our allies, and apply American power to meet new threats.
The study of Emerging National Security Issues is intended to examine a diverse range of non-traditional security challenges, including disease, poverty, demography, poverty, and the environment, and to assess their impact on America’s national security in the coming decades. In all of these cases, dire warnings have yielded little in the way of policy change because, in part, individuals of good-will disagree on the substance of the claims.
This study is intended to sift through hyperbole and rhetoric to assess the practical impacts of non-traditional security issues on the future of American national security, prescribe sustainable solutions and adjustment to policy, and inform the consideration of other strategic choices.