Militaries must prepare now to deal with more frequent disasters, new conflicts and other risks as accelerating climate change brings threats that could draw in troops at home and abroad, military and defense officials have said.
“The threats are real. We already see them. And the threats will grow as the temperature rises,” said James Clayden of the Dutch Ministry of Defense, speaking at a conference on climate change and security at the Hague, Netherlands, last week.
About 1,000 Dutch troops, for instance, were called out for a month to provide humanitarian help and security when powerful Hurricane Irma slammed into Sint Maarten, a Caribbean island that is part of the Netherlands, in 2017.
That was manageable — but as hurricane disasters become more frequent and devastating, as warming oceans spur larger storms, the pressures on military resources will grow, as will the costs, Clayden said.
Jane Neilson, a senior policy analyst for the New Zealand Ministry of Defense, said her country’s military forces regularly turn out to help South Pacific island neighbors hit by disasters.
However, New Zealand officials worry that the country’s relatively small forces could struggle to cope with bigger, harsher and more frequent disasters, or the threat of several crises happening at once.
“Our worst nightmare” is another big earthquake hitting New Zealand just as a Category 5 hurricane hits the South Pacific, she said.
“Globally, militaries are going to be more stretched with operations deriving from climate-induced impacts,” she said, calling climate change “the single greatest threat to the security, livelihoods and well-being of people of the Pacific.”
For many nations, threats at home are also growing.
The Hague sits 3m below sea level, protected by a system of dikes and pumping stations, said retired general Tom Middendorp, a former Dutch defense chief.
Dutch forces already spend about 25 percent of their efforts supporting civil authorities, including by protecting the anti-flood systems, Middendorp said.
However, if sea level rises significantly — by 1m or more by the turn of the century, under some scenarios — “imagine the impact it could have. The military needs to be ready for that,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“It’s crucial in any country that the civil responders and military sit together and do risk analysis, see how they will cope in an emergency and translate that into standing arrangements,” Middendorp said.
In the US, such preparations have been difficult, despite worsening floods, wildfires and storms, because US President Donald Trump’s administration has been reluctant to accept climate change as a risk, military officials said.
The White House is readying a presidential panel that would question US military and intelligence reports showing human-driven climate change poses risks to national security.
However, retired US Navy rear admiral Ann Phillips, who sits on the advisory board of the US-based Center for Climate and Security, said that climate threats — including to the country’s military facilities — are clear, and the forces are already addressing them.
That includes preparing bases for expected sea level rise and providing better flooding protections, as well as working to cut emissions from military operations.
“We are moving forward on this issue. We are being impacted by it and we can’t deny it,” she said, pointing to bases on the US’ eastern and Gulf coasts already hard hit by floods and storms.
Middendorp said it is key for countries to understand that it will not be only poorer and more vulnerable nations hard hit by climate change.
“It will affect all countries with a coastline, all islands. Countries that up until now have been very peaceful will now be in harm’s way,” he said.
He urged politicians to put aside political divides to tackle the increasingly evident risks.
“Climate change was always a left-wing issue and security was a right-wing, hard-liner issue. We were completely different worlds — but we’ve learned to appreciate each other,” Middendorp said.
Now, looking at both issues together is “of essential importance to everyone, regardless of your political background. We should de-politicize this,” he said.
Climate change threatens to drive violence and conflict that could spill over borders or draw in other countries as it brings worsening food and water shortages, more migration and other pressures, Middendorp said.
Clayden pointed to Egypt, which he said would face losses of land to sea level rise and growing water security threats in an already fragile political climate.
“What will happen there? We don’t know. But are we already preparing to take measures? No, we’re not. We as a ministry of defense are reacting to the problems of today, which for us is Venezuela,” he said.
“We know it’s a problem, we know it will impact on the security situation, but we are not tackling it,” Clayden said.
Middendorp said he saw similar risks in a range of places, particularly Africa and the Middle East, “where big rivers are drying out, the population is increasing, demand is piling up and we can’t supply them with water and food.”
Some of the countries “also have poor governments, internal tensions, poor security,” he said. “This fuels tension, drives migration flows, creates grounds for terrorists and extremism.”
Azzam Alwash, the Iraqi founder and chief executive officer of Nature Iraq, which has advised on restoration of the country’s southern marshes, said that rising population in his country, combined with collapsing agriculture as droughts worsen and uncertain oil revenue, meant migration to Europe was likely to surge.
“If you think 2016-2017, where you had waves of migrants coming up, was bad, wait until 2030. That’s just around the corner,” he said.
When it comes to climate security risks, “it’s time states wake up,” Alwash said.
As it has striven toward superiority in most measures of the Asian military balance, China is now ready to challenge the undersea balance of power, long dominated by the United States, a decisive advantage crucial to its ability to deter blockade and invasion of Taiwan by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). America expended enormous treasure to develop the technology, logistics, training, and personnel to emerge victorious in the Cold War undersea struggle against the former Soviet Union, and to remain superior today; the US is not used to considering the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)
The annual summit of East Asia and other events around the ASEAN summit in October and November every year have become the most important gathering of leaders in the Indo-Pacific region. This year, as Laos is the chair of ASEAN, it was privileged to host all of the ministerial and summit meetings associated with ASEAN. Besides the main summit, this included the high-profile East Asia Summit, ASEAN summits with its dialogue partners and the ASEAN Plus Three Summit with China, Japan and South Korea. The events and what happens around them have changed over the past 15 years from a US-supported, ASEAN-led
Lately, China has been inviting Taiwanese influencers to travel to China’s Xinjiang region to make films, weaving a “beautiful Xinjiang” narrative as an antidote to the international community’s criticisms by creating a Potemkin village where nothing is awry. Such manipulations appear harmless — even compelling enough for people to go there — but peeling back the shiny veneer reveals something more insidious, something that is hard to ignore. These films are not only meant to promote tourism, but also harbor a deeper level of political intentions. Xinjiang — a region of China continuously listed in global human rights reports —
President William Lai’s (賴清德) first Double Ten National Day address had two strategic goals. For domestic affairs, the speech aimed to foster consensus on national identity, strengthen the country and unite the Taiwanese against a Chinese invasion. In terms of cross-strait relations, the speech aimed to mitigate tensions in the Taiwan Strait and promote the coexistence and prosperity of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in China and the Republic of China (ROC). Lai is taking a different stance from previous Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administrations on domestic political issues. During his speech, he said: “The PRC could not be the
RSS