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US Pacific Command, Climate Change and Collaborative Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
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While organizers mobilize across the globe for history's biggest climate march in New York on September 21, strikingly large numbers of Americans - and an even bigger share of their political representatives - remain quiet, doubtful or even in denial about climate change. But the US military, especially in the Pacific, is neither uncertain nor passive. The August 10 Stars and Stripes tells us that US Pacific Command (PACOM) is also “not waiting on politics” in responding to climate change. Brigadier General Mark McLeod, former head of PACOM's Logistics, Engineering and Security Cooperation directorate describes why. He points out that 70 percent of global storms are in the Pacific and that climate change's impacts are already having military consequences. He dismisses the denialism rampant in American politics and society with:” Call it climate change, call it the big blue rabbit, I don't give a hoot what you call it —— the military has to respond to those kinds of things.”
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.- Copyright
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References
Notes
1 The People's Climate March site is here.
2 For example, Ipsos MORI's first-ever Global Trends poll (2014) includes a section on the environment. In answer to the question “To what extent do you agree or disagree? The climate change we are currently seeing is largely the result of human activity,” America was last among 20 major nations with only 54% in agreement. Fully 32% of Americans disagreed, the largest level of disagreement in the sample. The 14% share who opted for “Don't know” was also the largest in the sample. See here.
3 See Wyatt Olson, “PACOM not waiting on politics to plan for climate change challenges,” Stars and Stripes, August 10, 2014.
4 See “About Oceania,” International Union for Conservation of Nature,” nd.
5 See Wyatt Olson, “PACOM not waiting on politics to plan for climate change challenges,” Stars and Stripes, August 10, 2014.
6 The initial deployment of 200 Marines is slated to be expanded to a 2500 member Marine Air-Ground Task Force during 2016-17. See Donna Miles, “Rotational Force in Australia Paves Way for Big Growth in 2014,” DoD News, September 4, 2013.
7 See the quote in Peter Hartcher and John Garnaut, “US administration and Tony Abbott have ‘meeting of minds' on climate change,” Sydney Morning Herald, August 14, 2014.
8 Lisa Cox, “Carbon tax is gone: Repeal bills pass the Senate,” Sydney Morning Herald, July 17, 2014.
9 Tom Arup, “Tony Abbott battles the future by axing carbon tax,” Sydney Morning Herald, July 17, 2014.
10 Maurice Newman, “We're ill-prepared if the iceman cometh,” The Australian, August 14, 2014.
11 See John Conroy, “Bishop-Kerry talks covered climate change: US official,” Daily Telegraph, August 14, 2014. Among the prominent Australians calling for the inclusion of climate change on the G20 agenda are twelve leading medical scientists who wrote an open letter to Abbott. See “Put climate change on G20 agenda, medics tell Tony Abbott,” Responding to Climate Change, August 12, 2014.
12 See the transcript of General Morrison's interview with Karon Snowdon, “Australian army chief says climate change will impact miltary role,” ABC Radio Australia, February 20, 2014.
13 See “Climate Security on the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultation Table,” The Center for Climate and Security, August 14, 2014.
14 See Niko Dizon, “Climate change buff is new AFP chief of staff,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 17, 2014.
15 The Shangri-La Dialogue was initiated in 2002 as “a forum where the Asia-Pacific's defence ministers could engage in dialogue aimed at building confidence and fostering practical security cooperation.” The Dialogue has since become “the most important regular gathering of defence professionals in the region,” and “a vital annual fixture in the diaries of Asia-Pacific defence ministers and their civilian and military chiefs of staff.” See here.
16 A transcript of the session is available here.
17 On this point, see the remarks of Anthony Bergin, Deputy Director of The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, in “Multilateral disaster relief efforts - not as easy as you might think,” The Strategist, March 11, 2014.
18 One example is Glen Penner “A Framework for NGO-Military Collaboration, Small Wars Journal, July 9, 2014.
19 The US military itself has recognized that HADR expertise is repeatedly lost through personnel turnover and thus “efforts to institutionalize effective policies, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that draw on lessons observed from recent responses and provide increased education and training opportunities related to disaster relief for individuals and units.” See Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance Director Pamela K. Milligan, “PACOM Disaster Response Lessons Trends 1991-2013,” Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance, March 12, 2014.
20 See the highly informative article by Erik J Reaves, Michael Termini, and Frederick M Burkle, “Reshaping US Navy Pacific Response in Mitigating Disaster Risk in South Pacific Island Nations: Adopting Community-Based Disaster Cycle Management,” Prehospital and Disaster Medicine Special Report, Vol 29, No 1, February 2014.
21 See “Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination and the Oslo Guidelines,” UNOCHA.
22 For the numbers, see Yantoultra Ngui, “As China flexes maritime muscle, SE Asia builds home-grown defence industry,” Reuters, August 12, 2014.
23 See the excellent analysis from PACOM regional analyst Jen Pearce, “HADR and US- China Military Cooperation,” The Diplomat, July 28, 2014.
24 On this, see Hideshi Futari, “Japan's Disaster Relief Diplomacy: Fostering Military Cooperation in Asia,” Asia Matter for America (East-West Center), May 21, 2013.
25 A July 23 interview with George Marshall can be read and listened to at “A World Burns in Silence,” Radio Ecoshock, July 23: See here.
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