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The Environment as a National Security Issue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Richard A. Matthew
Richard A. Matthew
Affiliation:
University of California at Irvine
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Extract

In 1994 a young journalist with a sharp eye for social anxieties and a flair for dramatic prose wrote an article that described environmental change as “the national security issue of the early 21st century.” Robert Kaplan's thesis in “The Coming Anarchy” is fetchingly simple: combine weak political systems, burgeoning urban populations, grinding poverty, and a flood of cheap weapons, and society becomes highly volatile. This lethal mixture, Kaplan suggests, already is generating high levels of violence in West Africa; soon it will affect the rest of the planet. This will happen because at the root of social collapse in West Africa is environmental degradation—a problem the entire world is experiencing. The pathways to chaos may differ from one place to the next, but all of humankind is being pushed along them. The state of the environment, Kaplan concludes, has become a matter of national security.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 12 , Special Issue 1: Special Issue: Environmental Politics and Policy, 1960s–1990s , January 2000 , pp. 101 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2000

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References

Notes

1. Kaplan, Robert, “The Coming Anarchy,” The Atlantic Monthly 273 (1994): 61.Google Scholar

2. Ophuls, W., Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (San Francisco, 1976)Google Scholar ; Brown, Lester, “Redefining National Security,” WorldWatch Paper 14 (1977)Google Scholar ; Ullman, Richard, “Redefining Security,” International Security 8 (1983): 129–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Mathews, Jessica, “Redefining Security,” Foreign Affairs 68 (1989): 162–77CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

3. For a discussion of the debate between those seeking to widen the concept of national security and those resisting this, see Finel, Bernard I., “What Is Security? Why the Debate Matters,” National Security Studies Quarterly 4.4 (1998): 1–18Google Scholar . The Autumn 1998 issue of National Security Studies Quarterly, which includes Finel's article, contains several pieces relevant to this debate.

4. For a general discussion, see Matthew, Richard A., “Environment and Security: Concepts and Definitions,” National Security Studies Quarterly 4:4 (1998): 63–72Google Scholar ; idem, “A Clean, Secure Future,” Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy 13:4 (1998): 115–19Google Scholar ; and Deudney, Daniel and Matthew, Richard A., eds., Contested Grounds: Security and Conflict in the New Environmental Politics (Albany, N.Y., 1999)Google Scholar.

5. For discussion, see Marshall, Peter, Nature's Web: An Exploration of Ecological Thinking (London, 1989)Google Scholar.

6. McCormick, John, Reclaiming Paradise: The Global Environmental Movement (Indianapolis, 1989).Google Scholar

7. , McCormick, Reclaiming Paradise, 1–24.Google Scholar

8. Meadows, Donella et al, The Limits to Growth (New York, 1972).Google Scholar

9. Sustainable development was then defined in the vague but accommodating terms of meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” WCED, Our Common Future (Oxford, 1987), 8Google Scholar.

10. , Mathews, “Redefining Security”Google Scholar ; Mathews, Jessica, “Power Shift,” Foreign Affairs 76 (1997): 50–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Myers, Norman, “Environment and Security,” Foreign Policy 74 (1989): 23–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; idem , Ultimate Security: The Environmental Basis of Political Stability (New York, 1993)Google Scholar ; and idem, “Population, Environment, and Conflict,” Environmental Conservation 20 (1993): 205–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Portions of this section are adapted from Matthew, Richard A., “Rethinking Environ’ mental Security,” Gleditsc, N. P., ed., Conflict and the Environment (Dordrecht, 1997), 71–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Matthew, “Environment and Security: Concepts and Definitions"; idem, “A Clean, Secure Future”; and idem, “Security and Scarcity: A Common Pool Resource Perspective,” Barkin, Samuel and Shambaugh, George, eds., Anarchy and the Environment: The International Relations of Common Pool Resources (Albany, N.Y., 1999)Google Scholar.

12. Wirth later headed Global and Multilateral Affairs in the State Department.

13. Gore proved especially adept at restructuring in situ policies and institutions and at using environmental initiatives as a basis for advancing diplomatic goals. The so-called “Gore bilaterals,” forged with his counterparts in Russia, South Africa, and elsewhere, are a series of high-level agreements to cooperate on shared environmental problems that are typical of Gore's resourcefulness. For a sense of his perspective on environmental issues, see Gore, Al, Earth in the Balance: Forging a New Common Purpose (Boston, 1992)Google Scholar.

14. This speech is available with a brief commentary in Christopher, Warren, In the Stream of History: Shaping Foreign Policy for a New Era (Stanford, Calif., 1998)Google Scholar.

15. One general overview report, entitled Environmental Diplomacy, was published in 1997.

16. For a useful overview of how the U.S. foreign policy process has handled the environment since the 1970s, see Hopgood, Stephen, American Foreign Environmental Policy and the Power of the State (Oxford, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. In fact, as discussed below, several initiatives were well advanced by 1996, although problems associated with concerns about declassification criteria persisted.

18. See the Report of the Secretary of Defense to President and Congress on Environmental Security, May 1994.

19. For a debate on the significance of environmental threats, see Deudney and Matthew, Contested Grounds.

20. Gleick, Peter, “Environment and Security: The Clear Connections,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 47 (1991): 17–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; idem, Water and Conflict: Fresh Water Resources and International Security,” International Security 18 (1993)Google Scholar ; Homer-Dixon, Thomas, “Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Cases,” International Security 19 (1994): 5–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; idem, Environment, Scarcity, and Conflict (Princeton, 1999)Google Scholar ; and Homer-Dixon, Thomas and Blitt, Jessica, Ecoviolence: Links Among Environment, Population, and Security (Lanham, Md., 1998)Google Scholar.

21. Wolf, Aaron, “International Water Conflicts and Conflict Resolution,” ISA Paper (1997).Google Scholar

22. Homer-Dixon's influential research findings serve as a principal source for Kaplan's dramatic speculations on the future.

23. Deudney, Daniel, “The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security,” Millennium 19 (1990): 461–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. See Porter, Gareth, “Environmental Security as a National Security Issue,” Current History (May 1995).Google Scholar

25. Quotes from U.S. and World News website, http://sddt.com/files/librarywire/98/04/23/lh.html

26. Deudney, “The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security.”

27. Levy, Marc A., “Is the Environment a National Security Issue?” International Security 20 (1995): 35–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28. Frederick, “A Realist's Conceptual Definition of Environmental Security.”

29. Gray, C. Boyden and Rivkin, David B. Jr “A ‘Np Regrets’ Environmental Policy,” Foreign Policy 83 (1991): 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. For this critical perspective, see , Gray and , Rivkin, “A ‘No Regrets’ Environmental Policy”Google Scholar ; and Frederick, Michel, “A Realist's Conceptual Definition of Environmental Security”, Deudney, Daniel and Matthew, Richard, eds., Contested Grounds: 91–108.Google Scholar For a sampling of more general arguments that tend to support this position see Kahn, Herman and Simon, Julian, eds., The Resourceful Earth: A Response to Global 2000 (New York, 1984)Google Scholar.

31. Deudney, “The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security.”

32. An editorial in the magazine World Watch, for example, reviews the trend of using military assets to deal with unconventional environmental problems and concludes that this is a promising phenomenon: “it may be politically easier to shift spending inside the military [for environmental purposes] than to shift it out. It may be easier to reform military thinking by assuring the generals they're needed than by informing them that the future has left them behind.” Ayres, Ed, “New Missions for the Military,” World Watch (1999): 3–4Google Scholar.

33. For a disturbing account of the military's legacy in the former Soviet Union, see Feshbach, Murray, Ecological Disaster: Cleaning Up the Hidden Legacy of the Soviet Regime (New York, 1995)Google Scholar.

34. Butts, Kent, “Why the Military Is Good for the Environment,” in Kakonen, Jyrki, ed., Green Security or Militarised Environment (Brookfield, 1994)Google Scholar ; idem, “National Security, the Environment, and DOD,” Environmental Change and Security Project Report 2 (1996): 22–27Google Scholar.

35. Deibert, Ronald, “Military Monitoring of the Environment,” Environmental Change and Security Project Report 2 (1996): 28–32.Google Scholar

36. For a comprehensive listing of government and nongovernment activities, see the Environmental Change and Security Project Reports published annually since 1995 by the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

37. See, for example, Ehrlich, Paul, The Population Bomb (New York, 1968)Google Scholar ; Ehrlich, Paul and Ehrlich, Anne, The Population Explosion (New York, 1990)Google ScholarPubMed ; Norman Myers, Ultimate Security; idem, “Population, Environment and Conflict”; Connolly, Matthew and Kennedy, Paul, “Must It Be the West Against the Rest?” The Atlantic Monthly 274 (1994): 61–83Google Scholar ; Homer-Dixon, “Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict"; idem, Environment, Scarcity, and Violence; and Homer-Dixon and Blitt, Ecoviolence.

38. Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity, and Violence.

39. A typical example of this is the impassioned debate over Samuel Huntington's “Clash of Civilizations” thesis. See Huntington, Samuel, The Clash of Civilisations? The Debate (New York, 1993)Google Scholar.

40. Dupont, Alan, The Environment and Security in Pacific Asia, Adelphi Paper 319. (Oxford, 1998).Google Scholar

41. For information purposes, it may be useful to contrast the above with representative U.S.-based activities. These range from research undertaken by the Center for Environmental Security at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to the community organized Military Toxics Project, located in Maine, which studies and lobbies for base cleanup and pollution prevention. The Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University maintains an excellent database. Also at Columbia University, the Environment and Security Project focuses on scarcity, degradation, and conflict in the developing world. On the West Coast, the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development has long pioneered research in this area. Finally, an office of the Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project, headquartered in Canada, was established at the end of the 1990s at the University of California at Irvine. It has a special focus on issues relevant to coastal communities.

42. , Butts, “National Security, the Environment, and DOD,” 22.Google Scholar

43. The author's answer is offered in Matthew, “Rethinking Environmental Security.”