// July 29th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Tipping Point
A Decline in Resources Is Projected to Cause Increasing Instability Overseas
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 15, 2007; A06
The U.S. military is increasingly focused on a potential national security threat: climate change.
Just last month the U.S. Army War College funded a two-day conference at the Triangle Institute for Security Studies titled “The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.” And tomorrow, a group of 11 retired senior generals will release a report saying that global warming “presents significant national security challenges to the United States,” which it must address or face serious consequences.
The 63-page report — which is being released a day before the U.N. Security Council holds its first-ever briefing on climate change — lays out a detailed case for how global warming could destabilize vulnerable states in Africa and Asia and drive a flood of migrants to richer countries. It focuses on how climate change “can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world,” in part by causing water shortages and damaging food production.
The study’s authors, along with several other national security experts, confirmed last week that the military has begun studying possible future impacts of global warming with new intensity.
“It’s only in the last six months that climate change itself has surfaced as a term that’s commonly recognized as having security implications,” said Kent H. Butts, a professor of political military strategy at the War College’s Center for Strategic Leadership. Butts added that when he meets with military leaders to discuss how to tackle terrorism and regional instability, “Each time they’re saying, ‘This is getting worse because of changes in the climate.’ “
Commissioned by the Center for Naval Analyses, a government-funded think tank, the report boasts a list of contributors that includes eight retired four-star generals and three three-stars. Many have significant technological expertise, and some, such as Admiral T. Joseph Lopez, are close to Vice President Cheney. Others, including Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, have criticized President Bush in recent years.
The Army’s former chief of staff, Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, who is one of the authors, noted he had been “a little bit of a skeptic” when the study group began meeting in September. But, after being briefed by top climate scientists and observing changes in his native New England, Sullivan said he was now convinced that global warming presents a grave challenge to the country’s military preparedness.
“The trends are not good, and if I just sat around in my former life as a soldier, if I just waited around for someone to walk in and say, ‘This is with a hundred percent certainty,’ I’d be waiting forever,” he said.
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