The Climate Crisis as a National Security Risk

In 1996, the United States National Security Strategy made one of the first references to climate change in the context of security strategy. This marked the first in a long series of US military and intelligence community assessments over shifting environmental conditions and their potential impacts on broader national security. The relationship has never been a simple one, even as major events such as the 2019–2020 Australian wildfires provide stark images of how quickly environmental conditions are changing. The concept of climate security can be interpreted in different ways, but this article attempts to explain some of the key assumptions behind military and intelligence definitions of how and why climate change is a national security risk, with particular reference to Arctic security. In brief, climate security is not primarily about increased likelihood of violent conflict between states, fights over scarce resources, or political conflicts over climate refugees. Instead, environmental changes can drastically increase uncertainty over planning, logistics, and institutions, particularly where human security is at risk. It is the challenge to strategic and operational planning, caused by underlying shifts in environmental and human security, that motivates such consistent interest in climate change from the military.

The Arctic region of the United States in Alaska has been experiencing far higher temperature changes on average than the lower forty-eight states. The state has seen an increase of 2.5ºF (1.5ºC) in average air temperatures, compared to 1.5°F (0.83ºC) for the rest of the United States. Beyond average temperature changes, shifts in precipitation, sea temperatures, sea and land ice, and ecosystem shifts have significantly changed environmental conditions in Alaska since the 1970s. Last year, 2019, was the warmest year on record in the state, both in air and sea surface temperatures, and the state witnessed record-high heats and droughts in the summer, record-low sea ice in the Chukchi Sea, and associated hazards and disasters, such as widespread wildfires and loss of fish populations.¹ The line between environmental changes and national security is not a direct one, save for the cases where climate-accelerated wildfires, for example, directly threaten military installations (as in Russia in 2010).² As with most climate impacts, the cascading or indirect effects are most important for security planning and pose the greatest challenges for mitigation and adaptation.

Defining Climate Security

For Arctic regions, climate security concerns can be categorized into resource extraction, search and rescue, infrastructure and logistics, cultural and food security, and disaster management, though these categories often overlap. The concern over increased opportunity for resource extraction was one of the first issues raised by past authors, citing the opening of the Arctic Sea to oil and mining operations.³ In some regions, this takes the form of potential foreign influence when investments are made in Arctic regions, such as Chinese mining in Greenland or port infrastructure investments in Norway.⁴ In other cases, increased activity in the Arctic Sea can pose environmental hazards when new offshore drilling takes place far from established communities and response capabilities. Yet the retreat of sea ice does not necessarily make access easier, as Shell Oil discovered trying to conduct new operations off the coast of Alaska in 2015, losing some $7 billion after concluding that oil and gas extraction from the Chukchi Sea was too expensive and unpredictable for the marginal returns available. With the loss of ice and stable winter weather, Arctic operations have become riskier and more vulnerable to extreme weather.⁵

Earlier authors focused on the melting sea ice in the Arctic as a cause for security concern, positing that great power rivalries in the quest for resources may spark conflict.⁶ The argument is that with new resources and trade routes available, great-power rivalry between Russia, the United States, China, and others may increase friction between states, and that increased militarization of the Arctic equals a security risk. Many other experts have pointed out the existence of multilateral institutions to maintain governance in the North, from the Arctic Council to the UN and OSCE, and that the focus of Arctic...