A looming industrial tower of pipelines and chemical storage tanks rises out of snowy landscape. In Novogorodske, a small quiet town in eastern Ukraine, workers go about their daily business at the Dzerzhinsk Phenol Factory. A penetrating, inescapable smell greeted us as we entered the village, which a Dutch journalist and I are visiting as part of our investigation into the environmental and health risks from ongoing fighting in Eastern Ukraine. Our research for the open-source collective Bellingcat has identified the factory as one of a number of potential environmental flashpoints.

Myanmar is rich in natural resources—gas, oil, minerals, and gemstones—yet is still one of the world’s least developed countries. Extractive industries are the country’s most lucrative sector and the government’s main source of revenue, but most of the benefits do not reach its citizens. Instead, resource extraction in Myanmar causes severe environmental and social problems and fuels and sustains some of the country’s longstanding ethnic conflicts.

When Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer told the media last week that “the damn thing melted,” he wasn’t talking about an ice cream cone. As the Arctic faces unprecedented levels of open water, Spencer and other naval leaders recently testified to Congress about the U.S. Navy’s strategy, which is changing as quickly as the Arctic itself. 

Are younger countries at higher risk of civil conflict? The International Crisis Group’s 2018 list of 10 conflicts to watch suggests they might be: Like last year, intra-state conflicts (civil and ethnic conflicts within states, rather than wars between states) dominate the list, and among those, about 70 percent are within youthful countries, or states with a median age of 25.5 years or younger. The only multi-state cluster mentioned in both 2017 and 2018 lists is the Sahel, the world’s most youthful region.

Food has long been used by countries to wage both war and peace, and the post-war era of American food dominance is no exception. Bryan McDonald, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, traces the United States’ “Food For Peace” strategy in his recent book, Food Power: The Rise and Fall of the Postwar American Food System, arguing that “food was central to national security” during this period.

Starting in 2014, the number of migrants from Central America’s Northern Triangle—Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—surged, with border apprehensions increasing fivefold from 2010-2015. While apprehensions have declined from their peak, emigration from these countries has not necessarily slowed, and the conditions the migrants are seeking to escape have not changed. Experts blame the region’s widespread criminal violence for spurring migration. But the Northern Triangle countries also share similar ecology, staple crops, and vulnerability to climate events. While environmental and natural resource factors are just part of the complex picture, understanding how they intersect with other migration drivers is key to creating and implementing effective policy responses.

Last month, a major multinational military exercise launched in South and Southeast Asia. The Pacific Partnership is the largest annual multilateral humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Asia-Pacific and aims to enhance regional coordination in areas such as medical readiness and preparedness for manmade and natural disasters. At its center is the hospital ship USNS Mercy, with an international team of civilian and military specialists seeking to build response capacity in one of the most disaster-prone regions of the world.