Showing posts from category foreign policy.
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Jeffrey Sachs’ Memo to the Next U.S. President
›April 22, 2008 // By Wilson Center StaffIn his keynote address at the 5th Annual Unite for Sight International Health Conference, held earlier this month, Jeffrey Sachs argued that world leaders must redouble their efforts to alleviate poverty, protect human and environmental health, and balance economic growth and sustainable development. He advocated many of the same solutions that appear in his new book, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, including increasing investment in sustainable technology research and development; hastening the diffusion of sustainable technologies to the poorer regions of the world; and allocating a smaller percentage of the national budget for military spending and instead achieving the international target of 0.7 percent of GNP for foreign aid.
One part of Sachs’ presentation that was not included in his book was a memo to the next U.S. president, consisting of ten objectives to achieve global sustainability. Included in this list were the following recommendations, which illustrate Sachs’ view that human health, the environment, economic growth, and security are all integrally linked:
- “Stop putting food into the gas tank.” Sachs spoke out against the current U.S. subsidies for converting corn into ethanol. He linked the initiative to the recent global increase in food prices and the resulting turmoil in areas such as Haiti and Burkina Faso.
- Create a global forum for the leaders of dry lands. Sachs argued that it is important for leaders of areas such as Senegal, Mali, Chad, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and California to discuss water scarcity, its impact on livelihoods, and strategies to ensure human security.
- Immediately send a U.S. envoy around the world to back climate change negotiations. Sachs emphasized the need for the United States to step up as a leader on curbing climate change and its environmental and social impacts, rather than stalling international cooperation and progress, as he believes the current administration has done.
- Increase U.S. funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Sachs disapproved of the U.S. government’s decision to decrease its financial support of the UNFPA, which he argued is instrumental in fueling the voluntary decline of fertility rates in less developed countries. He identified access to contraceptives and reproductive services, the empowerment of girls and women, and the promotion of maternal and child health as crucial strategies for slowing population growth and maintaining resource sustainability.
- Make the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the heart of international development policy. Sachs noted that he had heard President Bush make reference to the MDGs only once during his two terms in office. He hoped the new administration’s approach to foreign relations and international aid would put a stronger emphasis on achieving the MDGs, which aim to increase health, stability, and prosperity worldwide.
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Three Out of Three Candidates Agree: Climate Is a Security Issue
›April 17, 2008 // By Meaghan ParkerIt was hard to tell which environmental adviser was representing which presidential candidate at a recent news conference sponsored by SEJ on climate change (watch; listen; read)—all three explicitly named it a security priority, and called for a mandatory cap and trade program and the development of new technology. (The question of whether to build new nuclear power plants revealed the only major difference: Clinton’s generally con, McCain is pro, and Obama falls somewhere in the middle.)
Clinton adviser and WilmerHale partner Todd Stern charged out of the gate first, deeming climate a “first-order national security issue” that is “going to exacerbate food security problems. It’s going to exacerbate water scarcity. It’s going to make desertification worse, increase resource competition, and produce, undoubtedly, large-scale migration and refugee problems and increase border tension.” Citing the CNA report, he called climate change a “threat multiplier for instability in volatile parts of the world.” He also quoted Sir Nicholas Stern’s claim that climate change has the potential to cause “economic disruption at a scale of the Great Depression and the wars of the last century.” Clinton will establish a National Energy Council (à la the National Security Council), form an “E8” of major emitters, and increase R&D; efforts—including creating a government agency for energy R&D; modeled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). No proposals, however, on how to mitigate the existing impacts on our current security situation.
Quoting McCain, former CIA Director Jim Woolsey said climate change was “a serious and urgent economic, environmental, and national security challenge.” Taking a harder security stance, Woolsey linked U.S. oil dependence to terrorism not only because it increases “our vulnerability to cutoffs, to terrorist attacks in Middle East” on energy infrastructure, but also because oil fuels oil fuels “Saudi Arabia’s spreading of its hateful Wahhabi doctrine, into madrasas and religious schools around the world”—and funds Iran’s belligerence as well. Unlike Clinton’s representative, Woolsey did not focus on environmental degradation’s links to conflict. He supports market-based incentives to encourage the commercialization of existing technologies—such as plug-in hybrids, flex fuel vehicles, new lighter car body construction, alternative liquid fuels—that could end the “oil monopoly on transportation” and thus fight terrorism at same time. Somewhat cynically, he promoted this vastly oversimplified argument as a politically practical way to convince climate change skeptics to back mitigation efforts.
Like his boss, Obama’s representative Jason Grumet took a big-picture approach, telling the crowd that Obama “gets it”; he recognizes that energy “affects our national security in a dramatic way” and thus requires “dramatic change”—a fundamental transformation of our energy policies to “make us safe and secure.” However, he offered few specific details. Obama supports the development of clean coal (he’s from Illinois, putative site of the now-stalled FutureGen project) and advanced nuclear power, but says we must solve the existing problems with nuclear technology before beginning new development. -
Climate Change and the DoD
›Global climate change is extremely complex, and the potential responses to it are equally complicated, involving efforts to both mitigate and adapt to a changing climate. These efforts will require domestic, regional, and global leadership—and, most certainly, U.S. leadership. The Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest producer of greenhouse gases within the U.S. federal government and will therefore need to be heavily involved in any U.S. response to climate change. Typically, the DoD explores future U.S. national security interests and strategy in congressionally mandated Quadrennial Defense Reviews (QDRs). However, the current QDR (2007) does not address climate change, so I have taken the liberty of crafting an article, “Climate Change, National Security, and the Quadrennial Defense Review: Avoiding the Perfect Storm,” that addresses climate change in a QDR-like manner. If you want the DoD’s attention, you must speak their language.
The 2007 QDR groups potential international security challenges into four broad categories: traditional, irregular, disruptive, and catastrophic. Traditional challenges to U.S. interests require employing military forces in conventional activities to prevent military competition and conflict. Irregular challenges to U.S. national security can come from state and non-state actors employing asymmetric tactics (such as terrorism or insurgency) to counter U.S. strengths. Disruptive challenges include situations where competitors employ revolutionary technologies or methods that might counter or negate current U.S. military advantages. Finally, as defined by the March 2005 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, catastrophic challenges encompass terrorists or rogue states employing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or other methods producing WMD-like effects against U.S. interests. In my article, I classify several climate change-driven security threats into the four categories employed by the QDR. If several of these threats happened concurrently, they could create a “perfect storm” with cataclysmic results.
The DoD can help avert this perfect storm, but to do so, it must act quickly, decisively, and comprehensively to achieve what I call “sustainable security.” This involves integrating the democratic peace theory with the core principles of sustainability. Let me briefly explain these two ideas. The democratic peace theory is based on the presumption that democracies do not fight with each other because they share certain pacifying characteristics (e.g., democratic governments, membership in international organizations, economic interdependence) that encourage them to resolve conflicts peacefully. The core principles of sustainability have been described as the 3 Es: equity, economics, and environment. However, I have modified them for my argument; my modified 3 Es are: social/ecological equity, ecological economics, and environmental security. (Additional detail on how the DoD can work toward sustainable security is provided in my article.)
U.S.—including DoD—efforts to achieve sustainable security will enhance “freedom, justice, and human dignity” around the world, “grow the community of democracies,” increase global stability, prosperity, and security, and make it possible for the international community to “avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable” consequences of climate change. Some may consider my proposal a pipe dream. But in solving the biggest security threat of them all, dreaming big is not a luxury—it is a necessity.
John T. Ackerman is an assistant professor of national security studies at the Air Command and Staff College (ACSC), Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, and the research course director for the ACSC Department of Distance Learning. The opinions expressed in this article are solely his own and do not reflect the positions of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Air Force, or ACSC. -
Changes Wrought By Melting Arctic Demand U.S. Leadership, Argues Expert
›April 8, 2008 // By Sonia Schmanski“Washington must awaken to the broader economic and security implications of climate change,” writes Scott G. Borgerson, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Coast Guard, in an article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs that explores the consequences of a melting Arctic. “Being green,” emphasizes Borgerson, “is no longer a slogan just for Greenpeace supporters and campus activists; foreign policy hawks must also view the environment as part of the national security calculus.”
Borgerson outlines a mixed bag of sometimes-dramatic changes with important environmental and security implications for the United States. There will be damaging consequences for the fragile Arctic ecosystem, where polar bears are becoming increasingly endangered and fish have been appearing much farther north than ever before. Conversely, the huge new swaths of water now open to shipping and naval vessels will cut the distance between Rotterdam and Yokohama by 40 percent, and between Rotterdam and Seattle by 20 percent, significantly reducing ships’ fuel needs. Ships will also find it easier to avoid potentially unstable waters around the South China Sea and the Middle East (recall the Strait of Hormuz confrontation in January of this year).
During the last 23 years, 41 percent of the Artic’s multi-year ice has melted, and the American Geophysical Union predicts the first ice-free Arctic summer will occur in 2013. Russia’s behavior last summer indicates that it is keenly aware of the new ocean territory being uncovered; there could be as much as 586 billion barrels of oil in the territory it will seek to claim under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). And Russia is not the only country poised to lay claim to the newly available Arctic sea; Norway, Denmark, and Canada have also petitioned the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf for additional Arctic territory. Additionally, because Greenland’s recent farming boom could only be helped by a warming climate, Borgerson believes the country might be emboldened to petition Denmark for independence.
The United States has remained largely on the periphery of these issues, last issuing an executive statement in 1994. Borgerson writes that “the combination of new shipping routes, trillions of dollars in possible oil and gas resources, and a poorly defined picture of state ownership makes for a toxic brew.” The situation is especially unstable because it is not progressing within a single, clearly defined international legal framework. UNCLOS cannot be easily applied to the Arctic because of the region’s unique geography and a host of other complexities—the world’s longest and most geographically complicated continental shelf, legally defining the “Northwest Passage,” competing claims to the territory—working to confuse the situation. In addition, it deals exclusively with territory and does not address the many other ramifications of a warming Arctic. Furthermore, the United States prohibited the 1996 Arctic Council from addressing security concerns, so it is unavailable to deal with many of the burgeoning questions.
Borgerson calls for more robust U.S. involvement in shaping the future of this important territory, recalling the successful 1817 Rush-Bagot Agreement between Canada and the United States that demilitarized the Great Lakes and eventually formed the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation to manage the area. He also argues that because the United States and Canada jointly administer the North American Aerospace Defense Council (NORAD), they should be “perfectly capable of doing the same on the Arctic frontier.” Eventually, they could include other states in this management, especially Russia. “Self-preservation in the face of massive climate change,” writes Borgerson, “requires an enlightened, humble, and strategic response.” -
Diversifying the Security Toolbox
›March 27, 2008 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoIn today’s USA Today, General Anthony Zinni (Ret.) and Admiral Leighton Smith (Ret.) make a succinct argument for why addressing global issues such as poverty, disease, corruption, and climate change is essential to making the United States safer. Such an op-ed provides a prime example of how military leaders can play a productive role in advocating for non-military tools that will advance a broader human security agenda. “We understand that the U.S. cannot rely on military power alone to keep us safe from terrorism, infectious disease and other global threats that recognize no borders,” write Zinni and Smith. “We [the United States] must match our military might with a new commitment to investing in improving people’s lives overseas.” -
Climate Change Will Threaten Global, European Security, Says EU Report
›March 11, 2008 // By Rachel WeisshaarA European Union (EU) report released ahead of a major EU summit on March 13-14 warns that climate change is likely to create or worsen a host of local, regional, and global security challenges. “Climate change is best viewed as a threat multiplier which exacerbates existing trends, tensions and instability,” says the report.
Reiterating conclusions other climate-security reports have drawn, the report argues that shrinking per capita supplies of water, food, energy, and other natural resources could generate political, economic, and social unrest, as well as large-scale migration—much of it from developing countries to European ones.
The report, written by Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European commissioner for external relations, also warns that as the polar ice cap in the Arctic melts and exposes previously unnavigable shipping routes and large unclaimed oil and natural gas reserves, it could trigger new geopolitical rivalries. -
Reading Radar– A Weekly Roundup
›February 8, 2008 // By Wilson Center Staff“Cities themselves represent microcosms of the kinds of changes that are happening globally, making them informative test cases for understanding socioecological system dynamics and responses to change,” argue the authors of “Global Change and the Ecology of Cities,” published in today’s issue of Science magazine. The article focuses on changes in land use and cover, biogeochemical cycles, climate, hydrosystems, and biodiversity.
In an op-ed in today’s Washington Post, Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai argues that the country’s post-election violence is partially the result of “the inequitable distribution of natural resources in Kenya, especially land.” Maathai has written extensively on the links between peace and natural resource management.
A joint policy brief by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the World Resources Institute lays out the challenges associated with simultaneously increasing energy security and reducing carbon emissions, and proposes principles to guide these transitions.
Austria has not abided by its promise to crack down on a leather factory that Hungary contends is polluting the transboundary Raba River, said Hungary’s minister of environment, who proposed bilateral talks to resolve the issue.
This mid-term report evaluates progress made by the USAID-funded Okavango Integrated River Basin Management Project, which seeks to strengthen regional water management institutions and preserve the basin’s biodiversity.
“HIV and AIDS affect all people in a community by driving faster rates of resource extraction and use, increasing gender inequality, lowering the general health of the labor force, and impeding an individual’s ability to maintain a viable livelihood,” argue the authors of “Guidelines for Mitigating the Impacts of HIV/AIDS on Coastal Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management,” which suggests ways to combat these challenges. -
Weekly Reading
›This article from the Population Reference Bureau provides an overview of Kenya’s demography—including population growth, HIV/AIDS prevalence, and the country’s youth bulge—in the context of the ongoing ethnic conflict.
“Weather of Mass Destruction? The rise of climate change as the “new” security issue,” by past Wilson Center speaker Oli Brown, examines the risks and opportunities associated with the growing acceptance of climate change as a national and international security issue.
The United States should expand its civilian tools of international power, argued Wilson Center President Lee H. Hamilton in “Wielding our power smartly,” a January 14 editorial in The Indianapolis Star. “America’s crucial role in a complicated world demands that we apply effectively all the tools of U.S. power—public and private, military, economic and political. Our challenge is to cultivate an international system that puts cooperation and engagement at its core,” said Hamilton.
A publication from the U.S. Institute of Peace lays out guidelines for relations between U.S. armed forces and non-governmental humanitarian organizations in conflict zones or potentially hostile areas.President George W. Bush signed an exemption that the U.S. Navy hopes will increase the likelihood that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will vacate a federal judge’s recent injunction that the Navy take additional steps to protect marine mammals from the sonar it uses during anti-submarine warfare training.
