The 2008 National Defense Strategy (NDS), released by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) earlier this summer, delivers the expected, but also throws in a few surprises. The NDS reflects traditional concerns over terrorism, rogue states, and the rise of China, but also gives a more prominent role to the connections among people, their environment, and national security. Both natural disasters and growing competition for resources are listed alongside terrorism as some of the main challenges facing the United States.

This NDS is groundbreaking in that it recognizes the security risks posed by both population growth and deficit—due to aging, shrinking, or disease—the role of climate pressures, and the connections between population and the environment. In the wake of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on climate change and the CNA study on climate change and security, Congress mandated that the NDS include language on climate change. The document is required to include guidance for military planners to assess the risks of projected climate change on the armed forces (see Section 931 of the FY08 National Defense Authorization Act). The document also recognizes the need to address the “root causes of turmoil”—which could be interpreted as underlying population-environment connections, although the authors provide no specifics. One missed opportunity in the NDS is the chance to explicitly connect ungoverned areas in failed or weak states with population-environment issues.

What really stands out about this NDS is how the authors characterize the future security environment: “Over the next twenty years physical pressures—population, resource, energy, climatic and environmental—could combine with rapid social, cultural, technological and geopolitical change to create greater uncertainty,” they write. The challenge, according to DoD, is the uncertainty of how these trends and the interactions among them will play out. DoD is concerned with environmental security issues insofar as they shift the power of states and pose risks, but it is unclear from the NDS what precisely those risks are, as the authors never explicitly identify them. Instead, they emphasize flexibility in preparing to meet a range of possible challenges.

The environmental security language in this NDS grew out of several years of work within the Department, primarily in the Office of Policy Planning under the Office of the Under Secretary for Defense. The “Shocks and Trends” project carried out by Policy Planning involved several years of study on individual trends, such as population, energy, and environment, as well as a series of workshops and exercises outlining possible “shocks.” The impact of this work on the NDS is clear. For example, the NDS says “we must take account of the implications of demographic trends, particularly population growth in much of the developing world and the population deficit in much of the developed world.”

Finally, although the NDS mentions the goal of reducing fuel demand and the need to “assist wider U.S. Government energy security and environmental objectives,” its main energy concern seems to be securing access to energy resources, perhaps with military involvement. Is this another missed opportunity to bring in environmental concerns, or is it more appropriate for DoD to stick to straight energy security? The NDS seems to have taken a politically safe route: recognizing energy security as a problem and suggesting both the need for the Department to actively protect energy resources (especially petroleum) while also being open to broader ways to achieve energy independence.

According to the NDS, DoD should continue studying how the trends outlined above affect national security and should use trend considerations in decisions about equipment and capabilities; alliances and partnerships; and relationships with other nations. As the foundational document from which almost all other DoD guidance documents and programs are derived, the NDS is highly significant. If the new administration continues to build off of the current NDS instead of starting anew, we can expect environmental security to play a more central role in national defense planning. If not, environmental security could again take a back seat to other national defense issues, as it has done so often in the past.

Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba is the Mellon Environmental Fellow in the Department of International Studies at Rhodes College. She worked in the Office of Policy Planning as a demography consultant during the preparations for the 2008 NDS and continues to be affiliated with the office. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.

For more information, see Sciubba’s article “Population in Defense Policy Planning” in ECSP Report 13.

When I tell people I have been working on a report about U.S. international water policy, they usually respond with the same sardonic question: “The United States has an international water policy?” The answer, of course, is complicated. Yes, we have localized approaches to water challenges in parts of the developing world, and we have more than 15 government agencies with capacities to address water and sanitation issues abroad. And yes, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development published a joint strategic framework this year for action on water issues in the developing world.

However, the U.S. government (USG) does not yet have an overarching strategy to guide our water programs abroad and maximize synergies among (and within) agencies. Furthermore, the 2005 Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act—which calls for increased water and sanitation assistance to developing countries—has yet to be funded and implemented in a fashion that satisfies lawmakers. In fact, just last week, legislation was introduced in both the House and the Senate to enhance the capacity of the USG to fully implement the Water for the Poor Act.

Why has implementation been so slow? An underlying problem is that water still has no institutional home in the USG, unlike other resources like agriculture and energy, which have entire departments devoted to them. In the current system, interagency water coordination falls on a small, under-resourced (yet incredibly talented and dedicated) team in the State Department comprised of individuals who must juggle competing priorities under the broad portfolio of Oceans, Environment, and Science. In part, it is water’s institutional homelessness that hinders interagency collaboration, as mandates and funding for addressing water issues are not always clearly delineated.

So, what should be done? For the last year and a half, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) Global Strategy Institute has consulted with policy experts, advocates, scientists, and practitioners to answer this million-dollar question. In our report, Global Water Futures: A Roadmap for Future U.S. Policy, we conclude that if we are serious about achieving a range of our strategic national interests, water must be elevated as a priority in U.S. foreign policy. Water is paramount to human health, agricultural and energy production, education, economic development, post-conflict stabilization, and more—therefore, our government’s organizational structure and the resources it commits to water should reflect the strategic importance of this resource.

We propose the creation of a new bureau or “one-stop shop” for water policy in the State Department to lead in strategic planning, implementation, and evaluation of international water programs; mobilize resources in support of water programming overseas; provide outreach to Congress and important stakeholders; and serve as a research and information clearinghouse. This would require significant support from the highest levels of government, increased funding, and greater collaboration with the private and independent sectors.

The current economic crisis means we are likely to face even greater competition for scarce foreign aid resources. But I would argue—paraphrasing Congressman Earl Blumenauer at our report rollout—that relatively little funding toward water and sanitation can have a significant impact around the world. As we tighten our belts during this period of financial instability, it is even more important that we invest in cross-cutting issues that yield the highest returns across defense, development, and diplomacy. Water is an excellent place to start.

Rachel Posner is a research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Global Strategy Institute.

Photo: Environmental Change and Security Program Director Geoff Dabelko and Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) at the launch of Global Water Futures: A Roadmap for Future U.S. Policy. Courtesy of CSIS.

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Presidential administrations usually end with sepia retrospectives and long, adulatory lists of accomplishments. The present administration is unlikely to end this way, but it will certainly go out with many “what if” epitaphs. Near the top of my “what if” list is, “What if this administration had taken the threat of global climate change seriously and acted as though our future depended on cutting emissions and cooperating on adaptation?”

From July 27-30, 2008, my organization, the Center for a New American Security, led a consortium of 10 scientific, private, and public policy organizations in an experiment to answer this particular “what if.” The experiment, a climate change “war game,” tested what a change in U.S. position might mean in 2015, when the effects of climate change will likely be more apparent and the global need to act will be more urgent. The participants were scientists, national security strategists, scholars, and members of the business community from China, Europe, India, and the Americas. The variety was intentional: We hoped to leverage a range of expertise and see how these different communities would interact to solve problems.

Climate change may seem a strange subject for a war game, but one of our primary goals was to highlight the ways in which global climate change is, in fact, a national security issue. In our view, climate change is highly likely to provoke conflict—within states, along borders as populations move, and, down the line, possibly between states. Also, the way the military calculates risk and engages in long-term planning lends itself to planning for the climate change that is already locked in (and gives strategic urgency to cutting emissions and preventing future climate change).

The players were asked to confront a near-term future in 2015, in which greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow and the pattern of volatile and severe weather events has continued. The context of the game was an emergency ad-hoc meeting of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters in 2015—China, the European Union, India, and the United States—to consider future projections (unlike most war games, the projections were real; Oak Ridge National Laboratory analyzed regional-level Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data from the A1FI series specifically for the game). The “UN Secretary-General” challenged the top emitters to come up with an agreement to deal with increased migration resulting from climate change; resource scarcity; disaster relief; and drastic emissions cuts.

Although the players did reach an agreement, which is an interesting artifact in itself, that was not really the point. The primary objective was to see how the teams interacted and whether we gained any insight into our current situation. While we’re still processing all of our findings, I certainly came away with an interesting answer to that “what if” question. If the United States had been forward-leaning on climate change these past eight years, taking action at home and proposing change internationally, it would have made a difference, but only to a point. As important as American leadership will be on this issue, it is Chinese leadership—or followership—that will be decisive. And it is going to be very, very difficult—perhaps impossible—for China to lead, at least under current circumstances. The tremendous growth of China’s economy has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, but there are hundreds of millions more still to be lifted. The stark reality is that China will be fueling that economic growth with coal, oil, and natural gas—just as the United States did in the 20th century—unless and until there is a viable alternative.

If the next administration hopes to head off the worst effects of global climate change, it will not only have to find a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions at home, it may well have to make it possible for China to do so, too.

Sharon Burke is a national security expert at the Center for a New American Security, where she focuses on energy, climate change, and the Middle East.

Photo: The U.S., EU, and Chinese simulation teams in negotiations. Courtesy of Sharon Burke.

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High population growth, limited arable land, and soaring rice prices in Lao People’s Democratic Republic mean that land access is critical for food security. At the same time, there is immense pressure to convert forests and small-scale agricultural land into commercial plantations for rubber, coffee, and other valuable crops. Together, these factors are significant threats not only to people, but to wildlife and biodiversity as well. They are also resulting in the emergence of new tensions between people and wildlife across the Lao landscape.

For the past several months, I have been working with a team of other researchers in partnership with WaterAid and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs to find new techniques for measuring the benefits of improved water and sanitation in rural Madagascar (draft report). Studies of the impact of water and sanitation programs tend to focus on health treatment costs avoided and time saved obtaining water, but our field visits and analysis suggest that water and sanitation development projects can also improve food security, education, and local community governance, and may even introduce new forms of conflict resolution.

After our team’s initial field visit to rural communities around Ambositra, a small commercial town several hours south of the capital, we decided to broaden our scope of analysis. We had noticed that livelihoods and community management were dramatically different in villages with clean water nearby than in villages whose residents continued to walk long distances to sources of questionable quality.

By conducting focus group interviews with community organizations, community councils, and other community leaders, we discovered that the new water projects led to the creation of water committees to oversee the maintenance and long-term use of these services. As these committees gained respect and legitimacy within their communities, they encouraged and managed additional community improvement projects. For instance, one committee collected contributions and organized the construction of a community storage facility for surplus rice harvests (which also stored the tax payments for the new water system, which are often made in rice, not currency). In another village, the water committee members coordinated efforts to self-finance and build a new one-room primary school, which subsequently required the government to fund water and sanitation facilities for the school. This brought water services to an entire new section of the village in addition to the school.

The committees’ direct interaction with the users of the tap stands increased the communities’ trust in the committees, a fact reflected in statements gathered through household surveys. Several water committees organized their communities to participate in a regional economic fair, showcasing their vegetable production and arts and crafts, an opportunity that other villages did not seize.

In addition, the committees codified conflict resolution mechanisms in their founding committee rules, formalizing a crucial tool for mediating conflicts between community members over water. These committees are also empowered to resolve water-related conflicts that existed prior to the project. The water committees are evidence of the first institutions developing in these small communities. Although our report includes suggestions for measuring some of the diverse impacts of improved water and sanitation, such as education and livelihoods, further questions remain: How do we measure the impact of water and sanitation projects on governance and natural resource management? Are there ways to quantify community-level social changes?

Food security is another area that changed after the introduction of improved water sources. The close proximity of water to the houses dramatically increased the variety and quantity of vegetables grown. Our interviews revealed a dramatic upsurge in the cultivation of high-value crops that are more sensitive to rainfall variability. The reliable small-scale irrigation made possible by the water project allowed farmers to cultivate crops that had previously been off-limits to them. These new crops diversified production and decreased dependence on other foods for basic consumption, promoting better nutrition and sustainable harvests. In addition, one water committee actively sought out secondary water sources in order to ensure sufficient water flow throughout the dry season, further increasing households’ food security.

There are additional indicators that we did not have time to adequately study and quantify, including increased environmental awareness; the impact on gender dynamics and women’s earning power; the psychological impact of clean water and improved sanitation; and higher earning potential due to higher rates of school attendance and the attainment of more advanced education levels. The team hopes that additional work will be carried out on these and other potential benefits of water and sanitation projects, so that governments, donors, NGOs, and private citizens will see that these projects are not just investments in pipelines and latrines, but in food security, governance, education, economies, and conflict resolution—all of which contribute to human dignity and security.

Alex Fischer is a policy associate at WaterAid America, where he works on the management and development of water resources. He is also involved with several projects focusing on environmental governance in post-conflict settings. He holds a master of international affairs degree from Columbia University.

Photo: A water system in a village near Ambositra has multiple uses, including drinking water, small-scale irrigation, clothes washing, and composting. Courtesy of Alex Fischer.

As Karin Bencala and Geoff Dabelko point out in the current issue of Columbia University’s Journal of International Affairs, transboundary rivers and aquifers all over the world can, and do, provide opportunities to bring riparian parties together. We can identify a degree of cooperation in the management of most of the transboundary water resources in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. But now is the time to stop the pendulum from swinging too far towards mistaken notions of “water peace.” Tensions linger on the Tigris and simmer on the Jordan. The Nile is allocated in a remarkably inequitable and unsustainable manner, as are many of the rivers falling in all directions off the Tibetan plateau. We must continue to question regimes that preserve inequity, treaties that are ineffective “paper tigers” (Bernauer 2003, p. 547), and organisations designed chiefly as sinks for lending and donor agencies. We will be doing the world no great service if our gaze shifts to under-qualified examples of cooperation and away from the root causes of water conflict.

We should be wary of applying the “cooperation” label to transboundary interactions where asymmetric cooperation merely poisons relations and prolongs unfair arrangements. Cooperation has many faces, and not all of them are pretty. The 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty is regularly cited as a model of cooperation, for example, yet as Itay Fischhendler (2008) (subscription required) has shown, the ambiguity built into the agreement favours the more powerful (Israeli) side. In private conversations, Jordanian officials concede frustration that the agreement they signed fell far short of guaranteeing Jordan an equitable share of the waters. Last month, the Economist highlighted several other cases of such asymmetric water cooperation.

Recent efforts by Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME) demonstrate cooperation of a completely different nature. FOEME’s Good Water Neighbors project brings together mayors from Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli towns on the Jordan River in an effort to improve its quality. The project, like the organisation itself, represents all sides in equal measure. This equitable cooperation should be the standard analysts and policymakers shoot for.

We must be careful not to divorce small-scale cooperation from the broader water conflict within which it takes place, however. At the state level, the distribution of transboundary freshwater between Israel and the Palestinian territories remains an inequitable 90-10 split. The Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee (JWC) established following the 1995 Oslo II interim agreement gives the Israeli side an effective veto over even basic rainwater catchment projects (for instance, in the southern West Bank). Multiple USAID, European, and UN development projects remain stalled because they have not cleared the JWC’s triple hurdle requiring that all water-related projects obtain Israeli technical (fine), political (?) and military (!) approval. Jan Selby (2003) (subscription required) insists this is not cooperation, but “domination dressed up as cooperation.”

While asymmetric, dominative, strategic, self-interested, and token cooperation all fall short of violent conflict, we should bear in mind that the tensions relating to the uglier faces of cooperation do not disappear with time. At the very least, treaties must be structured more equitably, in accordance with the basic water-sharing principles of international water law. They should also include re-visiting clauses, to modify the agreement when changes in politics or climate present the people dependent on the waters with a different set of circumstances. The ongoing water negotiations between Israel and Palestine and the imminent negotiations between Israel and Syria make understanding water cooperation much more than an academic indulgence. We must all push where we can to get it right.

Mark Zeitoun is a fellow at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Environmental Policy and Governance and heads the London School of Economics/King’s College London London Water Research Group.

On May 13, 2008, renowned environmental defender Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, resigned from her post after losing yet another political battle for control of environmental policies within the federal government. The “last straw” was President Luiz Inácio da Silva’s decision to place Minister of Strategic Affairs Roberto Mangabeira Unger, a Harvard law professor with limited experience with Amazon affairs, in charge of the highly publicized Sustainable Amazon Plan (PAS), withdrawing it from the auspices of the Ministry of Environment. Silva’s decision has had major negative repercussions and has exposed the shortcomings of Brazil’s Amazon policy.

The daughter of poor rubber tappers who became a successful politician and a champion of the Amazon, Silva was one of the most recognized and admired members of President Lula’s government. While a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the 1980s, she led the Association of Rubber Tree Tappers with Chico Mendes, a pioneer of the Brazilian environmental movement who was murdered in 1988. That same year, Silva was elected to the state legislature of Acre. In 1994, she was elected to the Senate on the Worker’s Party (PT) platform, and was re-elected in 2002. During her eight years in Congress (1995-2002), Silva became a well-respected expert on sustainable development and national environmental protection issues.

Yet during her tenure as Minister of Environment, Silva lost many important battles and was rapidly becoming a merely symbolic figure. Particularly contentious was the alleged obstructionism of Brazilian Institute for Environment and Renewable Resources (IBAMA) technicians, who refused to issue environmental permits for large development projects—especially hydro-electric projects—in the Amazon region. In response, President Lula reduced Silva’s power by splitting IBAMA into two agencies and separating environmental protection from the issuance of environmental licenses. IBAMA personnel reacted with a strike.

Silva’s resignation has already had significant domestic and international ramifications. All second- and third-echelon employees in the Ministry of Environment and IBAMA resigned in solidarity with her. Jose Maria Cardoso da Silva, vice president of Conservation International-South America, called Silva’s departure a “disaster”; Anthony Hall, a development and environment specialist at the London School of Economics, noted that “her resignation will be interpreted as a weakening in the government’s concern with the environment and forest conservation.”

The day after Silva’s resignation, President Lula confirmed that she would be replaced by Carlos Minc, a well-known environmental activist and university professor who was one of the founders of Brazil’s Green Party. Minc previously served as Rio de Janeiro’s state secretary for the environment. His appointment has apparently been well-received: Agência Brasil reports that Silva is “satisfied” with her replacement.

It remains to be seen how Minc will use his new position. His love of the limelight—he follows his own dress code, which does not include a necktie, and has described himself as a “performer”—has cost him politically in his first days on his new job, as President Lula rejected public demands he made to strengthen the Ministry of Environment’s authority. Minc’s first actions as Minister of Environment suggest that he will be a vocal figure. He warned “polluters” that they should fear his ministry’s oversight. He also instigated a public fight with the governor of the state of Mato Grosso, Blairo Maggi, an influential soybean farmer, declaring—a bit sarcastically—that most of the recent increase deforestation in the Amazon has taken place in Mato Grosso. On the issue at hand, however—the issuance of environmental licenses for major development projects in the Amazon—the new minister promised to move faster and more efficiently than his predecessor.

Despite Minc’s aggressive rhetoric, questions about his effectiveness remain. They will be answered by the substance, rather than the style, of his tenure as minister. Back in the Senate, serving the remainder of her term as a representative for Acre until the end of 2010, Silva will continue to be an important voice in the ongoing debate in Brazil over how to reconcile the country’s dual objectives of promoting economic development and protecting the Amazon.

Paulo Sotero is the director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Brazil Institute Program Assistant Alan Wright contributed to this posting.

Matthew Connelly recently published Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population, a book that has chafed demographers and those working in the family planning sector. If Connelly had foreseen the attention his recounting of the population movement would garner, he might have taken more care to represent more sides of the story. He also might have talked to more living people, especially women, rather than relying so heavily on written archives.

Controversially, Connelly argues that family planning programs in the 20th century were responsible for only 5 percent of the fertility decline experienced during that time. His proof? That fertility levels were already declining before family planning programs began. On page 338, he writes, “Moreover, it could not be shown that even the 5 percent effect was actually caused by such efforts, or whether instead broader socioeconomic or cultural changes explained both the decline in parents’ preference for large families and government willingness to provide them with contraceptives (what economists call the endogeneity problem).”

But examples abound in which fertility declined drastically following the introduction of accessible contraception. For example, after officials in Iran revised the country’s family planning program in the late 1980s, fertility dropped from 5.62 births per woman to just above 2 today. Fertility had been declining since the early 1960s, but at a much slower rate.

In the early 1960s, the fertility rate in Brazil was 6.2. In the years after Planned Parenthood arrived and pharmacies began selling contraceptives, fertility fell to 3.5 births per woman. Today, Brazil’s fertility rate is around 2.35 births per woman, which is close to replacement level.

When women can choose for themselves when to have children, they often choose to have smaller families. The family planning movement has not been perfect, but it has frequently acted courageously to give women the choices they deserve. Its successes should not be overlooked.

Marian Starkey, communications manager at Population Connection, holds a master of science in population and development from the London School of Economics.