“What is the thing that may make the world as peaceful as possible?” asks Malcolm Potts in this video from the Environment Change and Security Program. “I think it’s very important to give women as much autonomy in society as we possibly can; to fight as hard as possible for women’s equality. Because these behaviors that created warriors never benefited women.”

In this short expert analysis, Malcolm Potts, Bixby Professor of Population and Family Planning at the University of California Berkeley, discusses his latest book, Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World. To learn more, please see a full summary and complete video of Malcom Potts speaking recently about his book at a February 11, 2009, Wilson Center event.

Contrary to what many people might think, most migration is within the developing world—“among countries that already face enormous challenges in terms of provisions for their populations, but also ethnic conflict,” says Christian Leuprecht in this short video preview of his article, “Migration as the Demographic Wild Card in Civil Conflict: Mauritius and Fiji,” now appearing in the 13th issue of Environmental Change and Security Program Report.

“Demography will have a greater role in defense planning in the future,” says Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba in this short video preview of her article, “Population in Defense Policy Planning,” now appearing in the 13th issue of Environmental Change and Security Program Report. “Robert Gates has put a lot of emphasis on development as a key to peace, and Africa Command may be the area that brings together issues of demography, the environment, and development, and sends those observations back up the higher levels at DOD,” she observes. Sciubba, Mellon Environmental Fellow in the Department of International Studies at Rhodes College, and six other demographic experts analyze the links connecting population and environmental dynamics to conflict in a set of commentaries on “New Directions in Demographic Security.”

“The concept of ‘peak water’ is very analogous to peak oil…we’re using fossil groundwater. That is, we’re pumping groundwater faster than nature naturally recharges it,” says Peter Gleick in this short expert analysis from the Environmental Change and Security Program. Gleick, president and co-founder of the Pacific Institute and author of the newest edition of The World’s Water, explains the new concept of peak water.

“Climate change is an important issue that can be addressed by all three elements of the national security equation: defense, diplomacy, and development,” says Kent Butts, in this short expert analysis from the Environmental Change and Security Program. Kent Butts, professor of political-military strategy at the Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College, makes the case for considering global climate change a nontraditional threat to security and discusses how the U.S. military is reacting to a changing climate.

“We recognize that in dealing with climate change, what we do is modest….But unless we get the message out and find partners who can really take it to large scale, our efforts aren’t futile, but they’re of little value over the next 30 to 50 years, which is indeed the time frame we ought to be thinking on,” says Jim Jarvie in this short expert analysis from the Environmental Change and Security Program. Jarvie, director of climate change, environment, and natural resources at Mercy Corps, discusses why humanitarian development organizations must respond to new climate challenges.

“Demographics are going to be to the 21st century what class cleavages were to the 19th century,” says Christian Leuprecht in this short expert analysis from the Environmental Change and Security Program. In this video, Leuprecht, an assistant professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, makes the case for the importance of demographic dynamics and their connections to conflict and security.

“Governance is key. If you don’t have a competent government after the war, you’re not going to solve the problems that weren’t solved before the war because of incompetent governance,” said Charles Kelly at “Sustaining Natural Resources and Environmental Integrity During Response to Crisis and Conflict,” a November 12 event.