Climate & securityU.S. exposed in Arctic as a result of climate change: Military experts
Senior former military commanders and security advisors warn that global warming is jeopardizing U.S. national security. They said that political gridlock in Washington over climate change has left the U.S. military exposed to Russia’s superior fleets in the Arctic, flooding in U.S. naval bases, and a more unstable world. “We’re still having debates about whether [climate change] is happening, as opposed to what we should do about it,” said a former undersecretary of defense. “We need to guard against the failure of imagination when it comes to climate change. Something is going to happen in the future years, and we’re not going to be prepared.”
Last month, the Weather Channel published a series of twenty-five interviews with security experts on the implications of climate change for U.S. national security and defense posture.
Sherri Goodman, who served as Bill Clinton’s deputy undersecretary of defense and founded the security analysis firm CNA Corporation, said the U.S. climate debate was “stuck in the past” and that climate change was “acting as a threat multiplier in the Arctic.”
The Guardian notes The Arctic is the most rapidly warming region on Earth and its sea ice has significantly declined in recent years. Goodman said the politicization of the discussion in the United States over climate change has created a technology deficit in the far north — a place where Russia and the United States, the relationship of which has become increasingly tense, are separated by just eighty-two km.
“Right now we have a fleet, a very small fleet of ageing icebreakers. The Russians and other countries have vastly more ice-breaking capability and other capabilities to be present in the Arctic. We will need to have a greater presence in the Arctic of various types,” she said.
“We’re still having debates about whether this is happening, as opposed to what we should do about it,” she said. “We need to guard against the failure of imagination when it comes to climate change. Something is going to happen in the future years, and we’re not going to be prepared.”
“Literally, the nation’s defense is at stake,” said rear admiral David Titley, former naval oceanography operations command and a professor of meteorology.
“Unfortunately all we have to look at are the events of the day in Crimea and Ukraine and we see that the Russians are making some noises about, ‘well, you know, maybe the Arctic is another place we should compete rather than cooperate’,” he said.
Brigadier general Stephen Cheney, CEO of the American Security Project and a foreign affairs adviser to the State Department, said the security concerns extended beyond the Arctic to the foundation of U.S. military power - its naval bases.
