CLIMATE CHANGE & NATIONAL SECURITYHow Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
The Iraqi city of Basra was seething in July 2018. Afternoon temperatures soared past 120 degrees. Constant power outages shut off air conditioning. The canals that once made Basra a “Venice of the East” had become so salty and foul that people couldn’t even wash their clothes with the water, much less drink it.
The first protests broke out early one morning near the outskirts of town. They spread quickly. Soon, people were blocking streets with burning tires, torching government buildings, and throwing rocks at security forces. They were met with tear gas and bullets. Dozens of people died and hundreds more were injured in what became three straight summers of violence and unrest.
It wasn’t just the stifling heat and lack of water that lit the fires in Basra. The chants that brought people into the streets had just as much to do with crushing unemployment and government corruption. But the extreme weather made every grievance that much more insufferable. In that, a recent RAND study concluded, Basra was a warning for a warming world.
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
The Security Environment
U.S. Central Command—also known as CENTCOM—oversees military operations in some of the hottest places on the planet. Its region stretches from Egypt, through Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, and into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. Yet it had never fully assessed how climate change might alter not just the physical environment where it operates, but also the security environment. It commissioned RAND’s project to help it prepare for what may come.
Researchers modeled a world up to 45 years from now in which efforts to slow climate change had largely failed. The hottest places were that much hotter, and the driest that much drier. Countries like Afghanistan that depend on surface-water irrigation could see widespread crop failures. Warming ocean waters could deplete rich fisheries off Oman and Yemen.
