A Blueprint for the Department of Defense’s Strategic Assessment of Climate Change
Kate Guy and Erin Sikorsky
March 12, 2021
One could be forgiven for thinking that a rising China is the only threat that the Department of Defense is preparing to confront. China is referred to as the “pacing threat†by senior defense officials, and the top news out of President Joe Biden’s inaugural visit to the Pentagon last month was a new “sprint effort†to review the U.S. approach to China. In that same visit, the president called on the Department of Defense to “rethink†and “reprioritize†security to meet the challenges of the 21st century, including climate change — but it was the China threat that got the “task force†moniker and a named leader that day. Yet in its “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,†the administration mandated that climate change must now be at “the center of our national security and foreign policy,†a mandate reflected in newly released national security and defense guidance. To that end, the executive order directs the Department of Defense to prepare a comprehensive new “Climate Risk Analysis†in just 120 days — on the same timeline as the China sprint. This analysis, meant to examine the long-term, strategic security risks posed by climate change, demands at least equal investment and attention as the China effort.
Unlike with China, however, the bench of climate security experts in the Department of Defense is appallingly thin, given the lack of focus on the issue under the previous administration. While it is true that throughout the presidency of Donald Trump the Department of Defense was one of the few places in the federal government making progress on climate change policy, most of this progress was focused on nearer-term risks to military bases and infrastructure, not overarching strategy. The public summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy mentioned China 12 times, climate change zero. The Department of Defense will need to quickly build capacity and get up to speed to be able to deliver the sweeping new strategic efforts called for by the new president.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/a-blueprint-for-the-department-of-defenses-strategic-assessment-of-climate-change/
