Re-envisioning the US National Security Strategy in the Face of Runaway Population Growth
Articles
Thu, 09/02/2021 - 3:04pm
Christopher K. Tucker
The biggest challenge to global stability and security cannot be addressed by major weapons systems. Deterrence strategies will not prevent it. More and more lethal warfighters can do nothing to overcome it. That challenge? Runaway population growth. Runaway population growth will continue to destabilize and undermine the security of key regions, and the global system, regardless of our investment in these traditional approaches to national security. It is time to think differently, and to reorient our national security enterprise to address this challenge before it destroys our planet and our species.
Population Growth
"Population growth"
by eutrophication&hypoxia (CC BY 2.0
Runaway Population Growth’s Role In Undermining Security and Stability
Many, including myself, have made arguments that humanity long ago exceeded our planet’s carrying capacity, with runaway population growth leading us to accrue a long term ecological debt that is undermining our planet’s ability to support us as a species.[1] Such arguments often leave readers with the impression that runaway population growth is an environmental challenge—which it no doubt is. Yet, it is easy to demonstrate how environmental challenges such as ecosystem destruction and climate change, which are clearly exacerbated by runaway population growth, also impact stability and security around the planet. It is even easier to demonstrate how runaway population growth causes social instability and threats to human security within particular regions and across the international system.
Still, it is rare to hear national security leaders discuss the implications of runaway population growth, let alone thoughtful and effective policy approaches to bending the global population curve. National security leaders will discuss the strategic, operational, and tactical challenges posed by the rise of mega cities, the depletion of freshwater resources, regional youth bulges fueling extremism, the increasing scale and frequency of humanitarian disasters, and the like. But, they appear to fail to grasp that these are simply symptoms of runaway population growth. Each year, we are adding 80+ million additional humans to our planet—the equivalent of 10 additional New York Cities. Each year.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/re-envisioning-us-national-security-strategy-face-runaway-population-growth
