© US Army/Sgt. Ryan Jenkins/Handout via REUTERS

In its most recent assessment of climate change impacts, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) devoted a total 1,131 pages to warming’s effects on various ecosystems and human habitats, such as coastal systems, freshwater resources, and urban areas. But only 38 pages were specifically devoted to “human security,” and, within that section, only five pages were devoted to armed conflict and four to human migrations—arguably the most meaningful consequence of climate change for humans. The impression given is that human and international security are secondary when compared to ecological and resource concerns. In the documents on climate change issued by the US Department of Defense, however, the ranking of priorities is exactly reversed: the societal and security consequences of warming rank highest, while ecological considerations receive far less attention.

Both the Department of Defense and the IPCC view climate change as a significant peril, encompassing a wide range of phenomena—rising seas, more frequent and intense storms, prolonged droughts and heatwaves, recurring wildfires—considered threatening to natural and man-made habitats. Yet the Pentagon highlights the perils to human societies. “Climate change,” it told Congress in 2015, is “contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources such as food and water.” And while the earliest victims of these pressures are likely to be “fragile and conflict-affected states” in the developing world, ultimately “even resilient, well-developed countries are subject to the effects of climate change in significant and consequential ways.”

The impression one obtains in Washington today, however, is that all federal agencies, including the Pentagon, are expected to refrain from discussing climate change. Soon after assuming office in 2017, President Donald Trump rescinded Executive Order 13653, “Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change,” a measure signed by President Barack Obama in November 2013. That directive had enjoined every government agency to identify its vulnerabilities to global warming and to undertake whatever steps were deemed necessary to overcome any perils so identified; it also called on all federal agencies to help reduce the severity of global warming by reducing their own carbon emissions. In accordance with Obama’s order, the Department of Defense had undertaken substantial efforts to reduce its exposure to warming’s effects and reduce its emissions. All this, however, was supposed to come to a halt after Trump rescinded the Obama measure and commenced a campaign to expunge “climate change” from the formal government lexicon. Nonetheless, the Pentagon has largely persisted with its drive to prepare for climate change, even if it has generally refrained from employing that term in public.

A “Threat Multiplier”

Most senior officers have come to view climate change as gathering momentum and posing a significant threat to American national security. Many of them have served extended tours of duty in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and so have witnessed first-hand the harsh impacts of warming on vulnerable populations in resource-deprived areas. They have also been called upon—in some cases repeatedly—to provide humanitarian assistance to storm-ravaged areas both at home and abroad. And they know that their own bases, in the United States and elsewhere, are highly vulnerable to severe flooding, rising sea levels, recurring wildfires, and other consequences of climate change.

When not directly engaged in combat, American military officers, like those elsewhere, devote much of their time preparing for the next war or wars. This means, of course, extensive training and weapons procurement, along with systematic examination of the arms and tactics of likely adversaries. But it also entails assessing the terrain and environmental conditions in the areas where American forces may be obliged to fight. This has meant intensive study of potential battlefields in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East—and increasingly in the Arctic region. This, in turn, has led to research on changing climatic conditions in those areas and how these changes are affecting the stability and political composition of local societies.

This process began in 2006, when the CNA Corporation, a Pentagon-funded think tank once known as the Center for Naval Analyses, convened an advisory board of retired officers and tasked it with assessing the impact of climate change on American national security. A year later, the group released a summary of its findings, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, which was widely circulated in Pentagon circles and had a huge impact on US military thinking. For the first time, climate change was identified as a significant threat to American national security.

One of the reasons it proved so influential was its new concept of “threat multiplier.” Even when not a direct cause of conflict and chaos, climate change could prove the one decisive factor that pushes fragile societies to the brink of internal conflict and state collapse. This notion has remained the cornerstone of US military thinking on climate change ever since. More than anything, it identifies societal cohesion and government competence as key factors in determining the cumulative impact of climate change on exposed populations: the more fragmented and corruption-ridden a polity, the greater the likelihood it will succumb to warming’s harsh consequences, producing internecine warfare, humanitarian disaster, and mass migrations. The resulting chaos will, in turn, result in multiple challenges for the US military, whether in the form of frequent humanitarian aid missions or military interventions or both.

Climate Change and the Syrian War

By 2010, this concept had acquired widespread acceptance within the senior military leadership and was incorporated into that year’s Quadrennial Defense Review Report (QDR). “Assessments by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments,” it stated.

The QDR identified geopolitical impacts, mass migrations, and state collapse as among the principal outcomes of climate change—topics that receive relatively scant attention in the various IPCC reports. Admittedly, the Pentagon views the climate problem through the lens of national security and so will tend to emphasize factors that bear on those concerns. At the same time, US military officers are vitally concerned about the real-world consequences of climate change, especially those that are likely to result in large-scale human death, displacement, and suffering.

By the middle of the decade, as the war in Syria gained momentum and spurred massive waves of migration to Europe, many in the US military and intelligence community saw climate change as a major precipitating factor. A prolonged drought in 2007-2010 decimated Syrian agriculture and drove many thousands of impoverished farmers into crowded cities, where they received scant assistance from the Assad regime—and, it is thought, helped fuel the anti-government protests that erupted in 2011.

More recently, officials at the US Africa Command (Africom), have identified persistent drought in the Sahel region of North Africa as a source of intensified tribal and terrorist violence there. “Changing weather patterns, rising temperatures, and dramatic shifts in rainfall contribute to drought, famine, migration, and resource competition [in the Sahel],” General Thomas D. Waldhauser, Africom’s commander, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2019.

US Bases at Risk

American officers see that there is a limit to how many humanitarian and stability operations they can undertake at any one time, while also preparing for high-intensity conflict with “great-power competitors,” such as China and Russia. Climate change is seen as a significant impediment to military preparedness by diverting the services from their primary tasks. What’s worse, warming’s effects are expected to intensify in the years ahead, pushing more and more states to the point of collapse. And, just as worrisome, climate change threatens to endanger the future viability of many of the Department of Defense’s key stateside bases, diminishing its capacity to undertake major operations abroad.

In response, the Pentagon has adopted a proactive stance, seeking both to minimize the future impacts of climate change on its combat preparedness and to reduce its own contributions to climate change. To assess the vulnerability of its bases, the department initiated an audit of the climate vulnerability of its major coastal bases. It revealed that many of those bases were at risk of inundation from sea-level rise, storm surge, and severe flooding. Subsequent reports, covering all US bases and all climate-related perils (including wildfires, high winds, and prolonged drought), have generated considerable controversy as the Trump administration has sought to delete references to “climate change” and members of Congress have demanded access to unexpurgated versions of the documents (which have since been made public).

Despite the administration’s efforts to stifle discussion of climate change, senior military officials continue to worry about the vulnerability of their major bases to extreme climate effects. Recent events have amplified these concerns. In September 2018, Hurricane Florence inflicted over $3 billion in damage to one base alone—Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina—and additional damage to other bases in North and South Carolina. A month later, Hurricane Michael ripped through the Florida Panhandle, destroying much of Tyndall Air Force Base and incapacitating seventeen F-22 Raptor stealth fighter planes, worth $334 million each. And in March 2019, severe inland flooding devastated Offutt Air Force Base—headquarters of the Strategic Air Command.

Work with Allies and Partners

Meanwhile, in a bid to improve its energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, in 2011, the Pentagon released the first of a series called Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans, mandating significant improvements in energy efficiency, renewables use, and emissions reduction. It decreed that 20 percent of all energy consumed at Department of Defense bases and installations had to come from renewable sources by 2020. Data released in 2016 showed that the services were making significant headway toward achieving these goals, but it has been difficult to track their progress since then.

The department has also expressed its commitment to promoting climate adaptation by the military forces of allied and friendly nations. From early on, the Pentagon leadership concluded that it would not be possible to prevent the widespread disintegration of fragile societies abroad unless those states were better prepared to cope with the shocks and pressures of climate change. Accordingly, the Department of Defense enjoined its overseas commands, such as Africom, to collaborate with the forces of local nations in developing emergency response networks and improved food, water, and health systems.

By 2015, such engagement efforts were well under way. According to the Pentagon’s report to Congress that year, Africom was working closely with partner nations “to enhance planning, responses, and resilience to the effects of climate change.” Among other activities, Africom was helping to conduct continent-wide training workshops on pandemic and natural disaster preparedness, usually in conjunction with local armed forces and civilian health agencies. The Pacific Command (Pacom), for its part, was working with local partners on enhanced disaster response capabilities and on efforts to promote “sustainable resource management and critical resource security.”

The 2014 edition of the QDR stated that climate change, “creates both a need and an opportunity for nations to work together, which the Department will seize through a range of initiatives.” This is a rather remarkable statement for an organization not known for its political outspokenness, and testifies to the extent of its concern over the globally destabilizing consequences of climate change.

For now, with Donald Trump in the White House, it is unlikely that senior military officials will speak so openly about their concerns over the national security implications of climate change. Nevertheless, it is evident that they have undertaken numerous initiatives—many still under way—to address its severe effects. In so doing, they have also developed a unique analysis of climate change and how it should be addressed. This approach, which places the vulnerability of human societies and institutions foremost and makes their protection the highest climate-related priority, deserves close attention by the rest of humanity, both at home and abroad.

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© An Yuan/CNS via REUTERS

The attackers only managed to get as far as the gate to the Chinese consulate in Karachi: on November 23, 2018, three militants pulled up in front of the building and advanced, opening fire. Two police and two civilians were killed before Pakistani security forces shot dead the assailants. They were separatists from the restive province of Baluchistan, and they said they had a clear goal: to stop Chinese investments in the western part of their country.

Such militant attacks in Pakistan are nothing new to Western governments, who have been targets for decades. But the fact that Beijing, too, is now in the crosshairs signals a troubling new reality and shines a light on China’s growing presence in the region’s fragile security structure. The attack was a direct shot at China’s increasing economic influence, which has taken root in Pakistan as part of the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

It also highlights the need for China to boost its security infrastructure in the region. For years now, China has increasingly coupled its economic expansion with a robust security presence, offering military assistance and even putting its own forces on the ground—like in Afghanistan, where armed Chinese anti-terror units have accompanied the national army on patrols since 2017. Indeed, China has long displayed a willingness to deploy a wide variety of resources on missions: in the early 1990s, to improve its global image after the Tiananmen massacre, Beijing sent engineers, logistics experts, and doctors along on foreign operations. Beijing’s contributions to the United Nations’ Blue Helmet missions have been expanding since 2014 as well.

Promoting Security Cooperation

Today, the country is keen to position itself as a global power in security policy, and even become a security provider in some regions. It is a way not only to protect its own strategic interests, but also to prove its strength by protecting other nations from a vast array of threats—from natural disasters to shipwrecks, transnational organized crime, terrorism, and piracy.

In a speech to the National Security Commission in early 2017, President Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of building up strategic capabilities, and since then Beijing has explicitly offered its services as a security partner within the BRI framework. In the past two years, the government has published two important strategy papers as well: in the BRI Vision for Maritime Cooperation (2017), China notably added security cooperation to its list of priorities, with a subchapter promoting China as a partner in disaster prevention and disaster relief, humanitarian operations, and the fight against crime – which would rely on the use of China’s own Beidou satellite navigation system. In the Arctic Strategy (2018), Beijing proposed the use of a “polar Silk Road” as a contribution to preserving peace and stability in the Arctic.

China has also increased its diplomatic engagement, supply of military goods, and military deployments. Thus, it has gradually taken on more responsibility by seeking to build trust through regional institutions, conflict mediation, and military diplomacy, and to play an important role in global conflict management. At the same time, China is equipping foreign armies to deal with transnational threats and even using its own troops to combat them.

A Military Diplomacy Offensive

Back in 2015, President Xi announced a new phase of Chinese military diplomacy. Through official visits, exchanges, joint exercises, and training, China has made clear it wants to influence the strategic thinking of other armies and actively participate in risk management. Xi’s ambition is also reflected in the state and party structures—the Office for International Military Cooperation, for example, is directly subordinate to the influential Central Military Commission.

Senior members of the Commission have significantly increased the frequency and reach of their foreign visits, and the Chinese navy has stepped up its visits of overseas ports as part of its anti-piracy task force. The People’s Liberation Army is actively networking with foreign armed forces; it trains Tanzanian officers in China and at a Chinese-funded military academy in Tanzania. In Germany, too, it conducted joint exercises for non-military operations with the Bundeswehr two years ago and launched similar exercises with ASEAN countries in 2018.

Institutional diplomacy is also key for China in the context of security. In 2017, Pakistan and India were officially brought on board the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an important regional political, economic, and security alliance. China had long blocked the accession of India and Pakistan, but then changed course. The organization has been unable to resolve even low-level disputes among its members—take the long-standing border dispute between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, for example—but nonetheless, the first joint participation of India and Pakistan in the SCO’s international military exercises in 2018 is a significant opportunity for building trust. At the same time, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rattled NATO by flirting with the idea of joining the SCO, although few believe he will follow through.

China has also continued to expand its activities in the field of conflict resolution and mediation, particularly in countries along BRI trade routes. China became one of the most prominent participants in multilateral peace talks on Afghanistan, including the four- and six-nation talks with American and Russian representatives. Beijing itself stimulated trilateral talks with Pakistan and invited delegations of the Afghan government, but also the Taliban, to China. And during talks on Tehran’s nuclear program (JCPOA), China was a key player at the negotiating table.

As a mediator, however, Beijing has so far had little success. For one, it did not abide by UN directives, which recommend involving as many stakeholders as possible. And in many cases, China did not go far enough to actually resolve conflicts: in efforts to stop the persecution of the Rohingya ethnic group in Myanmar, for example, Chinese negotiators met representatives from Bangladesh and Myanmar, but important parties were missing at the negotiating table and talks ended without rapprochement. Also, international trust in and reliance upon the Chinese People’s Liberation Army as a partner has not grown, despite Chinese shows of strength with new bases in the South China Sea and troops on the Doklam Plateau, the contested region near the border of India, its ally Bhutan, and China.

Growing Arms Exporter

China also wants to increase its political influence by supplying military goods and services. It has quickly become the third largest commercial arms exporter in the world. Commercial exports are primarily about profits and the development of the Chinese arms industry, but they are also central to China’s position as a security provider. Beijing is launching ever more modern weapons at very competitive prices and is ready to export even sensitive technologies like armed drones.

At the same time, China lures importing countries with cheap credit – the Afghan army has been receiving armaments from China since 2016, in addition to NATO assistance. These have so far consisted of military vehicles, handguns, and ammunition, not heavy artillery. China’s investment is, of course, in no way comparable to US and NATO’s role as central pillars of the Afghan government and military development. Still, in addition to the hardware, Beijing has delivered $70 million in payments aimed at bolstering Kabul’s fight against terrorism and instability.

Meanwhile, Iraq and Nigeria have bought Chinese drones for use against Islamist terrorist groups such as the so-called Islamic State (IS) and Boko Haram. Liberia, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast received free marine equipment to fight piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, the Philippines procured weapons for the government’s action against IS-allied insurgents in the city of Marawi, Madagascar bought patrol boats, and the African Union’s Standby Force has been boosted by Chinese pledges of $100 million over five years.

The Chinese arms export boom does have its flaws. For example, it further fuels the Pakistani-Indian arms race, accelerates the spread of armed drones, and strengthens authoritarian governments. Myanmar, for example, has become China’s fourth-biggest customer and recipient of military aid since 2013 amid the brutal persecution and crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.

Boots on the Ground

The third prong in China’s strategy to establish itself as an international security heavyweight is the government’s own military operations and expansion of capabilities. China has made great progress in establishing its presence in its own backyard and beyond, although military capacity and supporting infrastructure are still in development.

By participating in search and rescue operations, disaster relief and evacuations, anti-piracy, and anti-terrorist operations, China’s leadership is also serving the rising expectations and growing economic interests of its own citizens and businesses. Chinese units participated in the search for the missing passenger aircraft MH370 and in humanitarian operations from Guinea-Bissau to Papua New Guinea. After relying on European aid for the evacuation of Chinese citizens from Libya in 2011, the Chinese navy successfully brought citizens from other countries back from Yemen in 2015 as well. Such success stories support the reputation of the Xi government, especially at home.

The People’s Liberation Navy has now gained more than a decade of experience in the fight against piracy off the Horn of Africa and is beginning to offer its services in the Gulf of Guinea; it has also contributed armed forces to UN peacekeeping operations over the last four years. China’s cooperation with other states in Blue Helmet missions and anti-piracy operations, at times alongside NATO member states, has helped forge trust and confidence. To secure all global shipping routes, however, is still far beyond the Chinese navy’s capabilities; the US navy still dominates in this area.

New Bases, New Equipment

Along the Afghan-Tajik border, meanwhile, NATO and Russia have remained the central security providers, in part because the local governments distrust China, and also because Beijing has been keen to avoid getting too deeply entangled in the volatile region. Beijing, however, uses Tajikistan as a transit and transport route. Reports have emerged that Beijing was engaging in joint anti-terrorist patrols with Afghani forces in Badakhshan Province, which borders China’s heavily Muslim Xinjiang province. For Beijing, securing Badakhshan is key to the wider stability in Xinjiang, but also Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The Chinese government, which long hesitated before confirming the People’s Armed Police’s joint patrols with the Afghan army in Badakhshan, has been careful to emphasize that this was not a military mission. Still, in January 2018, the People’s Armed Police units operating there were put under Chinese military command.

Although Beijing has rejected possible involvement in building a base for the Afghan army in the northeast of the country, its growing involvement in Afghanistan is hard to ignore. NATO is skeptical about China’s presence in the country, partly because Chinese anti-terrorism policy runs counter to the Western approach of de-radicalization. In Xinjiang, even moderate Uighur Muslims suffer indefinite internment in huge re-education camps without trial, held on charges of terrorism.

China’s expanding radius for foreign missions is partly possible because of new equipment. The Chinese navy now has more ships than the US. The first aircraft carrier developed in China completed its maiden voyage in 2018. The People’s Liberation Army has commissioned a number of modern Chinese transport aircraft and helicopters. And the naval base in Djibouti, which opened in 2017, was China’s first overseas base; it’s intended to provide logistical support for operations in Africa and has been greatly expanded since 2018 with a new pier.

The base in Djibouti has become a symbol of China’s security and power projection ambitions. And plans for more military bases have sparked concerns in the West. This is particularly true for the construction of bases across the artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea. For Beijing, these bases are a key part of its BRI strategy. In the Pacific, China intends to build strongholds in countries like Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, on the grounds that they serve as logistical support for China’s space program despite strong objections from the US and Australia.

Shows of Strength, and Vulnerability

The Chinese government has all but given up its principle of non-interference, which used to be so central to its rhetoric. Instead the Chinese now meet with non-state actors as well. The country’s new role as a security provider is strongly driven by Xi Jinping’s ambitions, but also by the country’s vulnerabilities.

Becoming an active security player will continue to be curbed by China’s own caution. Beijing has little interest in wasting resources or jeopardizing its legitimacy through needless operations for which there is no support in Chinese society. It is also aware of its relative lack of operational experience compared to the US and Russia. A lack of trust from other countries has been a roadblock as well. In the future, growing international concerns over the rapidly expanding, modernized Chinese military could make joint projects more difficult. A lack of willingness to compromise on territorial disputes and Beijing’s clear support for Pakistan over India also present difficulties.

Nonetheless, China can no longer be neglected as a security provider, especially in regions of strategic importance to the BRI. It is already accepted by Russia as such in Central Asia. Beijing is offering its security services from Southeast Asia to Africa, and the West will not be able to ignore this new reality. NATO countries in particular will have to adapt to China as a cooperation partner on a case-by-case basis, but also as a security policy competitor.

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