Implications for Defense Strategy Stemming From Geopolitical Transformation Fueled by Climate Change

• Main Author: Burrows, Steven R
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: BearWorks 2023
• Subjects: geopolitics; climate change; global warming; defense strategy; national security; Defense and Security Studies; Environmental Policy; International Relations; Public Policy; Science and Technology Policy; Arctic; Climate change; Global warming; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/3923; https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/context/theses/article/4968/viewcontent/Burrows.Steven2023FA.pdf

Climate change has quickly become one of the most globally significant geopolitical issues facing all of humanity. Left unfettered, climate change is poised to impact nearly every facet of our environment ranging from increasingly dangerous and damaging storms, rising sea levels, increasingly extensive droughts to glacial melting, loss of arctic sea ice and a myriad of other catastrophic events. While still evolving, the current identified environmental threats will initiate long standing impacts not only to the environment, but to the global geopolitical and security climate of nearly every nation on the Earth. This project will not provide a synthesis of the contested existence of climate change, nor will it provide an argument either for or against any particular climate change theory, rather it will examine the potential geopolitical ramifications resulting from the assortment of global impacts that could be experienced if global climate policies fail to slow its progression. The project will first identify the reported climate change status, as well as the various efforts by the global community to halt any worsening of these changes and reduce the impact of our industrialization on the planet. Next it will examine three specific regions that are forecast to experience elements of climate change, the predicted climate change impacts to that region, the regional geopolitical impacts of those changes, and finally the impact of those geopolitical changes to US strategic and security interests.