Center for a New American Security

We natural security bloggers will be taking the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving, but if we find any interesting news we'll post links on our Facebook page or Twitter (Christine or Will). Have a great holiday everyone!

• In a joint statement released by President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Singh, clean energy and climate change were listed as important areas of cooperation, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg report.
• "Liberia, on Africa's west coast, is in desperate need of help as it suffers from the effects of climate change," BBC reports.
• Scientific American reports on new UNDP statistics that 1.5 billion people lack access to electricity, and ignoring their use of highly polluting wood and charcoal for energy misses a huge opportunity for reducing global emissions.
• Meanwhile, millions of dollars in climate change mitigation aid to developing countries is unaccounted for, according to the BBC.
• California has taken an important step to set up its own cap-and-trade bill, The New York Times reports.

• A Scientific American article provides a nice summary of a new PNAS study, and the title says it all: “Can Climate Change Cause Conflict? Recent History Suggests So.”
• The DOD Energy Blog features an insider's account of the Marines Energy Assessment Team that researched USMC operational energy use in Afghanistan.
• Voice of America discusses last week's United Nations food summit as “disappointing,” claiming that it “produced only limited measures.”
• The Obama administration will soon present a range of U.S. emissions goals to take to Copenhagen, despite legislative deadlock over a climate bill, according to The New York Times; The Washington Post also reports increasing support for nuclear as a carbon-free energy solution.
• Green Inc. reports on McKinsey's new report that claims water demands will be 40–50% higher in 20 years.
• Finally, the Post's A1, top of the fold story yesterday explored Ethiopia's surge in leasing farmland to foreign companies and governments.

A display of camelina and algae fuels at last month's Naval Energy Forum demonstrates the types of renewable fuels to be tested by the Navy in its ship and aircraft fleets. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, speaking at the Navy Energy Forum, set a target for 50% of the Navy's total energy consumption for ships, aircraft, tanks, vehicles, and shore installations to come from alternative energy sources by 2020.

Photo: Courtesy of John F. Williams and the U.S. Navy.

It has been a long week already, after a marathon reception Tuesday evening and a full day yesterday, as we had the honor of supporting the Defense Attachés Association (DAA) in their annual conference, “Strategic Resources and New Global Security Trends.” We are a bit tired and out covering some events and hearings today, so for today’s post we are providing a few take-aways from the DAA event. It was held under Chatham House rules, so these will be general and not attributed, but hopefully still a bit insightful:

• One attendee said that to him, “change means development,” and he found our outlook to be too negative. That’s certainly not what we intend to convey – and many panelists offered realistic solutions to the problems that may arise from global change – but it’s noteworthy that this was the message that at least one person received. 
• There were a lot of questions related to scoping natural resource and security issues – questions we also wrestle with often.
• On questions related to energy and minerals, there were several attendees who seemed to embrace the (overly simplistic) answer that the market handles all problems related to commodities, and the security community need not worry; however, it seemed that far more attendees who expressed their views to the group or in side conversations agreed that resource indicators present many very worrisome trends.
• The defense attachés were for the most part very willing to engage on a very complicated issue, and asked very thought-provoking questions; but it was notable that many of the most engaged attendees were those from countries most obviously already feeling the impacts of climate change.
• Several attachés pushed the idea that addressing climate change was not solely a military mission, but that it would mandate (as we call it) a whole of government approach.
• An interesting theme was that many attendees pushed for a greater understanding of potential positive impacts from climate change – increased cooperation between governments and militaries, or actual resource and economic gains from the effects of climate change.
• The crowd seemed very interested in opportunities to work together multilaterally to solve issues related to global change. One attaché used Q&A time to ask a speaker for a meeting, another spoke of high hopes for engagement that he felt have often times been dashed, and all participants were eager to find top level engagement among their militaries and countries.
• The sometimes skeptical nature of the crowd forced speakers to be more articulate and explain their thoughts more carefully than we often see in forums like this. Disagreement in the crowd pushed the conversation further and provided more compelling information for those who needed more convincing.

Here in the blog, we get deep into the details a lot, and it was great to have the opportunity to pull back up to the big picture level and make the case as to why natural resources are inseparable from security, and the linkages that are important to understanding the issues we cover here. A few of the speakers may allow us to post transcripts, and we will certainly let you know if we do!

Foreign policy watchers know that India is a hot topic in world politics, and will only become more so as its population and economic prospects increase (though its economy, like most others in the world, will take some time to recover after the global downturn). India is of interest to us natural security-minded people as well: it relies on imports for most of its increasing energy needs; it is a somewhat serious contributor to climate change with its growing use of coal to generate electricity and often a climate negotiations trend setter for developing nations; and its perennial water issues point to some worrying trends for the future. As we are just beginning to think more about these issues for India (and what it means for U.S. security), we won’t be drawing any hard conclusions until we’ve done a bit more research and exploration.  But with this in mind, I searched for some historic lit that might provide some interesting insights.

I found such an article way back in the October 1943 issue of Foreign Affairs: “India's Mineral Wealth and Political Future,” by Charles H. Behre, Jr., a lifelong geologist and partner in the mineral consulting firm Behre, Dolbear, and Company. The entire premise of the article is admittedly dated—it’s about how to partition India into a majority Hindu nation and a majority Muslim nation, which wouldn’t happen for another four years—but it gives insight into important minerals considerations, and provides a good comparison case for the current resource wealth of India and Pakistan.  Here are a few highlights:

Last night I attended a conference on nonvascular polyphyletic plantlike organisms, alternately eukaryotic and prokaryotic. These are commonly known as algae, which is useful to those of us who mostly took classes like “Nonproliferation and the International Trade in Nuclear Materials” or “War and the Nation-State.” The event was part of a CNA series called The Energy Conversation, which bills itself as “a network of 'energy-smart' advocates working together to build the foundation for horizontal communications and whole of government solutions to complex energy problems.” Noted.

There were plenty of national security types in the room, including some in uniform, along with engineers, alternative energy entrepreneurs, and one memorable oceanographer (more on him later). The first speaker, Chris Tindal, the Deputy Director for Renewable Energy in the Naval Energy Office, gave an overview of the Navy's energy profile (25% of DoD's total energy use, which is itself 93% of the U.S. government's consumption). Like all the other services, the Navy is now keeping three considerations in mind with regard to energy, as he explained: lifecycle costs, the fully-burdened cost of fuel, and the energy footprint of any contractors receiving Navy money.

Last Friday afternoon, Sharon and I were walking back to the CNAS offices after a meeting and chatting about the indicators we see in our natural security research about the ways in which the world is so rapidly changing, and all the unknowns that might – if we could only put our finger on them – give us a clearer idea of what the future world will look like for those charged with securing the nation. Much to my surprise, I awoke Saturday morning (and again Sunday morning), grabbed the newspapers, and found that a handful of reporters were perhaps thinking similar thoughts in formulating stories to shape the narrative around the president’s Asia trip.

One Saturday Washington Post story centered on ginseng farmers in Wisconsin, making the point that China’s import tastes (and what qualities and prices they demand for those imports) are a major force in shaping the global economy. It also provided examples of Chinese investment in U.S. real estate and businesses, and mentions the growing ranks of Chinese students enrolled in U.S. institutions of higher learning. The author indicates that residents of Wisconsin are themselves wrestling with what this trend means for their state, with money coming in seeming to be the deciding factor in that judgment. Even without a thorough read, the headline says it all: “The Chinese are 'changing us': Rising global power is reshaping the way Americans do business and live their lives.”

Climate change diplomacy is in the air. With the Copenhagen climate summit rapidly approaching, the newswires are abuzz with governments and private groups expressing their views on what they hope to accomplish at the conference. Though it is unclear whether the United States will raise security issues at Copenhagen, several groups have started to make diplomatic pushes this week to include climate change as a security issue.

President Barack Obama may have upped the ante on the Copenhagen conference when he announced on Monday that he would be willing to attend in person if he thinks his presence will seal a workable deal. Whether his presence would help is unclear, though, given that Congress may not be able to settle on a climate change bill before the conference (and hence, the Senate may not ratify any international agreement that emerges). Obama is currently in Asia, where he is meeting with officials in Japan, Singapore, China, and Korea discussing, in part, climate change issues. Obama sent the Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, to India and China to begin preparing a climate framework, which is a more likely outcome of Copenhagen than a comprehensive new climate treaty. Given that China’s President Hu believes U.S.-China cooperation on climate will strengthen the bilateral relationship, these talks could avert future U.S.-China tension by establishing relations built on trust and respect rather than suspicion.

• A group of eleven countries vulnerable to climate change, calling themselves the V-11, urged immediate action to cut emissions, USA Today reports.
• AFP and The Washington Post both report on the massive power outages throughout Brazil that left 70 million without power, pointing to weak grid security and the possibility of hacker responsibility; sources urge the United States to look more into its own grid vulnerabilities.
• BBC reports on the second major oil deal Iraq has struck this week: Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell will develop the West Qurna field pending cabinet approval.
• The AFP also reports that the Obama administration is making a strong diplomatic effort ahead of Copenhagen in negotiations with India and China. (Reuters mentioned earlier this week that the President has said he is willing to travel to the negotiations in Denmark if a deal is near.) 
• The military uses about 22 gallons of fuel per soldier per day at $45 per gallon in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a Danger Room report on an important new Deloitte study. (Please note, however, that we're hearing mixed reviews of those figures and how they are discussed from folks in the know - something we'll be looking into next week.)

When we travel, we like to compare what we learn about the effects of climate change to a great report on regional effects that the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) issued earlier this year. Two weeks ago, Sharon and I traveled to Hawaii to conduct interviews and meet with representatives of PACOM and the military services in support of two of our ongoing projects, so I checked out the projected regional effects for Hawaii in preparation for a blog post on just that.

For the record, the report indicates that the Pacific Islands have already witnessed increases in average temperatures and sea levels for decades, and likely future changes in store for Hawaii include rising ocean surface temperatures, more heavy downpours and alterations in the timing of its rainiest seasons. But I didn’t speak much to people about their thoughts on these or other climate projections; the concerns of many of those I spoke with were a bit different.

Beyond just climate change, many who work on environmental issues or are charged with certain environment-related work for the U.S. military seem far more focused on sustainability broadly – for all natural resources and in the face of a changing world climate. Most individuals I spoke with about energy also spoke of water concerns. Almost everyone we met with knew the story of how Hawaii became highly petroleum dependent (it used to use biofuels for electricity before its sugarcane industry faded) and how that story related to land use and agricultural production. This holistic view stems from Hawaii’s status of being so, well, islanded. Its vulnerabilities run deep and are comprehensive, and this seems to have had the effect of promoting an equally comprehensive view of how susceptible their environment is.

The future of nuclear power is under debate in a variety of forums, with some proponents arguing that nuclear energy provides a greenhouse-free alternative to coal, and opponents claiming that the risks aren’t worth the rewards. In the United States, no nuclear power plants have come online in 13 years. But now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering 26 new plants throughout the United States, mainly because of pressures to produce lower-carbon energy. Much of the nuclear energy debate takes place in the civilian realm, but there is also debate over the future of nuclear energy in the U.S. military, especially the Navy.

The Department of Defense has experimented with non-weapon nuclear energy for decades, though not at a large scale. Weapons research tended to dominate the nuclear market during the Cold War, with energy just an afterthought. The Army began its Nuclear Power Program in the 1950s to explore using nuclear generators, but the program was scrapped 20 years later (see the book The Army’s Nuclear Power Program: The Evolution of a Support Agency). The Air Force has a fascinating history with nuclear propulsion systems: it instituted the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program (pdf) in 1946 and developed the X-6 jet to fly on nuclear power before cancelling the program in 1961 (the project apparently suffered from lack of focused goals).