Center for a New American Security

Dear Readers,

We'll be on hiatus for a couple of days as we return from traveling to Europe for a climate change negotiations simulation that we executed in Hamburg. We will be back on the blog on Wednesday, September 1, 2010. Feel free to post anything here in the comments section that you think Natural Security readers would find useful or interesting. As always, thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Christine and Will

We missed this in today's blog post, but I recommend it for all you minerals nerds out there."Ending the Conflict Minerals Trade" at CAP, June 29, 2010, 12:00pm – 1:30pm. Speakers include Robert D. Hormats, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs; John Prendergast; Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA); Faida M.

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Thank you, dear readers!

As you know, we've been semi-absent from real blogging for about a week as we wrapped up two reports and prepared for our big event yesterday, Natural Security: Navigating the Future Global Environment. We're going to be relaxing a bit today and tomorrow after a marathon few months, but promise to be back in full force on Monday.

For those of you who joined us, this repeats Nate's opening remarks as he introduced Carol Browner, but it is worth repeating. At our first major energy, climate change and security event at CNAS's June 2008 annual conference, of about 750 registered guests, only about 50 attendees stayed for the discussion. Browner, then moderating the panel, noted her disappointment but declared it an improvement from the norm at that time.

CNAS had over 525 guests register for yesterday's event. We'd planned for about 400, and the room was packed with guests standing around the periphery. And that was on just one week's notice for the event. An order of magnitude improvement in the course of two years.

Natural security issues are clearly taking hold, growing in importance, reaching new audiences, and becoming more mainstream. And rightfully so. As Dave Kilcullen, Bob Kaplan and Rear Admiral Philip Hart Cullom discussed, these issues are global and they shape the world in which we operate. They involve every element of U.S. security. I'm so thankful to our speakers, to all of our guests yesterday, and to you, the readers who check in with us daily to grow our understanding of resources and security issues.

Here are a few things you can expect from us on the blog as we enter our second year. We will design some week-long themes so that we can dig a bit deeper on cool topics. We are going to begin doing more podcasts. We're going to more directly tie our blogging to ongoing projects - in other words, we will sculpt our thoughts and ideas publicly via the blog, and we encourage you to help us debate them. And if there is anything you readers particularly enjoy and find useful for your research, we will try to do more of it.

Thanks again to everyone who joined us yesterday, and to the rocking CNAS team who made the event happen. And thank you all for reading!

-CP

The Empire, crumbling under climate induced water scarcity, demands the full resources of its vast and mighty military, from top to bottom, in order to obtain enough fresh water to sustain both its forces and economy.

Last week we met with an Empire commander, who wished to remain annonomous, to discuss the trials that the galactic force had been facing since the onset of the recent record breaking drought. The commander seemed rather taxed by the labor intensive purification process he had been performing just as we arrived (a function made mandatory for all Empire forces just last week) as he suffered from an asthma attack lasting the duration of the hour long interview. Storming through the conversation without ever pausing to use an inhailer, he was such a trooper, the commander provided candid commentary about just how in jeopardy the galaxy is becoming. Perhaps the most intriguing revelation offered up was his description of star death, threatening the very existance of life in the region, which he believes to be inextricably tied to the historic drought.

As we looked deeper, meeting with multinational officers of various levels of rank, and body hair, we began to see that the drought has acted as a threat multiplier in frontline reports of hightened ewok insurgency on Endor. Though the United States managed to remain a neutral party in the first Ewoki uprising, due mainly to its far far away geography, if the drought persists, it may not be long before President Obama is called to appear before the Galactic Senate, and asked to lend American forces.

Happy President's Day from the Natural Security Blog. We will be taking today off, but we look forward to returning to our regular Natural Security business tomorrow!

Photos courtesy of Christine Parthemore/CNAS.

We're taking the day off the blog to observe the holiday. Thank you, Dr. King.

Photo of Martin Luther King, Jr. courtesy of the National Park Service.

Most everyone else has published a wish list for 2010. Why shouldn’t we?

Some on this list are more realistic than others, of course. The fun part of it is that we here at CNAS and the Natural Security Program can contribute to some of these items, and a few of them are pet interests of mine that I just haven’t written much about. We pledge to you that we’ll focus a bit more on these items on this blog, and look forward to contributions from our pals in this field as well. In no particular order:

1. Successful follow-up from the MEAT (i.e., fewer troops lost to attacks on fuel convoys than in previous years).
2. A more prosperous America – the foundation of security.
3. Greater overall attention to nuclear energy, but less attention that discusses energy while ignoring proliferation concerns.
4. Reduction in U.S. greenhouse gases from 2009, by whatever means.
5. Deeper work on the relationships among land use, climate change and security.
6. What Geoff said.
7. Greater visibility on minerals supply chains.  
8. More feedback from Natural Security Blog readers! Your feedback is invaluable: please keep commenting on the blog below, or hit us on Facebook or Christine/Will on Twitter.

Thanks to Mike & Will for their contributions to the list. Here’s to a good 2010!

A million thanks to Mike McCarthy and Amanda Hahnel, our two fabulous interns who provided you with news and analysis on this blog this fall. You're likely to still see a few pieces from them pop up in 2010, as they did more work than we had days to fill. They will be missed!

I'm skipping the news today - there is not much on the natural security front, but enough other important news for the nation to keep you all busy. If I see anything good today, I'll Tweet and Facebook it for you. We'll be taking tomorrow off to recover, so we'll see you all next Monday. Happy New Year!

We bloggers will be on a break starting today, but will return next week. Look for our weekend review, natural security news, our 2010 wish list, and more starting Monday. Happy Holidays everyone!

Photo from beautiful Columbus, Ohio courtesy of Flickr.