Topic “State Department”
From the New Security Beat - Global Water Security Calls for U.S. Leadership, Says Intelligence Assessment
March 27, 2012 | Posted by Will Rogers - 6:37am | 1 Comment
As I mentioned last week on World Water Day, the intelligence community released its assessment on Global Water Security, timed very well I thought with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's launch of the new U.S. Water Program. Special thanks to our friends (and my former colleagues) across the way at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program for writing this thoughtful piece on the new intelligence community assessment that originally appeared on the New Security Beat blog.
Global Water Security Calls for U.S. Leadership, Says Intelligence Assessment
By Schuyler Null, Managing Editor of the New Security Beat
Alongside and in support of Secretary Clinton’s announcement of a new State Department-led water security initiative last week was the release of a global water security assessment by the National Intelligence Council and Director of National Intelligence. The aim of the report? Answer the question: “How will water problems (shortages, poor water quality, or floods) impact U.S. national security interests over the next 30 years?”
The assessment, Global Water Security, was requested by the State Department and carried out primarily by the Defense Intelligence Agency, drawing on intelligence community resources as well as peer-reviewed research and consultations with outside experts.
The authors’ five broad conclusions are well summarized in the text; we’ve quoted the central nuggets of each below:
The authors’ five broad conclusions are well summarized in the text; we’ve quoted the central nuggets of each below:
1) Over the next 10 years, water problems will contribute to instability in states important to U.S. national security interests. Water shortages, poor water quality, and floods by themselves are unlikely to result in state failure. However, water problems – when combined with poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions – contribute to social disruptions that can result in state failure.
Why? The intelligence community lists underdevelopment and dependence on upstream nations with unresolved water-sharing issues as destabilizing factors. (Interestingly, this prediction appears to have the intelligence community’s lowest degree of confidence – “moderate” as opposed to “high to moderate” for the others – and may well end up being the most cited.)
Photo of the Week: Because No One Should Read Too Much on Fridays
March 23, 2012 | Posted by Will Rogers - 6:51am | 0 Comments
Water is “an essential ingredient of global peace, stability, and security,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday in honor of World Water Day. “We think it actually is our duty and responsibility to make sure that this water issue stays at the very top of America’s foreign policy and national security agenda.”
Secretary Clinton’s remarks also coincided with the release of the intelligence community’s Global Water Security report, a study commissioned by the State Department to analyze the effect of water on U.S. foreign policy and national security interests. “This assessment is a landmark document that puts water security in its rightful place as part of national security,” Secretary Clinton said of the report.
Photo: Secretary Clinton delivers remarks honoring the 2012 World Water Day. Courtesy of Michael Gross and the U.S. State Department.
2012 World Water Day
March 22, 2012 | Posted by Will Rogers - 8:42am | 0 Comments
Today is World Water Day, a day to promote awareness of the acute water and food shortages plaguing the estimated 1 out of 8 persons that lack reliable access to clean drinking water.
This morning at 10:30 AM, tune into the State Department's website where you can watch Secretary of State Clinton deliver her remarks on World Water Day. According to a State Department release, Secretary Clinton will also launch the new U.S. Water Partnership (USWP) today. The statement says that “The USWP is a public-private partnership formed to share U.S. knowledge, leverage and mobilize resources, and facilitate cross-sector partnerships to find solutions to global water accessibility challenges, especially in the developing world.”
The Director of National Intelligence will also release the Global Water Security Intelligence Community Assessment, a long-awaited report from the intelligence community that describes the security challenges associated with increased water scarcity.
Hopefully the rollout of the IC report timed with a major speech by Secretary Clinton will generate some greater awareness within the security community about the importance of water security to U.S. national security and foreign policy. As Secretary Clinton said in a speech in 2010, “water represents one of the great diplomatic and development opportunities of our time.” As the United States rebalances in the Asia Pacific, perhaps water can serve as a touchstone for building strategic partnerships with countries already beset by water insecurity, a challenge likely to be exacerbated in the future. It is something that security practitioners should consider.
In Brief: State Department Refocuses Efforts to Manage Energy Geopolitics
November 16, 2011 | Posted by Will Rogers - 9:43am | 0 Comments
The State Department’s new Bureau of Energy Resources will open today in a reorganization of the department’s efforts to manage the geopolitical implications of energy resources. According to its 2010 inaugural Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the department’s new bureau will “unite our diplomaticand programmatic efforts on oil, natural gas, coal, electricity, renewable energy,energy governance, strategic resources, and energy poverty.” This includes promoting clean and alternative forms of energy, especially through diplomatic efforts to encourage countries like China to reduce its import tariffs on foreign-made clean energy technologies. At last week’s APEC summit in Honolulu, President Obama called on Asia-Pacific states to reduce their tariffs on energy and other environmental technologies to 5 percent. "We will unabashedly support the export of U.S. technology, working with countries to put in a level playing field," said Carlos Pascual, former ambassador to the Ukraine and Mexico, who will lead the new energy bureau. Ultimately, Pascual told The Wall Street Journal, the bureau’s goal will be to manage the "geopolitics of the energy world."
The new bureau opens as tensions around energy resources in the South China Sea continue to grow. Today, while traveling in the Philippines, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the United States seeks a peaceful resolution of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where states such as China, the Philippines and Vietnam are competing in part for claims to potentially rich deposits of oil and natural gas. “We are strongly of the opinion that disputes that...exist primarily in the West Philippine Sea between the Philippines and China should be resolved peacefully," Secretary Clinton said in a joint briefing with Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, according to The Wall Street Journal. "The United States does not take a position on any territorial claim because any nation with a claim has a right to assert it. But they do not have a right to pursue it through intimidation or coercion." Meanwhile, China has preemptively rejected any discussion of the South and East China Seas ahead of this week’s annual East Asia Summit in Bali, where Asia-Pacific leaders will meet to discuss, among other issues, maritime security – including territorial disputes in those contested waters.