Center for a New American Security

Last week, the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Review Panel released its final report on the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The five-month review of the QDR was an opportunity for a panel of national security and defense experts (including CNAS Commander-in-Chief Dr. John Nagl) to assess the shortcomings of the QDR and its processes, and to analyze U.S. national security priorities and challenges from outside the Department of Defense bureaucracy. According to the report:

The issues raised in the body of this Report are sufficiently serious that we believe an explicit warning is appropriate.  The aging of the inventories and equipment used by the services, the decline in the size of the Navy, escalating personnel entitlements, overhead and procurement costs, and the growing stress on the force means that a train wreck is coming in the areas of personnel, acquisition, and force structure. (Emphasis mine)

When I hear train wreck I think Li Lo or Mel Gibson. Despite that distraction, I kept reading.

The panel of experts identified four key national interests that have shaped U.S. national security policy since WWII:

Since 1945, the United States has been the principal architect and remains the principal leader of a durable and desirable international system. American security rests on four principles: the defense of the American homeland; assured access to the sea, air, space, and cyberspace; the preservation of a favorable balance of power across Eurasia that prevents authoritarian domination of that region; and provision for the global “common good” through such actions as humanitarian aid, development assistance, and disaster relief. (P. 25) 

Yesterday, I attended a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on “Climate Change Finance: Providing Assistance for Vulnerable Countries.”  The committee witnessed testimony from eight individuals on two panels: the first panel included The Honorable Lael Brainard, Under Secretary for International Affairs at the Treasury Department, Dr. Jonathan Pershing, Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change with the State Department, Rear Admiral David. W. Titley, Oceanographer and Navigator of the Navy and Dr. Maura O’Neill, Senior Counselor to the Administration and Chief Innovation Office at USAID; the second panel included The Honorable Nancy E. Soderberg, President of the Connect U.S. Fund, Elliot Diringer, Vice President of International Strategies with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, The Honorable Reed E. Hunt, CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital and Dr. Redmond Clark, Chairman and CEO of CBL Industrial Services.

The hearing itself tended to range far and wide, with representatives using their Q/A time to opine on whether climate change is real, or not; anthropogenic, or not. But there were several parts of the testimony that stood out as particularly interesting for someone who is interested in Natural Security issues.

First, Rear Admiral Titley had two particularly interesting points which resonated with several of our recent blog posts on the Arctic and a DOD energy event that we hosted last Tuesday.  Titley testified that the Navy is watching changes in the Arctic environment with interest, particularly shrinking levels of ice extent and volume.  He stated that “the changing Arctic has national security implications for the Navy,” and that the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review directs DOD to address gaps in the United States’ Arctic capabilities.  The Navy’s Maritime Strategy, for example, recognizes that the potential opening of new shipping routes could generate potential sources of competition for access to the High North, as well as to natural resources beneath the ice.  He mentioned the Bering Strait as one area among many that has the potential to become strategically significant over the next few decades.  He also mentioned that this summer, the Navy “will participate in Canada’s largest annual Arctic exercise, Operation NANOOK.”   While the United States has been increasingly active in the Arctic, with the Navy, Coast Guard and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force (which just recently released its final recommendations) being a visible presence, the United States hasn’t given the Arctic perhaps as much attention as it deserves as it grows in strategic importance, even allowing the only two Coastguard heavy icebreaking ships to fall into disrepair.

Last night, we hosted a top secret, off-the-record, “this didn’t happen” energy event with government and private sector experts who have a broad range of energy and national security expertise. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t as top secret as we’re making it out to be given the fact that we’re touting it on the blog this morning. But for the 42 of you reading this post this morning, certainly consider yourself in the know.

What follows below are some brief thoughts on the future of the military, the Department of Defense and our energy needs. We offer these points up as some food for thought as we take a step back from the event last night and go easy on the writing this morning:

We are all here because we care about energy security – finding reliably available, affordable, and sustainable supplies sufficient to meet our demand. DOD’s energy security is a more complex concept perhaps than that of the rest of the economy: our operations depend on global supply availability, adaptability for use in multiple platforms, and infrastructure resiliency. The ability of our soldiers, sailors and Marines to do their jobs is on the line. And as we were reminded last week by the news of refined fuel being smuggled from our allies in Iraq to Iran, in defiance of new U.S. sanctions, the geopolitical impacts of our current energy system often hit U.S. security and foreign policy interests particularly hard.

A few months back, my colleague Shannon popped into my office with a review copy of a new book that someone had sent to CNAS. The word “Arctic” popped out in the title, causing me to sigh, “Not more about the Arctic.” Don’t get me wrong. It is a subject very important to our work. It’s just that most work on the Arctic is so boring; nothing new that we haven’t heard a million times already. We here tread somewhat lightly on the subject ourselves just to avoid parroting all that has long been repeated.

I eventually picked up this book as I was cleaning my messy desk, where it had rested for a few months, and decided to give it a shot. The Future History of the Arctic. Great title. Author: Charles Emmerson, an alum of the World Economic Forum and International Crisis Group. In other words, a credible decipherer and distiller of information.

As I read, I was quite happily surprised – more than happily, actually. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It reads like travel writing: the perfect balance of history, first-person anecdotes from interesting places, current events, and the context of where trends are pointing for the future. The text provides important information, but it is also highly entertaining. Though it would be a good read for anyone, its detail would prove especially useful for anyone in the national security field. I had marked about 10 percent of the pages in this book by the time I’d finished it, a high percentage for me.

• The U.S. Army awards $3.5million in contracts for energy security initiatives on installations, reports UPI.
• Check out this interesting project idea on utilizing solar energy for U.S. Coast Guard vessels on Tech Brief's design contest.
• President Obama looks to build ties with Azerbaijan, declaring "Azerbaijan's leadership in the development for a Southern Corridor for energy has also increased regional prosperity and enhanced global energy security," according to Reuters. 
• The Business Standard discusses water issues between India and Pakistan amidst the failure of last week's water dialogue between both nations.
• China has overtaken the United States in new energy investments, reports Investor's Business Daily.

We take today to remember the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces who have sacrificed their lives in service to our nation. And we thank the U.S. military men and women who, every day, continue to risk their lives to protect the United States - and their families who endure.

Photo: Flags of the U.S. Navy's Task Force Trident fly at half-mast in respect of two American and one Romanian NATO service members at Camp Mogensen at Forward Operating Base Lagman, Afghanistan on May 13, 2010. Courtesy of Chief Mass Communication Specialist Jeremy L. Wood and the U.S. Navy.

Friday brings the conclusion of Yemen Week for the blog as well as the long awaited Photo of the Week.

As the coastal waters near Yemen continue to witness acts of Somali piracy, international forces continue their efforts to police the Gulf and surrounding waters, an area roughly four times the size of Texas. The above photo features a member of the U.S. Coast Guard gathering navigational information from Yemini fishermen to assist in U.S. anti-piracy efforts. A cooperative relationship with local populations, especially the fishermen who navigate the waters off Yemen’s coastline, could prove to be an important asset in overall U.S. goals in the region, a fact that other nations patrolling the Gulf of Aden may have recently learned the hard way.

Last week I had the privilege of speaking with a group of a few dozen government officials from Yemen. They were all concerned about water, the lack of biodiversity in their country and whether foreign companies would help them explore for more oil as current reserves run dry. There is one subject we discussed that, in the media and public discourse, does not seem to get much attention yet is important to understand: Yemen’s natural gas.

If you look at BP’s natural gas reserve to production ratios (which I recommend you all do regularly), you’ll notice that it indicates that Yemen’s natural gas reserves should last more than 100 years at current production rates. However, this is misleading, as it has only the 8^th-largest reserves in the Middle East. Countries like Iran and Qatar have almost order of magnitude greater reserve levels. That 100+ year R/P estimate indicates that production is very low. It began producing natural gas on its own only in 2009, and previously only extracted it as a bi-product of oil production.

Expect this R/P ratio to drop. Yemen is actively increasing liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Investors include Total and Hunt Oil, and it currently exports LNG primarily to South Korea and the United States. According to the EIA:

Yemen's first LNG plant went online in October 2009, at the port of Balhaf on the Gulf of Aden. The first cargo of 5.1 MMcf (147,000 cubic meters), was shipped to South Korea at the beginning of November 2009, almost a year behind schedule. Several more LNG shipments were made in December 2009, to Spain, Mexico, and South Korea. Other LNG deliveries have since been made to China, Texas, and most recently, Boston. An estimated 5 MMcf of LNG arrived at GDF Suez' Everett terminal in Boston on February 23, 2010. Yemen LNG has 4 tankers with a total capacity of 13 MMcf. A second liquefaction unit, currently under construction, is expected to become operational towards the end of 2010, according to Yemen LNG. Yemen will be able to export 6.7 million metric tons of LNG when the project reaches full capacity in 2011.

Hey all. Not too much of a blog today, as we're a little preoccupied setting up for just about the most epic event to hit D.C. since Lady Gaga was last here in September.

The Willard's sure to be packed with the 450+ who have already confirmed their attendance for the event, hope you're one of them. You're not? We can make an exception for our blog reader faithfuls. Just RSVP here and we'll make sure you get a chance to check out the event that's been a topic of discussion all around town.

Taking part in the dialogue over issues of natural security (as featured in one of our latest publications, Broadening Horizons) will be the likes of Rear Admiral Philip H. Cullom, Director of Fleet Readiness Division on the Navy Staff, David Kilcullen, President and CEO of Caerus, and CNAS' own Bob Kaplan and Christine Parthemore.

Want to know the big news? The event is going to feature a keynote address from the Honorable Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change.

Check out some live tweeting action on the CNAS twitter page. Hope to see you there!

The 2010 Joint Operating Environment (JOE; PDF), recently released by Joint Forces Command, offers a slightly more robust assessment on the implications of climate change for the Joint Force than its 2008 report (PDF). As Christine pointed out yesterday, while the JOE “in no way constitutes U.S. government policy and must necessarily be speculative in nature, it seeks to provide the Joint Force an intellectual foundation upon which we will construct the concepts to guide our future force development.”

Most of the climate change section reads nearly identical between the two versions, though the 2010 version offers more on the near-term challenges posed by climate change and is telling of what the Joint Force is paying particular attention to when it comes to potential implications for the military.  

On Climate Science:

JOE 2008 (p. 22)

The impact of global warming and its potential to cause natural disasters and other harmful phenomena such as rising sea levels has become a prominent—and controversial—national and international concern. Some argue that there will be more and greater storms and natural disasters, others that there will be fewer. In many respects, scientific conclusions about the causes and potential effects of global warming are contradictory.

JOE 2010 (p.32)

The impact of climate change, specifically global warming and its potential to cause natural disasters and other harmful phenomena such as rising sea levels, has become a concern. Scientific conclusions about the potential effects of climate change are contradictory, with some arguing that there will be more and greater storms and natural disasters: others, that there will be fewer.

While the 2010 JOE seems to play down the controversial debate undergirding climate science (literally removing the word “controversial” that was present in the 2008 JOE), the notion that there is an ongoing debate about what climate science is telling us about potential impacts of climate change lingers. Perhaps the next assessment could couch this differently by mentioning the need for climate science that offers the level of detail and fidelity that would be useful to the Joint Force to make decisions about the implications of climate change.