Water
While water is abundant on the planet, it is unevenly distributed and most (about 97 percent) is saltwater in the oceans, unsuitable for human consumption and agriculture without expensive and energy- intensive desalination. According to the United Nations, these supply and other constraints mean that 1.1 billion people in the world are now without access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion are without access to basic sanitation. Moreover, according to the UN World of Water report, this problem is getting worse under the strain of growing populations and a changing climate; almost half of the world’s population will live in areas of high water stress by 2030. While research suggests that nations generally don’t go to war over water, there is certainly an ample record of conflict within societies, tension between states, and other water-related national security challenges, including the use of water resources as a tool of political influence.
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Author(s): Suzanne Goldenberg
Source: The Guardian
Date: 01/31/2010
January 31, 2010 - CNAS fellow Christine Parthemore discusses the Pentagon's consideration of climate change in the QDR, "The leadership of the Pentagon has very strongly indicated that they do consider climate change to be a national security issue...They are considering climate change on a par with the political and economic factors as the key drivers that are shaping the world."
| more |Author(s): Colin Sullivan
Source: The New York Times
Date: 12/23/2009
December 23, 2009 - CNAS Fellow Christine Parthemore argues against the oversimplification of water scarcity as a source of conflict in The New York Times.
| more |Author(s): Zarrin Caldwell
Source: IPS
Date: 10/06/2009
October 6, 2009 - CNAS Vice President for Natural Security Sharon Burke discusses the link between critical mineral availability and national security. "The U.S. sends many of its minerals overseas to be refined," she said, but "very few people are looking at this issue in a strategic sense, or at what it means for the dependencies created in the U.S. economy and the defense industry."
| more |Author(s): Will Rogers
Source: Small Wars Journal
Date: 07/29/2009
July 29, 2009 - CNAS Research Assistant Will Rogers writes in Small Wars Journal on Pakistan's problems with water and how it could undermine stability in Afghanistan. "The United States should assist Islamabad in any way possible to build its capacity to provide Pakistanis sustainable access to water, especially in areas recently stabilized and cleared of Afghan militants and al Qaeda, helping to prevent a return to a deteriorated situation of want that breeds violent fundamentalism," writes Rogers.
| more |Author(s): Bryan Bender
Source: The Boston Globe
Date: 07/22/2009
July 22, 2009 - Bryan Bender of The Boston Globe discusses the congressional testimony of CNAS Vice President for Natural Security Sharon Burke. "The hearing was an important demonstration of the fact that global climate change is now taken seriously as a strategic challenge," said Burke.
| more |Author(s): Spencer Ackerman
Source: The Washington Independent
Date: 06/11/2009
June 11, 2009 - The Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman blogs about the launch of the Natural Security project at CNAS's third annual conference and remarks by CNAS Vice President of Natural Security Sharon Burke.
| more |Author(s): Kelly Hearn
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Date: 03/17/2009
March 17, 2009 - Sharon Burke, CNAS's vice president for natural security, talks with The Christian Science Monitor about how defense officials are paying increased attention to the potential impacts of climate change. "But the approach is not yet systematic or pervasive, and there are many skeptics,” she added.
| more |Author(s): Kelly Hearn
Date: 11/13/2008
November 13, 2008 - According to Joshua Busby, non-resident fellow at CNAS and assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, "More and more, climate change will require mass mobilizations of the military to cope with humanitarian disasters."
| more |Author(s): Christine Parthemore
Type of Publication: Working Papers
Date: 03/11/2010
In this working paper, CNAS Bacevich Fellow Christine Parthemore synthesizes how the maritime services are thinking about climate change and assesses potential policy implications.
| more |Author(s): Christine Parthemore, Will Rogers
Type of Publication: Working Papers
Date: 01/24/2010
In this working paper, CNAS Bacevich Fellow Christine Parthemore and Research Assistant Will Rogers provide observations about how the Department of Defense incorporated climate change into the QDR process in order to meet its congressional requirement and some potential outcomes of that process.
| more |Author(s): Sharon Burke
Type of Publication: Working Papers
Date: 06/11/2009
In the 21st century, the security of nations will increasingly depend on the security of natural resources, or “natural security.” This concept paper outlines a new program of study at the Center for a New American Security to look at emerging natural resources challenges in six key areas of consumption and consequences – energy, minerals, water, land, climate change, and biodiversity – as well as the ways in which these challenges are linked together.
| more |Author(s): Sharon Burke, Jay Gulledge, Michael Horowitz, Christine Parthemore, Nirav Patel
Type of Publication: Working Papers
Date: 03/30/2009
In the summer of 2008, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead, asked the Center for a New American Security to conduct a brief survey of the challenges global climate change may pose for the U.S. Navy over the next 30 years.
| more |Author(s): Kurt M. Campbell, Jay Gulledge, J.R. McNeill, John Podesta, Peter Ogden, Leon Fuerth, R. James Woolsey, Alexander T.J. Lennon, Julianne Smith, Richard Weitz, Derek Mix
Type of Publication: Report
Date: 11/01/2007
Global climate change poses not only environmental hazards but profound risks to planetary peace and stability as well. For the past year, CNAS and CSIS convened a diverse group of experts on climate science, oceanography, history, political science, foreign policy, and national security to take the measure of these risks. The contributors developed three scenarios of what the future may hold and then analyze the security implications of these scenarios, which at a minimum include increased disease proliferation; tensions caused by large-scale migration; and conflict sparked by resource scarcity, particularly in Africa. They consider what we can learn from the experience of early civilizations confronted with natural disaster, and they ask what the three largest emitters of greenhouse gases – the United States, the European Union, and China – can do to reduce and manage future risks.
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01/26/2010
As the Department of Defense (DOD) prepares to send the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) to Congress, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) today released a working paper by Christine Parthemore and Will Rogers, Promoting the Dialogue: Climate Change and the Quadrennial Defense Review, examining how DOD considered the effects of climate change during the QDR process.
| more |06/09/2009
WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 9, 2009 - CNAS has released several new reports and working papers for its third annual conference, “Striking a Balance: A New American Security" on Thursday, June 11. Topics include Iraq, Afghanistan-Pakistan, Natural Security, and combating violent extremism. Each report offers strong, principled and pragmatic recommendations on how to strike a balance between immediate and long-term national security challenges facing the United States.
| more |Speaker(s): Sharon Burke
Date: November 18, 2009 - 8:30am - 3:45pm
The Defense Attachés Association, in consultation with the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), hosted their annual conference, Strategic Resources and Global Security Trends, on November 18, 2009, at the Embassy of New Zealand. This event, an effort led in part by Sharon Burke, vice president for Natural Security at CNAS, brought together defense attachés from over 40 countries, as well as U.S. military service personnel and civilian leaders at the Department of Defense, to discuss global security trends, including natural resource scarcity, energy security and climate change. Participants also included representatives from CNA, the New America Foundation, and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
| more |Date: July 21, 2009 - 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Location: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building - Washington, DC
Center for a New American Security's Vice President for Natural Security Sharon E. Burke will testify July 21, 2009 at a Senate hearing on climate change and global security. The hearing has been called by Senator John Kerry, D-MA, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The hearing will be streamed live here.
| more |Speaker(s): The Honorable Judith McHale, Honorable Dr. Richard J. Danzig, GEN Jack Keane, Sharon Burke, Dr. John A. Nagl, Thomas E. Ricks, Nathaniel C. Fick, Dr. Kurt M. Campbell, Ambassador Wendy R. Sherman, General David H. Petraeus, George Packer, Professor Andrew J. Bacevich, Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns, Lt. General David W. Barno, Roderick G. Eggert, Peter H. Gleick, Dennis C. Wilder, Ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie, The Honorable John Warner, Dr. Victor Cha, Colonel Christopher G. Cavoli, Commander Esther J. McClure, Ambassador Thomas C. Hubbard, Nazar Janabi
Date: June 11, 2009 - 7:45am - 7:00pm
Location: Willard InterContinental Hotel - Washington, DC
Striking a Balance: A New American Security was an all-day CNAS conference highlighting the major foreign policy and national security challenges facing our nation in the critical time ahead.
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