![]() ![]() national security extend well beyond direct physical impacts on military operations. Our work shows that the biggest climate risks posed to U.S. We’ve written reports like this, and have both led groundbreaking efforts to analyze longer-term climate security risks in public reports and intelligence assessments. Under competing pressures, it will be all too easy for the department to fall back on old habits, remaining narrowly focused on the near-term risks of climate change to military infrastructure and equipment, while deprioritizing the full-picture strategic climate analysis that is needed. national security community can revert to traditional conceptions of security risks. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin appears to understand the importance of climate change to the core defense mission, declaring “there is little about what the Department does to defend the American people that is not affected by climate change.” Nevertheless, the fanfare surrounding the China announcement shows how quickly the U.S. The Department of Defense will need to quickly build capacity and get up to speed to be able to deliver the sweeping new strategic efforts called for by the new president. The public summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy mentioned China 12 times, climate change zero. While it is true that throughout the presidency of Donald Trump the Department of Defense was one of the few places in the federal government making progress on climate change policy, most of this progress was focused on nearer-term risks to military bases and infrastructure, not overarching strategy. Unlike with China, however, the bench of climate security experts in the Department of Defense is appallingly thin, given the lack of focus on the issue under the previous administration. This analysis, meant to examine the long-term, strategic security risks posed by climate change, demands at least equal investment and attention as the China effort. To that end, the executive order directs the Department of Defense to prepare a comprehensive new “Climate Risk Analysis” in just 120 days - on the same timeline as the China sprint. Yet in its “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” the administration mandated that climate change must now be at “the center of our national security and foreign policy,” a mandate reflected in newly released national security and defense guidance. In that same visit, the president called on the Department of Defense to “rethink” and “reprioritize” security to meet the challenges of the 21st century, including climate change - but it was the China threat that got the “ task force” moniker and a named leader that day. China is referred to as the “ pacing threat” by senior defense officials, and the top news out of President Joe Biden’s inaugural visit to the Pentagon last month was a new “ sprint effort” to review the U.S. One could be forgiven for thinking that a rising China is the only threat that the Department of Defense is preparing to confront. ![]()
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