All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, by Michael T. Klare (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2019, ISBN 978-1-62779-248-6). 293 pp. Hardcover, $30.00.
“There is, therefore, a direct clash between current White House doctrine on climate change and the Pentagon’s determination to overcome climate related threats to military preparedness.”—Michael T. Klare
“We have intelligence and stupidity, responsibility and recklessness, mingled in one species and duking it out while the planet we stand on fries to a crisp.”—Ophelia Benson
Among many other things, we humanists regard ourselves as guardians of rationality. Consequently, to our dismay, the most egregious contemporary manifestation of irrationality known to us is “climate denial” emanating from our public policymakers in Congress and the Oval Office. However, unbeknown to the great bulk of us, there is another society-wide source of official analysis and policy on impending climate chaos.[1] Ironically, that source is the Pentagon, which specializes, under usual circumstances, in militarism and war-making—other basic sources of chaotic disruption of normal life.
The Pentagon’s role in our response to climate change has been poignantly revealed to us by Michael T. Klare. He is the Five College Professor Emeritus of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College and the most preeminent expert in his field.
Klare’s core argument is that the Pentagon has understood that impending climate chaos is the most urgent threat to U.S. national security, as well as to the global capitalist order. Hence, that threat strikes at the heart of our military establishment’s fundamental defensive mission. According to Klare, an early awareness of the deleterious effects of climate change developed as demands on the Department of Defense (DOD) for disaster relief mounted in the face of unprecedentedly powerful hurricanes originating in the mid-Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico in the past few years. As those and other extreme weather events unfolded, the demands for military support and assistance to civilian disaster relief efforts have drawn the DOD into increasing allocation of equipment and personnel to support its new humanitarian assistance–disaster relief (HA/DR) missions. The upshot of these developments is that “The demands of these potential humanitarian responses may significantly tax U.S. military transportation and support force structures, resulting in a strained readiness posture and decreased strategic depth for combat operations.” In addition, in viewing global warming as a source of recurring crises and disasters abroad, the DOD anticipates demands for an unending series of emergency response operations that could degrade the military’s ability to fight and defeat America’s global adversaries. Hence, the perception that climate change poses a threat to our national security.
A second major area of concern involves resource scarcity, ethnic strife, and the threat of government collapse. These hazards are especially significant in the vulnerable countries of the Global South (the so-called “Third World”). In compounding the stresses on the governments and peoples of those vulnerable nations, climate change brings about widespread deprivation and instability.[2] Such deprivations and instabilities in the Third World threaten to exacerbate geopolitical tensions between the major global powers. A third major area of concern identified by Klare is what he terms global shock waves. Herein the root dynamic is the impact of climate change on the ecological conditions necessary to food production. The main culprits are drought, floods, desertification, and soil degradation. These calamities are most prevalent so far in the Global South. As the situation of food insecurity magnifies for the most vulnerable populations, it stimulates mass migration (“climate refugees”), heightens risk of pandemics, and increases risk of state collapse. As Klare argues:
… as global warming advances, one climate shock after another will ricochet across the planet, leaving chaos and misery in their wake. … The most likely consequence of such a multi-shock calamity would be the failure of fragile states and resulting anarchy. … But it will not be just fragile states in the developing world that will suffer from the impacts of these shocks, but all nations, as the global networks on which we all rely for essential goods and services begin to break down. Pentagon officials are keenly aware of those dire possibilities and realize, full well, that not even the most powerful nation or military establishment would be able to restore global order and security in such a shattered world. In the face of these possibilities, the Pentagon recognizes the urgent necessity of preventative measures in order to safeguard our national security in an increasingly menacing world.
A fourth area of impact of global warming of extreme concern to Pentagon officials is the development of new conflict zones wherein the world’s great powers will inevitably clash over access to newly available natural resources.[3] The most obvious and important such zone is the Arctic region. Temperature increases are greater in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet. And that zone is very resource-rich: 13 percent of the globe’s unrecovered oil; 30 percent of its natural gas; and a treasure trove of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, and diamonds. Not surprisingly, in his May 2019 address to the Arctic Council, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo remarked that “Far from the barren backcountry that many thought it to be (in past decades) the Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance [emphasis added].” And, very conveniently, the melting is creating “a whole new sea” that will facilitate the drilling and the mining. A cursory glance at the map reveals the reason for great power conflict in the region, particularly because both Russia and the United States have territorial borders in the Arctic along with several other nations such as Canada and Norway. In fact, some powers that lack territorial contiguity, such as China, are also showing interest in the exploration of the region. It is such an irony that massive burning of fossil fuels is resulting in access to large-scale reserves of additional hydrocarbons! Here, again, we see climate change at the root of significant destabilization of global order, an eventuality of clear and urgent concern to the U.S. military. And it should be noted that the Arctic is far from the only region being subjected to such a climate-related dynamic.
In addition to international pressures and crises, the U.S. military’s strategic problems stem from domestic climate-related disasters as well. The Pentagon’s extensive system of home-based installations is located disproportionally on coastal sites, which are at or near sea level in elevation. It is needless to say what devastation could be wreaked on those assets by climate-related sea-level rises. Here, again, the DOD is faced with mounting pressure to devise crisis-alleviation and/or avoidance strategies.
It would seem that these situations are thrusting the DOD into the role of inadvertent environmentalist! One of the U.S. military’s more creative responses has been to get involved in the construction, or retrofitting, of carbon-neutral installations, as well as the embracing of the use of reduced-carbon or carbon-neutral fuels and lubricants. Such a strategy even holds out the possibility of reduction of battlefield casualties through the streamlining of supply lines for refueling and equipment resupply.
Klare has provided us with many amazing revelations. And in doing so he has laid bare the bankruptcy of climate denial. Not only is such a doctrine revealed to be a set of gross cognitive errors, but it is also revealed to be a grave threat to the future of life on planet Earth. As a doctrine that rejects science, it would seem to rest on the premise that we advanced-industrial peoples live in a bubble that renders us immune from the consequences of our irresponsible actions. However, as a bastion of rationality, the DOD clearly knows better. Could it be that it is one of the last remaining safeguards against impending global disaster?
Notes
[1] For an excellent source on background and context, see John Bellamy Foster, The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1999).
[2] On the issues involved, see also Christian Parenti, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence (New York: Nation Books, 2011). This is a brilliant companion volume to Klare’s here under review.
[3] Dr. Klare’s longtime interest in this aspect is reflected in three of his most significant prior works: Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (New York: Holt, 2002); Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet (New York: Metropolitan, 2008); and The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources (New York: Metropolitan, 2012).