Yesterday, the Department of Defense made an unprecedented statement about the impact of climate change on our security. We at the Truman National Security Project have been pointing out how leading national security experts are seeing the threats posed by climate change. This is why we created Operation Free and its why leading veterans across the country are educating the America people on these national security challenges.
Monday, though, the Department of Defense officially said that climate change poses a long term strategic challenge to American security and international stability... and they said so in the Quadrennial Defense Review. The QDR, as it’s called, is the Defense Department’s definitive statement of strategy, threats, and long term planning.
Anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan, or seen images from Sudan or Somalia, can tell you what happens to a country when the government collapses and is unable to protect its people. As a US Army Captain, I served in Iraq, and saw first-hand how desperate and vulnerable people are easy prey for terrorist forces. Social unrest and instability are key components of any insurgency’s strategy: keep the population on edge and ensure that they live in fear every day.
In the QDR, the connection between this type of security threat and climate is made strikingly clear. "Climate change will have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty ... and weakening fragile governments," it reports. Already-fragile nations around the world will be unable to cope with the increases in flood, famine, drought, and crop failure caused by climate change. Terrorist organizations actively seek refuge in these unstable and failed states. Places like Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen are among the nations most vulnerable to climate change and to terrorist infiltration. This is a dangerous intersection of opportunity and means for our enemies – and yesterday’s report makes it clear that the defense community has come to consensus on the threat.
Every day the US Senate delays action to reduce and prevent climate change, is a day these threats have to grow.
That is why veterans across the country are organizing in support of clean energy and climate change legislation. Right now, a group of veterans, most of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan, are traveling the country as part of the Veterans for American Power Tour. Over the course of a 2 month-long bus tour, they’ll visit 16 states and hold scores of events to highlight that climate change is a threat multiplier. They’re also making it clear that America’s dependence on oil from unfriendly nations is directly contributing to terrorist funding. Every day, we send over $1 billion overseas for energy. Much of that money ends up in the hands of our enemies, often in the form of AK-47 bullets and RPGs being fired back at our men and women in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Around the world, millions of people live on the very edge of subsistence. A single flood, a mild drought, or a bad growing season can mean the difference between order and chaos in these most fragile of nations. It is in these dusty, dangerous parts of the world that the threat of climate change will be felt first – in the form of a local warlord gaining more power as small villages disappear into dessert, or when radical extremists set up training camps and indoctrination schools where there is no longer any government reach to stop them. These places will feel it first, but inevitably, we will be hit as well. I don’t mean by rising sea levels, though that threat is real, too. But by a terrorist fresh from that training camp who sets off a suicide bomb at a US military outpost. Or at the business end of a rifle, provided by that local warlord, as our troops deliver humanitarian assistance.
These threats are real and they will only get worse. That is why it is time for the Senate to take action – to prevent the threat, protect our troops, and keep America in the lead.
What, then, can you do to secure America with clean energy – so we can take control of our energy future?
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