Donald Trump’s revised National Security Policy takes a looming threat off the table. But it’s not because Trump has scored some military victory, and it’s certainly not a triumph of diplomacy. Instead, it’s a defeat of reason.
President Donald Trump’s first national security strategy does not list climate change as a threat to American interests.
Previous security statements highlighted climate change not because the idea was forced on the military from the outside, but because analysts within the Pentagon could clearly see the rising threat.
For more than a decade, military leaders have said that extreme weather patterns and rising sea levels are aggravating social tensions, destabilizing regions and feeding the rise of extremist groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State.
Just four months ago, Donald Trump’s own nominee for Secretary of the Navy made it clear that climate change was already seriously impacting military operations.
"The Navy is totally aware of rising water issues, storm issues … We must protect our infrastructure, and I will work hard to make sure we are keeping an eye on that because without the infrastructure, we lose readiness."
But Trump is so determined that somehow ignoring climate change will hurt Barack Obama, that he’s willing to put the military—and the nation—at risk.
Around the world, military leaders recognize that climate change is already driving population movements and resource shortages, and that this threat is steadily increasing as the temperature rises.
Climate change is set to cause a refugee crisis of “unimaginable scale,” according to senior military figures, who warn that global warming is the greatest security threat of the 21st century and that mass migration will become the “new normal”:
Brig Gen Stephen Cheney, a member of the US Department of State’s foreign affairs policy board and CEO of the American Security Project, said: “Climate change could lead to a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. We’re already seeing migration of large numbers of people around the world because of food scarcity, water insecurity and extreme weather, and this is set to become the new normal. ...
“Climate change impacts are also acting as an accelerant of instability in parts of the world on Europe’s doorstep, including the Middle East and Africa,” [Brigadier Geneneral Stephen Cheney] said. “There are direct links to climate change in the Arab Spring, the war in Syria, and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency in sub-Saharan Africa.”
But Trump’s determined rejection of climate change means that not just U.S. forces, and not just U.S. citizens, but people everywhere will be at greater risk because he insists on closing his eyes to the dominant threat. Instead, Trump’s strategy calls for “unlocking” American energy and calls the Paris climate agreement “expensive and unfair.” Trump, it seems, believes we can pump ourselves to security.
At least one of the Trump administration’s top security officials disagrees with the president’s apparent determination that climate change is not a security threat. In written testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation hearing, Secretary of Defense James Mattis asserted that climate change is a threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagon’s assets everywhere.
Which really suggests that the greatest threat to American interests isn’t climate change: It’s Donald Trump.