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Future International Environmental Security Issues and Potential Military Requirements over the period of 2010 to 2025

Future International Environmental Security Issues and Potential Military Requirements over the period of 2010 to 2025. - for the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute -. Environmental Security. defined as environmental viability for life support with three sub-elements:.

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Future International Environmental Security Issues and Potential Military Requirements over the period of 2010 to 2025

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  1. Future International Environmental Security Issues and Potential Military Requirements over the period of 2010 to 2025 - for the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute -

  2. Environmental Security defined as environmental viability for life support with three sub-elements: • preventing or repairing military damage to the environment; • preventing or responding to environmentally caused conflicts; and • protecting the environment due to the moral value of the environment itself

  3. Purpose of the study • identify and discuss environmental issues that may affect the U.S. Army's Transformation efforts in the mid-term (2005-2010) and the long-term (2020-2025) time frames • anticipate potential military requirements that could emerge in response to these issues.

  4. Study Process - Meeting with Military Attachés to Washington, D.C. to introduce the study - A three-round Delphi: • Questionnaire - round 1: likelihood and importance of emerging environmental issues and when they might affect military policy or procedures due to security concerns, or statutory, regulatory, or treaty requirements • Three-day workshop with futurists, environmentalists, and scientists (day 1); military attachés (day 2); U.S. military personnel (day 3) • Questionnaire - round 3: Eight environmental security developments and potential military requirements to address them

  5. Demographics

  6. Environmental security developments - distillation used in Rd3 questionnaire - 1. Biotechnology is used to build new kinds of weapons. 2. A major military conflict over water is understood by world leaders as extremely plausible. 3. A new and/or reemerging disease threat or outbreak triggers conflict. 4. Increasing emphasis on the sustainable use of natural resources causes a complete revision of military operations including construction, base operations, and training management policies. 5. The aftereffects of biological, chemical, or nanotech weapons or a nuclear incident require a massive cleanup or other large-scale military response. 6. A post-conflict battlefield remediation treaty is implemented. 7. Military forces are given a new role in environmental conflict prevention and/or resolution. 8. Future conflicts will be driven by rogue states and terrorists, changing the nature of environmental challenges facing military forces. A rogue nation develops doctrine to target environmental quality as an objective of warfare.

  7. Four themeswere apparent in the list of requirements: • Need for collaboration with other agencies; • Need for training; • Need to develop new technology; • Possible emergence of new environmental-related missions.

  8. Highlights • the only development that was rated very high for both importance and likelihood was: A major military conflict breaks out over water resources/quality. • The developments with the highestdisagreement regarding the year it might occur were: • New sources and management of energy alter global political power relations. • A global push for environmental friendly non-lethal weapons emerges. • Artificial genetic pollution is recognized as a global environmental safety or occupational health threat

  9. Highlights (cont.) • disagreement about the degree of military responsibility vs. civilian responsibility for environmental security • strong sentiment that the role of the military is distinct from environmental issues • agreement that a military doctrine for the prevention of military attacks on the environment needs to be developed by the UN • national sovereignty issues must be faced and resolved • under what conditions could environmental damage be so severe to be of concern to all of humanity and intervention authorized by the UN Security Council? • high correlation between the implementation dates and the perceived effectiveness of the requirements

  10. Highlights (cont.) • divergent opinions of civilian vs. military over control of water systems to prevent a crisis or protect them during a crisis • creating effective “off-switches” for bio-weapons and nano-weapons will be an on-going intellectual arms race • protection against bio-weapons: preventing the motivation of their use through general education to enlighten the public, and the mitigation of hostilities among nations, societies, and social groups

  11. Meta recommendations • Perform a gap analysis • Expand simulation in training • Prevent environmentally related conflicts • Non-environmental impacting weapons • Improve the R&D cooperation • Increase consideration given to international existing and upcoming treaties

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