This essay is based on the author’s book, Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Age of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats (Hachette, 2023).

The military mission was traditional and straightforward, according to the manual: Navy warships transported about 1,200 Marines to the Western Pacific, where they attacked hostile islands. As the ship moved forward, Navy meteorologists determined they had tracked the storm assembly at a safe distance. But by the time the winds reached devastating typhoon levels, the wind changed direction and a superstorm hit the Navy and Marines at sea. A huge ravine scattered warships from formation. Air operations and air rescues were impossible due to the gusty winds. Communication was cut off.

Years of climate change have exacerbated the cascading effects of this extreme storm as local islands and residents have yet to recover from widespread infrastructure disruptions from previous landslides, power outages and other typhoons. and the region cannot provide safe harbors. storm.

This ‘mission’ will take place seven years from now, as it did in the first-ever war game conducted by the Navy and Marine Corps to assess the challenges climate change is posing to military mission capabilities. It was held in October 2030. The tabletop exercise, held in June 2022, drew little public attention but set alarm bells across the maritime service.

The military cannot afford to discuss climate change, and climate change is now a powerful destabilizing reality in fragile and volatile regions of the world. Hundred-year ocean storms occur several times each season. Droughts cause food shortages, social unrest and mass migration. Island nations that once served as safe harbors could disappear as sea levels rise. All of this complicates the Pentagon’s efforts to combat global instability, despite having to admit that the US military is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels.

The enemy wins votes, military axioms say, and climate change becomes the new enemy.

Meredith Berger, Navy Undersecretary for Energy, Facilities and Environment, who organized the climate change exercise, said, “We are looking at the impact of climate change because climate change makes us better fighters.” said. “The Navy and Marine Corps must address climate change in their preparations and operations to maintain any battle-winning advantage.”

Our book argues that, in retrospect, the threat of terrorism was never an existential threat, even after the attacks of 9/11. Al-Qaeda, even on its best days, has never truly threatened the very existence of the United States. But the country has launched two “forever wars” with a Zoom-like focus on counter-terrorism. Climate change, by contrast, is an existential threat. And the reaction was, at best, an uncertain trumpet.

This climate war game ran alongside a massive disaster movie showing in America and around the world. It’s also a reality show.

Devastating wildfires no longer occur only during the hot summer months. They spark early and burn later. At the central military base, the airstrip is disabled and not cratered by enemy weapons, but flooded. Major bases on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts—massive Navy and Marine Corps installations critical to defense and power projection—face a near-certain threat of flooding from rising sea levels. The air is getting hotter and more humid, making it harder for military planes and helicopters to take off and requiring them to consume more fossil fuels for lift. Melting ice sheets could release deadly pathogens that have been frozen in suspended animation for years. And the Navy will be among the first to board or encounter them as warships explore the newly accessible Arctic regions made possible by receding polar ice.

While the Department of Defense has been slow to recognize and respond to the risks climate change poses to its facilities and operations, the military is recovering and seeking solutions.

It costs money, but it is not yet fully allocated. The attention is finally coming back to focus on this risk. But it is possible.

Mitigating the impacts of climate change will require a whole-of-government approach and a redefinition of national security to embrace a more comprehensive set of risks. an example? Ahead of the brutal civil war in Syria, drought played a key role in driving urban migration, putting pressure on the overwhelmed Assad regime with political institutions. This only exacerbated potential tensions between the ruling Alawite minority party and the Sunni majority.

Street protests are taking place in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon over high energy prices and water shortages. Not only because of climate change, these countries are plagued by poor governance, corrupt political systems and weak infrastructure, but rising global temperatures have exacerbated shortages and local services have struggled to find adequate food. migration from rural areas to urban areas where water is not available. The same impetus is at work in the conflict over the Tigray region of Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous region, and in Somalia.

A World Bank analysis to 2050 predicts a terrifying increase in climate-related migration, projected to reach 49 million people in East Asia and the Pacific. South Asia, 40 million people. North Africa, 19 million. Latin America, 17 million. Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 5 million people. The most devastating situation so far is sub-Saharan Africa, where climate-related migration is projected to reach 86 million by 2050.

On October 7, 2021, the Department of Defense issued the clearest statement yet acknowledging the risks of climate change to national security and military mission capability. The Department of Defense must act swiftly and boldly on this challenge and prepare for the inevitable damage,” said Secretary of Defense J. Lloyd Austin III.

Austin spoke as the Pentagon announced its new Climate Adaptation Plan. Despite strong public statements, government officials said many of the specific details would need to be worked out over the next few months and years.

In line with the Pentagon’s plans, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an intelligence agency assessment of risks through 2040, while the Department of Homeland Security released its own report on climate-related risks. This is the first collective statement on the climate threat from climate change. three national security agencies;

In a welcome step, DHS announced that state and local preparedness grant applications will require a climate change impact assessment. The agency also warned that greater access to the Arctic would certainly increase competition for fish and minerals. No one has called this the new Great Game yet, but the major players operating in the Arctic, both militarily and economically, are the United States, Russia, and China.

Interestingly, the risks of climate change could offer Western allies a way to blunt China’s growing economic and military influence in the Western Pacific. China is dedicated to expanding its influence and trade, but it is a polluting giant with little diplomatic and national security effort to mitigate climate change. That gap leaves room for the United States, Australia, and other allies to get ahead of China.

The new Deputy Prime Minister, who also serves as Defense Minister, visited Washington just days after the Australian people elected a new government in 2022. Richard Marls previously ran the Government Portfolio of Australia-Pacific Relations, so he knows a lot about big powers and small island nations. How a family in a small island country in the Western Pacific pools to send their children to school in Australia, knowing that as the sea slowly swallows land, they may have no home to return to. he explained.

Competing with China in the region will require Australia, the US and other partners to focus on “addressing issues that really matter to these countries,” Marls said. He said the policy focus of Australia, the United States and like-minded countries should be on the impacts of climate change: “I am confident that in doing so, Australia will be a natural partner for both countries. ‘ said. “Pacific” — not China.

Here at home, the challenges for the National Guard are acute. The duties of today’s guards are very biblical: fire, famine and pestilence. Adds a modern-day knight in the political apocalypse of urban unrest and riots. The Guard’s mandates for humanitarian assistance, natural disaster assistance, and assistance to civilian authorities are all increasing at the same time.

The head of the National Guard, General Daniel Hokansson, used to talk about the hot summer fire season. “Well, now it seems to run all year round,” he said.

There are additional risks associated with imposing climate-related operations on defense forces. It strains the service’s ability to operate with other services and may even undermine its traditional role as the Pentagon’s “strategic reserve force.”

The Navy also faces the threat of climate change as well as critical real estate being submerged by rising sea levels. It’s straight out of one of his sci-fi novels, set in a melting polar ice sheet that releases deadly pathogens. “In addition to the potential role of emerging diseases in a changing environment and perhaps the emergence of new pathogens, we will continue to strengthen our surveillance of emerging diseases,” said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, Navy Surgeon General. Stated. “We will continue to maintain high vigilance there.”

Energy resources are essential tools for military operations, but they are also weapons, as we have seen with Russia’s threat to cut off natural gas supplies to Europe in retaliation for sanctions against the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Dependence means death for the military, so the Department of Defense is working in the areas of synthetic fuels, solar power (many Marines in the field light their tents this way), and long-lasting, light-weight batteries. must accelerate their efforts. Hybrid-electric motors can reduce fossil fuel use by 20%, so the conversion is necessary.

These adaptations will be no less dramatic than the historic shift from wind to coal, then coal to oil, and then oil to nuclear warships.

Lessons learned from these experiments suggest that the military could launch more independent operations in the field, reduce logistics trains to provide attractive targets for the enemy, and increase energy expenditure to transport goods over long distances. It might help.

The solution is obvious, but it will cost billions of dollars to mitigate the impact of climate change on national security.

Although DoD-specific projections are not available, the Office of Management and Budget released a government-wide assessment that for the rest of this century, the U.S. government will add between $25 billion and $128 billion annually to address the six types. climate-related hazards that could cause spending on: coastal disaster relief, flood insurance, crop insurance, health insurance, wildland fire suppression and flooding on federal facilities.

Government officials say a lot of right things. But is it happening soon enough? One retired official said, “A plan without adequate resources is tantamount to hallucinations.”

Andrew Hoehn is senior vice president of research and analytics at Rand Corporation. He previously served as Chief Strategic Officer for the Department of Defense. Tom Shanker is the director of media and national security projects at George Washington University. He was previously a reporter and editor for The New York Times.