The Shaping of Policy in Support of National and Environmental Security for the Remediation of Cold War Related Ecosystem Degradation in the Commonwealth of Independent States

Abstract

This paper will focus on the linkage between the national security interests of the United States, and ecosystem degradation caused by the Cold War, paying particular attention to the shaping of preventive defense policy in the Commonwealth of Independent States. The paper reviews the issue of preventative defense by linking Robert Blackwell's framework of time, geographic priority and connectivity to the end, ways and means of national strategic planning. It will then assess the relationship between these two "testing criteria" and apply them to two environmental case studies - specifically the contamination of the Aral Sea basin coupled with the destruction of the basin's historical economic sustainability and the environmentally induced conflict in Tajikistan. The paper will then conclude by advocating a more aggressive approach, by the United States military, in pursuing environmental remediation efforts through the use of a combination of brigade level engineers units and the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 02, 1998
Accession Number
ADA363123

Entities

People

  • Terry W. Saltsman

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Counter WMD

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Central Asia
  • Cis
  • Climate Change
  • Department Of Defense
  • Environment
  • Environmental Protection
  • Environmental Restoration And Remediation
  • Environmental Security
  • Governments
  • Medical Personnel
  • National Security
  • United States
  • Urban Areas
  • Ussr
  • War Colleges
  • Waste Disposal Facilities
  • Water Purification

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Strategic Security Studies
  • Wetland-Land-Environmental Management.