Testing the Waters: Climate Change in Africa and Anticipating Regional Conflicts

Abstract

With limited resources, USAFRICOM currently focuses its efforts on the African continent in areas related to traditional security concerns such as combating terrorism, trafficking and coastal patrols. This paper argues that the expected climate changes within the continent can be known with enough fidelity to warrant changing how the command allocates resources within Africa in pursuit of American strategic interests. Focusing on West Africa and Nigeria in particular, the expected migration patterns and humanitarian stresses in the region are likely to channel towards Nigeria. Current engagement methods are not only ill-prepared to meet long-term objectives even without considering climate change, but are void of displaying any significant forethought regarding climate change and how to best enable the continent to deal with that threat.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 04, 2011
Accession Number
ADA546256

Entities

People

  • Michael Horlbeck

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Africa
  • Climate Change
  • Commerce
  • Continents
  • Drainage Basins
  • Droughts
  • Floods
  • Geographic Regions
  • Geography
  • National Security
  • Security
  • Terrorism
  • Terrorists
  • United States
  • United States Africa Command
  • Warfare
  • West Africa

Readers

  • International Relations and Conflict Resolution
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Strategic Security Studies