Threats without Threateners? Exploring Intersections of Threats to the Global Commons and National Security

Abstract

Could three global issues -- climate change, water scarcity, and pandemics -- be posed as national security challenges with interconnected threats to the global "commons"? And, if so, could this perspective help trigger new approaches for addressing them? For the United States, impacts on national security are important but mostly indirect, resulting from the ripple effects of direct impacts on other countries and regions, especially poor ones. This paper explores the interconnections of these issues and discusses a range of policy ideas: not to recommend them as solutions, but to stimulate an alternative way of thinking about policy -- one that might be characterized as indirect, not direct; bottom-up, not top down; and opening new possibilities, not "fixing" the problem.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2012
Accession Number
ADA554596

Entities

People

  • Erik Nemeth
  • Gregory F. Treverton
  • Sinduja Srinivasan

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Additive Manufacturing
  • Climate Change
  • Computer-Aided Design
  • Droughts
  • Environmental Protection
  • Fabrication
  • Geography
  • Groundwater
  • Health Services
  • International Law
  • Medical Personnel
  • Mobile Phones
  • National Security
  • Renewable Energy
  • Sea Level Rise
  • Three Dimensional
  • Water Resources

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science
  • Political science

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Economics
  • Systems Analysis and Design