Future International Environmental Security Issues and Potential Military Requirements Over the Period of 2010 to 2025
Abstract
This report is the result of a Delphi study chartered to explore future environmental security issues having potential military implications over the period of the Army Transformation. For the purposes of this study, environmental security is broadly defined as the viability of environmental (natural) systems to provide 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. Panels of futurists, environmental scientists, and military personnel provided assessments of major issues and their causes. The study's participants concluded that military requirements are changing as a result of new kinds of weapons, asymmetrical conflicts, increasing demands on natural resources, urbanization that is making more people dependent on vulnerable public utilities, continued advances in environmental law with escalating environmental litigation, and globalization that is increasing interdependence. The study also reached a consensus on five major emerging issues worth further monitoring and assessment for their environmental implications to the Army: the use of biotechnology to build new kinds of weapons; a significant military conflict over water; the role of diseases in triggering conflicts; an increasing emphasis on the sustainable use of natural resources; and the role of the military in large-scale remediation of chemical, biological, nuclear, or nanotechnology incidents or weapons use.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA593164
Entities
People
- Jerome C. Glenn
- Theodore J. Gordon