Natural Disasters and National Security

April 14, 2012 | 8:41pm

At the end of March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a Special Report that deserves more attention from international affairs specialists than it will likely receive.
EntitledManaging the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, the Report synthesizes the best recent analysis of the interplay between natural
hazards and human vulnerabilities. It then goes on to suggest how the risks of catastrophic impacts from natural climatic eventsstorms, floods, heat waves, droughts, wildfiresmight be
better anticipated and managed at all levels of government to reduce negative impacts and promote longer-term adjustments.
Unfortunately, anything from the IPCC these days--especially a report containing the phrase climate change adaptation in its title--is likely to be unfairly treated as a global warming manifesto
by those who want to avoid the more dire implications of other IPCC forecasts on climate-related trends. That would be a shame, because most of the serious risks and vulnerabilities
highlighted in this Report are not dependent on scenarios of severe global warming. Rather the Report highlights the patterns of population and economic growth, urbanization and
interdependence which render human beings ever more vulnerable to even the normal patterns of natural hazards.
Indeed, when we add onto this profile of atmospheric (or hydro-meteorological) events the additional vulnerabilities from eruptions of the lithosphere (earthquakes and volcanoes) and
modulations of the biosphere (plant and animal diseases), the combined assaults of our planetary habitat on the safety and prosperity of Americans surpass almost anything we might expect
from human adversaries. Yet very little of this threat profile seems to penetrate the mainstream concerns of national security specialists. The political atmosphere, it would seem, is clouding
our understanding of the actual atmosphere. (Notable exceptions in this regard are the unclassified reports of the National Intelligence Council and a Report last fall by a task force of the
Defense Science Board entitledTrends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security.)
Even this IPCC report has too little to say about the wider global impacts which could radiate outward from foreseeable major disasters in an interdependent world economy. These global
vulnerabilities deserve far more attention and priority than they currently receive: e.g., the cascading consequences of one huge event in a strategic location (Istanbul, Karachi, Jakarta), or
multiple, overlapping disasters that compound impacts (a huge hurricane during an epidemic on the East Coast of the United States), or the exploitation of a disaster by terrorists, cyber-
anarchists or deranged opportunists. Yet each disaster would create the need not only for humanitarian relief and recovery assistance, but for heightened effort s to contain the wider effects of
such massive shocks.
Instead, most discussions of natural disasters are largely limited to a humanitarian focus on the most direct impacts. Severity is measured by what we might call the four Ds: deaths,
destruction, dislocation and disease in the immediate area. (In poorer locations, the death rate from an earthquake or cyclone is generally much higher than in richer places, where economic
damage is usually the more statistically-impressive consequence.) But with the increased inter-dependence of the global economy, and of global markets and supply chains for food, petroleum
and industrial components, we face the potential for major impacts on much wider populations. We might call these the five Cs: chokepoints, cascades, catalysts, collapse and conflicts.
1. Network Chokepoints. Transportation and communication infrastructures, though widely distributed on a global basis, nevertheless have the features of major arteries and hubs that
make them vulnerable to regional or even global disruptions. The volcano in Iceland in 2010, which halted European air traffic for a week or more, is one portent of potential impacts. Not
only did it inconvenience travelers, but it also led to the failure of a number of small businesses and remote suppliers who could not outlast the disruption. A major earthquake in Istanbul
(which is at the top of the list of mega-cities facing seismic risks) could have significant impacts on the movement of goods across and through the Bosporus. Even the Internet, which is
presumed to be so widely decentralized and redundant as to defy disruption, depends for data networking capacity on huge communications pipes across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
which land at a relatively few coastal cable stations.
2. Economic Cascades. Disruptive disasters in regions of major food production or manufacturing also create shortages and supply chain disruptions that could have severe global
consequences. Corn, wheat and rice crops in particular, could be affected by pests or simultaneous disasters that create severe price hikes or shortages in far-flung locations. Both the
Thai floods and Japanese earthquake/tsunami disasters in 2011 affected manufacturing suppliers which led to remote factory shut-downs and end-product shortages on other continents.
In fact, the Fukushima meltdown led both Japanese and German governments to announce the phasing out of their nuclear power industriesa major blow to any global effort to curb
carbon emissions.
3. Political Catalysts. A key factor in the emergence of revolutionary movements in the Arab states of North Africa in 2011 was the rise in food prices which were a direct result of the
Russian drought in the summer of 2010. Disasters can also highlight deep inequalities and government indifference or incompetence that foment political upheavals. Examples of this
effect are the Nicaraguan earthquake in 1972, which contributed to the eventual overthrow of the Somoza regime, and the cyclone which struck East Pakistan in 1970, which strongly
contributed to the secession of what became Bangladesh.
4. Social Collapse: Mass migrations from low-lying islands and coastal areas, or from prolonged, drought-stricken regions, are a foreseeable consequence of predicted trends in climate
patterns. Both will likely compound urbanization trends in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. At the same time, severe earthquakes in one of the worlds mega-cities may provoke reverse
relocation pressures on millions of homeless and jobless people from the slums of these fragile urban areas. The impacts of such seismic events can be severe and long-lasting. For
example, a volcano that erupted on the island of Montserrat in the late 1990s drove 90% of the population away temporarily, and ultimately reduced the population there by half.
5. Consequent Conflicts. The dislocation and resource competition resulting from many of the possible scenarios highlighted above can also lead to violence and even outbreaks of ethnic
cleansing or genocide. Competition for scarce water sources is often cited as a major potential generator of future conflicts. While recent studies suggest that most governments are
unlikely to go to war over water, the larger patterns of glacial melts in South Asia, upstream dams in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and the effects of drought in sub-Saharan Africa
may well generate heightened tensions, compounded by other regional disputes and resentments, which lead to spontaneous or organized violence.
While none of these examples alone may seem threatening to fundamental American security interests, each suggests potential scenarios by which local disasters (particularly in combination)
could produce ever wider impacts that provoke protective, competitive reactions by major governments. The world-wide failure of a major food crop from a new fungus, for example, could lead
to localized famines, export cut-offs, hoarding, cartelized supply arrangements or investment red-lining that could stimulate new zones of instability, hostile alliances and populist pretexts for
conflict. Likewise, a global pandemic could create restrictive, even isolationist reactions that could severely strain the standard plans for global cooperation by international and national
agencies.
Few Americans would yet equate the collective assaults of Mother Earth with those of earlier world-wide specters: fascism, communism or terrorism. Yet if, as some predict, the next decade
may witness an increasing series of disasters worldwide that overwhelm the coping capabilities of local, or even national and international, agencies, we may reach a kind of shift in popular
perceptions that begins to view the sum of our vulnerabilities in a global context. The World Economic Forums Global Risk Reports of the last few years and the OECD study of Global
Shocks begin to provide a richer context of this kind.
This IPCC Special Report does not convey such an apocalyptical view. And in fact its value may well be in the balanced, measured manner with which it analyzes the hazards, risks and
vulnerabilities from climatic phenomena, It is now up to the international affairs analysts to draw the wider implications for American foreign policy and national security.