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Apologies for the abbreviated post, but some of the CNAS team (myself included) are on a field trip this morning exploring a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. It is part of my personal effort to learn more about the Coast Guard broadly. After all, it is always good to see and tour the platforms you’re writing about, no?
But before we step off, I wanted to point out a good post yesterday from Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell of the Center for Climate and Security. Femia and Werrell review a memo recently released by CNA that explores the impact of climate change on military energy use. “The conclusion,” Femia and Werrell write, “Higher costs, and adaptations in building design as well as heating and cooling systems, are likely on the horizon.”
Continue reading the post here.
There is some evidence that western sanctions on Iranian oil exports are taking a toll on the Islamic republic, even months before the sanctions go completely into effect in July. “Hobbled by sanctions against its banks and a growing international boycott of its petroleum, Iran is seeing its revenue sag while its oil sits in storage depots and floats in tankers with nowhere to go,” The Washington Post reports.
According to estimates by the Telegraph, approximately 19 of the National Iranian Tanker Company’s 34 oil tankers are lying idle off Iran, valued at about US$2.95 billion. “The fact that Iran is using valuable tankers for storage suggests that onshore holding facilities at Kharg Island, believed to have a capacity of 23 million barrels, must also be full,” according to the Telegraph. That holding facility could be storing an additional US$2.05 billion worth of idle oil. Moreover, Iran has become increasingly dependent on its own fleet of oil tankers since “One key impact of recent sanctions has been to choke off shippers’ access to maritime insurance, nearly all of which is underwritten in Europe,” according to The Washington Post.
The Philippines announced on Sunday (Monday in Manila) that it will ignore China’s fishing ban near the disputed Scarborough Shoal that is set to begin on May 16 and run through August 1. “DFA [Department of Foreign Affairs] Secretary Albert del Rosario explained the Philippines will not follow the ban because it has sovereign rights over a portion of the waters where China plans to impose the ban,” according to ABS-CBSNews.com. “However, del Rosario said the Philippines may also impose a similar ban given the depletion of marine resources in its territorial waters.”
China’s announced fishing ban comes as Filipino and Chinese vessels remain in a standoff near the Scarborough Shoal, approximately 120-natutical miles off the Philippine island Luzon. “The stand-off erupted last month after Philippine authorities detected Chinese ships fishing near the Scarborough Shoal,” the Bangkok Post reported. “The two nations have stationed non-military vessels at the shoal since April 8 in an effort to assert their sovereignty over the area.” The standoff has elicited emotional protests in Manila as well as in Beijing.
Although the Philippines announced it would not abide by China’s fishing ban, Manila expressed a desire to find a peaceful resolution to the ongoing dispute, according to reports. “Despite the pronouncement of resistance against the ban, DFA spokesperson Raul Fernandez said the Philippines is still willing to hold diplomatic talks with the Chinese government to settle the dispute, which has been running for over a month.” Moreover, according to one expert writing in the Asia Times Online, “Even as the rhetoric escalates, moves are being made for economic integration and mutual-benefit.”
Nevertheless, U.S. policymakers charged with managing tensions in the region will remain watchful of developments as they unfold. The recent spat between China and the Philippines also comes on the heels of China’s announcement last week of a technological breakthrough in deep-sea drilling, which may help put China in a position to exploit deep-sea hydrocarbons in contested areas of the South China Sea.
On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta joined Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and Senators John Warner
and Chuck Hagel in a forum on the Law of the Sea Convention hosted by the Pew
Charitable Trusts and the Atlantic Council. Secretary Panetta urged the U.S.
Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention in order to protect U.S. security
interests. “Treaty
law remains the firmest legal foundation upon which to base our global
presence, on, above, and below the seas,” Secretary Panetta said, adding “How can we argue
that other nations must abide by international rules, when we haven’t
officially accepted those rules.”
To learn more about the national security rationale for ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention, see our recent study Security at Sea.
Photo: Secretary Panetta addresses the audience of the Forum on the Law of the Sea on Wednesday, May 9, 2010. Courtesy of Glenn Fawcett and the Department of Defense.
Defense News @Defense_news: “DoD Officials Urge U.S. to Join Sea Treaty bit.ly/LhUsZr.”
Defense News reports on a forum on the Law of the Sea Convention hosted by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Atlantic Council that featured keynote addresses by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and General Martine Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who both urged the U.S. Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention in order to safeguard American interests and U.S. Armed Forces.
MIT Professor M. Taylor Fravel @fravel: “Chinese boats barring Pinoys from fishing in shoal | Philippine Starj.mp/J0qbyu.”
Dr. Fravel links to a story in the Philippine Star that reports that Chinese maritime vessels have imposed fishing restrictions on Filipino fisherman in an area approximately 120-nautical miles off the coast of the Philippine island Luzon, an area that would be considered within the Philippines’ 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
On Monday, Chinese media reported that China’s first deep-water drilling rig (developed domestically by the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corporation) will begin operations today in the South China Sea.
To date, China’s offshore oil drilling activities have been restricted to shallow waters (less than 300 meters deep) largely due to the country’s lack of technological capability to drill in deep- and ultra-deep waters. According to one report, China State Shipbuilding Corporation – the company that developed the new rig – says that China will now be able to drill to depths of between 10,000 and 12,000 meters, possibly eclipsing the record set in 2009 by the Deepwater Horizon rig that could drill to 10,683 meters.
The technological milestone is an important development in the South China Sea dispute, where competition over potentially lucrative deep-water oil and natural gas reserves has raised tensions among countries with overlapping claims in the region. China, for example, claims the entire South China Sea as its own. The deep- and ultra-deep water drilling capability will unlock reserves in deep waters, according to reports. Chinese media reports that “About 70 percent of oil and gas reserves in the resource-rich South China Sea is [sic] contained in 1.54 million square km of deep-water regions, or sea areas with depths of over 300 meters.”
A new report from Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) debunks the myth about America’s oil boom leading to energy independence.
The SAFE study, The New American Oil Boom: Implications for Energy Security, comes on the heels of recent reports that increased domestic petroleum production – made possible through technological innovations such as hydraulic fracturing, enhanced oil recovery and improvements in offshore oil production – could make the United States energy independent over the next few decades. “The nature and meaning of energy independence, however, is widely misunderstood,” the authors of the SAFE report state. “Although increased domestic oil production will have clear positive effects on the U.S. economy, it alone will not insulate America from the risks of oil dependence. This can only be accomplished by reducing the role of oil in our economy.”
The report correctly notes that while increased U.S. domestic petroleum production will have positive benefits for the U.S. economy (e.g., narrowing the U.S. trade deficit), the United States will still be vulnerable to oil price spikes since oil is a globally traded commodity with prices set by the international market. Consequently, while the United States continues to reduce its reliance on Middle East oil, U.S. security will still be tethered to developments in the Middle East given that events in the region can have immediate and lasting impacts on the price of oil, which has implications for the United States. The only solution, the authors note, is to move away from reliance on oil – that is, diversify our liquid fuel sources, particularly in the transportation sector.
Japanese officials shutdown the last of 50 nuclear reactors late Saturday evening, taking the country off of nuclear power for the first time in more than four decades. Most of Japan’s nuclear reactors will remain idle for the foreseeable future as they undergo stress tests to determine their ability to stand up against a major disaster, a measure introduced after the March 2011 triple disaster that crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant and left the country’s nuclear-power future in a tailspin.
Japanese officials remain concerned that the country could experience electricity shortages during the peak summer months without nuclear power, which previously provided approximately 30 percent of Japan’s total electricity demand. A panel of experts reported to Japanese policymakers in April that nine utilities could see electricity shortfalls in August. As a result, Japanese officials may power up two reactors during the summer in order to meet electricity demand. The Japanese Times reports that “Last month, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and key members of his Cabinet decided that firing up the No. 3 and 4 reactors at the Oi power station is essential to ensure a stable supply of electricity in the Kansai region in summertime,” even as the country continues to reduce its reliance on nuclear power. It is not clear if those two reactors will be back online by the summer.
It is always good to be reminded from time to time about why the U.S. national security establishment has a stake in how climate change manifests itself today and in the future. Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell of the Center for Climate and Security have an excellent post on their blog that provides a broad overview of why and how the U.S. security community has taken an interest in climate change that is worth reading at length.
According to Femia and Werrell:
The national security establishment in the United States, including the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence community, understand that climate change is a national security threat, and that we cannot wait for 100% certainty before acting to mitigate and adapt to its effects. But not only do they understand it, they plan for it – considering it’s implications in strategic documents like the Quadrennial Defense Review, and setting up an office within the CIA called the Center for Climate Change and National Security. But why? Why do those organs of government that the public normally associates with fighting wars, devote time and effort to an issue that is branded as hogwash by many on the right of the political spectrum, and the exclusive domain of environmental activists on the left? The simple answer: climate change is, actually, a national security threat. It’s not just a politically expedient narrative politicians use to convince those that couldn’t care less about polar bears, rainforests, or “bugs and bunnies.” It’s actually a problem worthy of attention by those whose primary job it is to protect the United States from harm. The following is a brief outline of how and why the U.S. national security community treats climate change the way it does, starting with:
- The common definition of a national security threat, and how climate change fits into that definition;
- The actual national security implications of climate change;
- Why climate change is a national security threat at least as significant as other traditional threats, such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials.
Continue reading here.
Dr. Jay Gulledge is a Senior Scientist and Director of the Science and Impacts Program at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for a New America Security. He is a co-author (with Dr. Rob Huebert) of Climate Change & National Security: The Arctic as a Bellwether, a new study published by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

Today the Center for
Climate and Energy Solutions – C2ES, formerly the Pew Center on Global Climate
Change – is releasing a new report, Climate
Change & National Security: The Arctic as a Bellwether. The lead
author of the report is Dr. Rob Huebert, Associate Director of the Centre for
Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.
Official military doctrine in the United States now holds that “climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked.” Nowhere is this linkage more clearly illustrated than in the Arctic, and that’s why we think the region is a bellwether for how climate change may reshape global geopolitics in the post-Cold War era.
As the planet has warmed over the past few decades, temperatures in the Arctic have been increasing at about twice the global rate. And the Arctic sea ice cover has been shrinking much faster than scientists anticipated. The five smallest sea ice covers ever recorded have all occurred in the past five summers. As a result, the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Archipelago has opened up every summer since 2007, and the Northeast Passage along Russia’s coastline has opened up every summer since 2008.
New and expanded shipping routes through the Arctic can cut the distance to transport goods between Asia, North America, and Europe by up to 4000 miles. We’re seeing increased interest and investment in oil and gas exploration. The United States Geological Survey estimates that 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13 percent of undiscovered oil lies in the Arctic. Russia likely possesses the largest share of any country. There’s also growing interest in tourism and fishing.
As the economic potential of the Arctic becomes more apparent, governments and militaries have begun to reposition themselves. What’s happening in the Arctic is the starkest example yet of the way climate change directly affects international security.
The U.S. Navy does not have the assets it needs to conduct long-term Arctic maritime operations and will have to increasingly rely on the U.S. Coast Guard or international partners in order to accomplish its missions, according to a Sunday report in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
According to the report, the U.S. Navy asked the U.S. Naval War College to conduct a war game in September 2011 to explore what the U.S. Navy would need to execute long-term missions in the High North. “We looked at search and rescue, oil spill response, maritime domain and maritime safety and security issues," Walter Berbrick, assistant research professor in the War Gaming Department at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. “They were all fictional scenarios.”
The war game’s conclusions, according to the report, may suggest looming challenges for America’s ability to project power and protect its interests in the Arctic. According to the report:
[T]he Navy is not adequately prepared to conduct long-term maritime Arctic operations; Arctic weather conditions increase the risk of failure; and most critically, to operate in the Arctic, the Navy will need to lean on the U.S. Coast Guard, countries like Russia or Canada, or tribal and industrial partners.
The report particularly notes the U.S. Navy’s lack of ice-capable ships. “We have limited capability to sustain long-term operations in the Arctic due to inadequate icebreaking capability," Berbrick told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. "The Navy finds itself entering a new realm as it relates to having to rely on other nations." Interestingly, the report also notes that the Navy (in large part because of its lack of ice-capable ships) will increasingly work with the U.S. Coast Guard, which has had a greater presence in the region as of late. Yet the U.S. Coast Guard’s missions in the Arctic are also undermined by its inadequate icebreaking capability – although there is renewed interest in expanding the U.S. Coast Guard’s icebreaking fleet, which now consists of one active and two inactive vessels.
There has been a lot of activity in the South China Sea
recently, and if you’re like me it is difficult to keep track of it all. Well
luckily you don’t have to! Our Asia-Pacific Security team is doing it for you.
That’s right: checkout our Flashpoints feature,
an online web portal for those studying security in the East and South China
Seas, for the latest developments in the region. I particularly recommend the
timeline feature.
Also, if you didn’t already seen it, don’t miss Patrick Cronin’s op-ed in The New York Times on Wednesday where he puts the latest Philippine-China Scarborough Shoal scuffle in perspective and recommends how U.S. policymakers should think about engaging in the region.
Photo: Courtesy of CNAS.org.
This is a new feature to highlight the top tweets of the week to hit my Twitter feed (@wmrogers).
From The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog @E2Wire: “News bites: White House to promote ‘bioeconomy’ bit.ly/JXftuf.”
The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog discusses the White House’s announced release of a new National Bioeconomy Blueprint on Thursday that is expected to make a broad push for investments in biotechnology, including renewable biofuels.
From Circle of Blue @circleofblue: “Soon, water may be more important that oil to #China @Forbessu.pr/1mAIOg #water
Circle of Blue links to a report in Forbes that discusses the growing strategic importance of water in China, driven in part by increasing demand as well as mismanagement of existing resources. According to the report, “The country’s water supply is smaller than that of the U.S., yet it must meet the needs of a population nearly five times as large. Industrialization has taken its toll on this already limited resource. Industrial and biological pollution has contaminated almost 90 percent of the underground water in Chinese cities.”
Later this morning CNAS will release a new policy brief that
explores the national security and foreign policy benefits of ratifying the Law
of the Sea Convention.
Download Security at Sea: The Case for Ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention here.
While the United States has to date protected its maritime interests without ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) – relying instead on the protections afforded by customary international law – the rise of modern navies and unconventional security threats are making this approach increasingly risky and will imperil U.S. national security interests. LOSC is the only global maritime regime that codifies longstanding maritime norms that are consistent with U.S. interests and protects the status quo. By failing to ratify LOSC, the United States forfeits its ability to shape the interpretation and execution of the convention and protect the provisions that support the existing international order, with consequences that will last for decades. Ratifying the treaty would demonstrate that the United States is serious about upholding international norms on maritime issues at a time when rising powers are challenging existing rules at sea and, as a result, American interests.
But what are those interests? How will LOSC specifically help the United States secure its access to the maritime domain, and achieve broader foreign policy and national security goals? That is the subject of Security at Sea. And while the list of benefits is extensive - and my effort to explore the benefits is by no means exhaustive - there are some specific security issues that I think will resonate with U.S. policymakers. As I argue in the policy brief, ratifying the treaty will:
While LOSC is no silver bullet – it won’t help address every challenge that the United States will confront at sea – ratifying the treaty will improve America’s ability to protect many of its global interests by providing a stronger legal foundation for its own maritime activities and helping to shape and enforce international norms and legal authorities. It is time for the U.S. Senate to ratifying LOSC and allow the United States to take advantage of the benefits that will accrue to American interests.
One of the research areas that we at CNAS have been exploring for the last several years is how the United States can make better use of satellites to enhance its understanding of the environment and the potential security consequences of environmental and climate change. In August 2010, for example, Christine Parthemore and I published a study exploring the decline of America’s Earth monitoring satellite capability and its implications for U.S. national security (See Blinded).
Our research has taken us to new areas of exploration, including how the United States can make better use of satellites to respond to natural disasters and provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR). Given that climate change could portend a future that may demand increased support from the United States to conduct HA/DR missions, it behooves national security policymakers to identify what tools and techniques the United States should have to adequately respond to future disasters.
Although not linked to climate change, tsunamis are an area that has drawn our attention as of late, especially in the wake of the March 2011 disaster in Japan. With demographic trends in Asia suggesting that more people are moving to coastal communities in seismically active regions (i.e, the Pacific Ring of Fire), more people could be vulnerable to earthquake-induced tsunamis. How should the United States think about ways to enhance its tsunami early warning system that can provide forewarning to coastal residents? NOAA’s Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) program that relies on a set of floating buoys to provide accurate readouts of tsunamis is facing budget cuts. As a result, the United States may actually be trimming back a critical capability that could be of greater demand in the future.
Could satellites offer an opportunity to enhance tsunami early warning systems that are cost effective and provide efficient notice to vulnerable communities? Potentially. Some of the existing (and interesting) proposals are still largely in research and development, so it is unclear of their costs when brought to scale, but they could potentially make good use of satellite systems to provide better information about an earthquake’s magnitude and the potential size of any tsunami generated by the seismic event – information that is critical to improving evacuation notices and determining the extent of the evacuation zone.
The South China Sea dispute is once again in the headlines, with notable developments that are raising some concerns about increased tensions in the region. On Saturday, Reuters reported that the Chinese military issued the sternest warning to date regarding U.S. military involvement in the territorial dispute, in part due to combined exercises with the Philippine military. “China's official Liberation Army Daily warned that recent jostling with the Philippines over disputed seas where both countries have sent ships could boil over into outright conflict, and laid much of the blame at Washington's door,” the Reuters report stated, adding:
‘Anyone with clear eyes saw long ago that behind these drills is reflected a mentality that will lead the South China Sea issue down a fork in the road towards military confrontation and resolution through armed force,’ said the commentary in the Chinese paper, which is the chief mouthpiece of the People's Liberation Army.
‘Through this kind of meddling and intervention, the United States will only stir up the entire South China Sea situation towards increasing chaos, and this will inevitably have a massive impact on regional peace and stability.’
On Sunday, Commander of the U.S. Marines in the Pacific Lieutenant General Duane Thiessen reiterated the United States’ defense commitment to the Philippines. In a statement to reporters on Palawan Island, Lieutenant General Thiessen said, “The United States and the Philippines have a mutual defense treaty which guarantees that we get involved in each other's defense and that is self explanatory,” according to a report by ABS-CBSNews.com.

Two years ago today the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling rig experienced a catastrophic explosion off the Louisiana coast that destroyed the rig, killed 11 people and poured an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, demanding an unprecedented response from the U.S. Coast Guard and other local, state and federal agencies. The long-term environmental impacts and effects on coastal residents and the rest of the region are still not well understood.
Photo: Fire boats respond to the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 21, 2010. Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.
For those who did not tune in last week, this is a new feature to highlight the top tweets of the week to hit my Twitter feed (@wmrogers). The list is completely subjective, of course, but I hope it is helpful to readers interested in following natural security news a little bit closer.
The American Enterprise Institute @AEI: “Global warming doesn’t rank at or near the top of issues people want the president and Congress to address ow.ly/an01c.”
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) published a compilation of polls on the environment and energy, highlighting public opinion on a range of issues, from nuclear energy, the Keystone XL pipeline to global climate change. The findings are instructive, but I don’t necessarily agree with the analysis that AEI makes about some of the issues. For example, the report notes that “Global warming doesn’t rank at or near the top of issues people want the president and Congress to address. In January 2012, 25 percent said global warming should be a top priority, ranking at the bottom in terms of top priorities.” But read another way, a quarter of Americans find that global climate change should be the top priority for U.S. policymakers. Given the litany of challenges the country faces, isn’t it still substantial that 25 percent of Americans want action taken to address climate change and consider it a top priority? Regardless, the report is worth a read and you can make up your own mind about what it all means.
MIT Professor M. Taylor Fravel @fravel: “India says oil, gas cooperation with Vietnam in the East Sea will continuej.mp/J7TcoC.”
Professor Fravel tweets that India will continue to cooperate with Vietnam to exploit energy resources in Vietnam’s East Sea (also known as the South China Sea), despite objections from China. This has been a huge source of tension recently between India and China. China objects to “outsiders” getting engaged in the South China Sea dispute – an area that China claims is its territorial sea. (To learn more, read this post I wrote in September on India’s South China Sea gambit.)
A new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) outlines for Congress the key issues around modernizing the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet. According to the author Ronald O’Rourke:
Potential issues for Congress regarding Coast Guard polar icebreaker modernization include the potential impact on U.S. polar missions of the United States currently having no operational heavy polar icebreakers; the numbers and capabilities of polar icebreakers the Coast Guard will need in the future; the disposition of Polar Sea following its decommissioning; whether the new polar icebreaker initiated in the FY23013 [sic] budget should be funded with incremental funding (as proposed in the Coast Guard’s Five Year Capital Investment Plan) or full funding in a single year, as required under the executive branch’s full funding policy; whether new polar icebreakers should be funded entirely in the Coast Guard budget, or partly or entirely in some other part of the federal budget, such as the Department of Defense (DOD) budget, the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget, or both; whether to provide future icebreaking capability through construction of new ships or service life extensions of existing polar icebreakers; and whether future polar icebreakers should be acquired through a traditional acquisition or a leasing arrangement.
The report comes on the heels of a recent request from the Coast Guard for $8 million dollars for Fiscal Year 2013 to begin the acquisitions process for a new polar-class icebreaker that the Coast Guard says it needs to perform its critical missions in the Arctic and to protect U.S. interests broadly across the region. “The $8 million request is less than 1 percent of the $860 million being asked for icebreaker acquisition in the Department of Homeland Security’s five-year budget projection,” according to a recent report from The Navy Times. “Neither of the U.S.’s two heavy-duty Polar-class icebreakers is in service. The Polar Star is awaiting a $57 million upgrade set to be finished in December. Its sister ship, Polar Sea, has been docked in Seattle since 2010 with engine issues. The medium-duty polar icebreaker Healy is designed for research and cannot cut through the thickest ice.”
To read the full CRS report, click here.
A new study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers an important reminder about the climate-energy nexus that has been largely missing from the energy conversation as of late.
There have been a lot of studies done recently on how America’s boon in domestic natural gas and oil production made possible by hydraulic fracturing can improve American energy security – specifically by reducing U.S. reliance on energy imports. Although this does little in the near term to assuage concerns about high oil prices given that oil prices are set by the international market, it does help mollify concerns about assured access to energy if the United States is increasingly relying on domestic production to supply its demand. Moreover, some studies have specifically noted that America’s abundance of natural gas could displace coal as the dominant feedstock in electricity generation, which could dramatically reduce U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since natural gas produces about half as many GHG emissions as coal.
Yet this optimism about natural gas and its climate benefits may be premature, according to a recent study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
This weekend’s news highlighted several ongoing territorial disputes across the Indo-Pacific region, from resource-rich Kashmir to the potentially hydrocarbon-rich South China Sea.
On the far West of the Indo-Pacific, The New York Times published a report on Sunday drawing attention to the Siachen Glacier and the intractable territorial dispute between Indian and Pakistan over Kashmir. The report comes on the heels of an avalanche last week that buried 138 Pakistani soldiers and civilians. “In outposts up to 22,000 feet above sea level, the temperature can plunge to 58 below, and linger there for months,” The New York Times reported. “Patrolling soldiers tumble into yawning crevasses. Frostbite chews through unprotected flesh. Blizzards blow, weapons seize up and even simple body functions become intolerable.” Indeed, what makes the Siachen Glacier noteworthy is not that it is the world’s highest battlefield, per se – it is that the conflict there is more a fight “against the mountain, not the man,” The New York Times reported.
The U.S. Coast Guard gave quiet attention to the Arctic this
week. In preparation for its largest-ever deployment to the Arctic region this
summer, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut hosted a
two-day conference on emerging security challenges in the High North. “The
time for shaping and implementing Arctic policy is now,” said Coast Guard Commander
Russ Bowman, a co-chair of the Arctic conference.
Photo: In Juneau, Alaska, a U.S. Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules airplane sits on the deck at the Alaska Army National Guard hangar after providing overflight support off the Alaskan coast. Courtesy of Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis and the U.S. Coast Guard.
This is a new feature to highlight the top tweets of the week to hit my Twitter feed (@wmrogers). The list is completely subjective, of course, but I hope it is helpful to readers interested in following natural security news a little bit closer.
From Reuters’ @alertnetclimate: “Private funding for humanitarian response on the rise, as government budgets squeezed - report ow.ly/aeinB #aid#disasters.”
This is an interesting story to follow given the potential increase in demand for governments to support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions due to climate-related and other natural disasters. Institutions like the U.S. military may be called on to support HA/DR missions in order to help dampen the impact of these natural disasters, which can have knock-on effects for security and stability.
From The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog @E2Wire: “News bites: Study questions natural gas climate benefits, pump prices may have peaked, and morebit.ly/IrIEVM.”
The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog links to a Wall Street Journal report on a new study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that challenges that assumption the natural gas reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to other fossil fuels. The study notesthat methane (CH4) leakages throughout the lifecycle production process could offset the greenhouse gas benefits. The study is very important given the recent attention to natural gas production in the United States, largely from shale rock.
A magnitude 8.6 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island today prompting the governments of India, Indonesia and Thailand to issue tsunami warnings for the region. The earthquake revived memories of the devastating magnitude 9.1 earthquake the struck the Indian Ocean in December 2004, killing an estimated 250,000 across the region.
Early reports suggested that the initial earthquake’s depth and horizontal motion lessened the likelihood of a major tsunami. However, strong aftershocks continue to stir concerns about a tsunami forming in the Indian Ocean. At 11:43 a.m. GMT (7:43 a.m. EST), a magnitude 8.3 aftershock struck the region, prompting NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center to issue a tsunami watch for the Indian Ocean. According to the warning, “Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated. It may already have been destructive along some coasts.” However, there are no reports of a major wave formation or tsunami event at the time of this writing.
Today’s Indian Ocean earthquake is a reminder of the importance of NOAA’s tsunami early warning systems, which are largely unrecognized national security assets. The constellation of buoys around the Pacific Rim and in the Indian Ocean measure changes in wave height that alert experts in Hawaii and Alaska about potential tsunamis forming in the wake of major earthquakes. The information is critical to predicting the size of tsunamis and forewarning coastal communities about when the waves may strike land. The system may seem unremarkable, but it is a critical capability that bolsters coastal states’ resiliency to potentially devastating tsunamis, giving communities ringing the coast time to evacuate and hopefully dampening the impact of these catastrophic events, which can have destabilizing knock-on effects. Despite the tragic loss of life, the tsunami early warning system proved critical in warning Japanese residents after last March’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami disasters, giving some residents time to evacuate. They also warned U.S. West Coast residents to evacuate vulnerable waterfront property.
Saleem Ali of the University of Vermont and author of Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future had a terrific piece in National Geographic Magazine on April 7 exploring the opportunities to transform the Siachen Glacier – the world’s highest battlefield – into an environmental peace park that could pay significant dividends for stability between Pakistan and India. Here is an excerpt of his article:
The death of over a hundred Pakistani soldiers due to an avalanche on April 7 has brought forth the forgotten frozen frontiers of Siachen in the news cycle. This is the world’s highest battlefield where more die of hypothermia than of battle wounds and yet no end is in sight for this senseless conflict. Seven years ago, I wrote an article for India’s Sanctuary Asia magazine on how to quell this conflict using ecological approaches. This was a very practical solution modeled after the Antarctic treaty, which erstwhile adversaries such as the United States and the Soviet Union signed at the height of the Cold War. As the world’s longest non-polar glacier, Siachen has particular importance for science and since this region is not habitable by humans, there is little value in terms of useful real-estate. In the age of military drones and cyber warfare, coupled with a massive nuclear deterrent, the strategic value of Siachen is also very limited. This is the most hostile border to cross and is clearly not on the priority list for terrorist infiltration! Contrary to popular opinion in both India and Pakistan, incursions such as the Kargil episode also have no connection to strategic advantage over Siachen. Even if troop deployments now extend across the full range, such deployments are malleable and the cooperative monitoring system proposed in various peace plans could easily assuage concerns of security on both sides.