Can the Military Fight Climate Change?

“If we believe the old adage ‘out of crisis, comes opportunity,’ the opportunity has never been greater.” This statement in Sherri Goodman’s “Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security” epitomizes the author’s approach to dealing with a key challenge to security in the 21st century: the impacts of climate change. The book offers both a chronological narrative of Goodman’s professional experience and a summation of her assessment of how the world’s changing climate will require reshaping the United States’s approach to national security. Goodman started as the deputy undersecretary of defense for environmental security for almost eight years in the 1990s. She describes how that experience launched over 30 years of leadership in environment, energy, climate, and the Arctic. Her account mixes storytelling, climate security research, and myriad lessons from the leaders she has collaborated with throughout her career. Her combination of personal narrative and lessons learned along the way makes “Threat Multiplier” a thought-provoking and enjoyable read.

Over the years, many observers have argued that climate change is a distraction or detraction from the Department of Defense’s core mission—to deter conflict and fight and win wars if necessary. Most recently this includes Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in a memorandum to Pentagon leadership. Goodman has been a leading opponent of this position and has given example upon example from senior military officers and civilians showing the connection between climate and security. I challenge anyone to read “Threat Multiplier” and remain skeptical that militaries around the world need to think about climate change.

This book explores “climate security”—how a changing climate affects national security, international security, and human security. This includes vulnerabilities to Defense Department bases, airfields, and ports from hazards such as drought, extreme storms, wildfires, flooding, and permafrost thaw. Operationally, climate change also affects military operations around the world as countries may face a spectrum of unrest, violence, political instability, and conflict. In 2006, Goodman organized a group of generals and admirals to investigate the security implications of climate change. Synthesizing and communicating their efforts at the time, Goodman coined the term “threat multiplier” in a groundbreaking report. The framework endures today as the way the national security community and broader audiences alike can grasp how climate change affects a range of destabilizing threats—hence the title of her book.

Science, Uncertainty, and Risk

The U.S. national security apparatus places great emphasis on calculating risks in decision-making. Within the Defense Department, one key tool for this is the Joint Risk Analysis Methodology, which is meant to capture risk to force, risk to mission, and risks over time—answering the questions of “risk to what” and “risk to whom.” Yet the crucial challenge for every leader is planning and operating without full knowledge of risks. Goodman pushes back against a broad narrative that inexplicably holds climate risks to a higher standard. Climate scientists face a politicized audience where the scientific evidence of how the world is warming is intentionally convoluted with proving the human causes. By questioning what scientists know, policymakers can stall regulations that incentivize changes to minimize the impacts of climate change.

Security experts can join the “we need to know more” narrative to defer giving attention to climate risk. Goodman’s response to this is no, and yes. No—we do not need to know more to already see many implications of climate change for national security. Goodman’s book provides many anecdotes showing these connections—from the homeland, to the Arctic, to regions around the globe. For example, U.S. territories, freely associated states, and critical partners in the Pacific are facing rising seas, ocean acidification, and threats to freshwater resources. Thus, the more important answer is: Yes—we need to know a lot more about the many ways that climate change affects national security so that we are prepared to fight and win tomorrow’s wars.

“Threat Multiplier” relies not only on Goodman’s insights but also on observations from four-star combatant commanders when they realized the increasing risks of operational instability created by the changing climate. Marine Corps Gen. Tony Zinni observed that “climate change is a ‘petri dish for terrorism’” because it creates social instability that encourages radicalization of young people. As the commander of U.S. Central Command between 1997 and 2000, he witnessed this phenomenon from Iraq to Somalia. 

For militaries, as for some other organizations, operations happen in the “fog of war.” To conduct a mission, there is information we have, information we need to have, information we would like to have, and the unforeseen factors that mission commanders do not know to ask about. The takeaway for today’s leaders is to move relevant environmental intelligence from the “factors commanders do not consider” into the “information we have” category. The information is available, but commanders need to ask for it because it is not mainstreamed into planning processes yet.

Although the U.S. military has a global presence, the majority of U.S. forces are still within the homeland ready to be deployed. For this reason, Goodman emphasizes that “climate readiness is mission readiness.” She points to the critical initial phase of warfighting—that the bases within the United States need to be resilient enough to forward deploy forces at a moment’s notice. For this reason, risks to homeland bases translate to diminished readiness. If bases at home are not resilient, missions abroad will be hindered. Information about improving resilience at home is available and operationally critical.

Risk and uncertainty can be reduced. Goodman recommends improving climate prediction and adapting to manage the unavoidable impacts of climate change. This includes gathering and incorporating environmental data into operations as well as into built and natural resilience projects. To do all of this, more physical and social research is required to invest effectively. While these may appear to be a step removed from warfighting—we are more ready to fight and win by improving resilience.

Strategy, Policy, and Budget

Goodman’s goal is to “climate-proof security.” This approach takes a holistic view of a climate-resilient future—from protecting installations, to dramatically improving energy efficiency, to collaborating with allies and partners. However, the U.S. would need fundamental changes in strategy, policy, and budget. Goodman’s Defense Department  environmental leadership gives her a unique perspective on this.

One problem with addressing climate is the misperception that it is a “future problem,” which diminishes the sense of urgency. Goodman was mentored by military leaders from whom she learned how hard it is to implement a strategy to address any problem, lamenting that “a carefully constructed national defense strategy can be overturned by real world events.” Her task of dealing with post-Cold War environmental cleanup was given a low priority at the Defense Department—constantly competing with and typically losing to the priority of the moment. This lack of urgency remains a major obstacle to dealing with climate change today and the failure to strategize accordingly.

Preparing for the various impacts of climate change needs not only strategy but also policies, programs, and budgeteers to make it work. For years I have shared my favorite Sherri Goodman quote with anyone who will listen: “A strategy without validated funding (i.e. budget) is hallucination.” Evidently this is one more lesson from a senior officer, Vice Adm. Joe Lopez, who had been the Navy’s budget chief. Speaking at Princeton University in 1989, Colin Powell said, “Show me your budgets and I will tell you what your strategy is.” Funding both signals a policy’s importance and provides the means for action. The Defense Department budget does not reflect a strategy for dealing with climate change.

The department has made some progress over the past six years. The Defense Extreme Conditions Assessment Tool analyzes all-hazard indicators for water, energy, and weather exposure. After developing this tool domestically, the U.S. expanded it to analyze overseas bases and then shared it as a security cooperation tool. This is one example of success. Goodman argues for more means to “climate-proof security” because the overall lack of strategy, policy, and budget will not achieve mission assurance within a climate-altered world. 

What This Book Is and What It Is Not

This book is biographical and anecdotal—an easy read for those looking to orient themselves to the issue from one of the earliest experts on the topic of climate security. The book is not a scholarly treatise, a legal analysis, or an exploration of security theory. It captures decades of progress and was published at a time that coincided with the Biden administration’s climate security focus.

Goodman’s book reflects the development of the climate security field within the system of global alliances and partnerships and U.S. government bureaucracy at the time. Her leadership in and out of the government built on this system. It relies on assumptions about international engagement, resilience-building, capacity-building, and mil-to-mil and civ-to-mil engagement. As a political scientist, I ask if the political systems as they are currently structured are “fit for purpose?” And if they are not, then what needs to change?

At the start of the second Trump administration, both the international and domestic governance structures are in flux. Political systems are at a moment of reformation. However, while the path is not clear for the international and national political systems, the physical earth system will continue the warming trend. The question is: What is next for the intersection of climate change and security, given the rapidly changing world order? Goodman provided details on the current tools available and set the first brick for what is to come.

As the world warms, what are the next questions the Department of Defense needs to address? For example, Goodman asks what do we do when climate change or climate-related action becomes a pretext for foreign military intervention? For example, could a malign actor take advantage of a climate vulnerability or negotiate a resource grab based on development, humanitarian, or security cooperation pretexts. Goodman also asks what a climate-altered environment may mean at the operational and tactical levels of war? This book sets the stage for future investigations into the connections between climate change and security.

One thing is certain. Goodman has built a legacy of advancing the dialogue on the range of climate change impacts to international peace and security. While the U.S. policy arc of “climate security” may be at a lull, the inevitability of this security issue now and into the future will necessitate a return to this focus. And with Goodman’s constant perspective of seeing the opportunities, we are all poised to take the next steps of climate security cooperation.

– Andrea H. Cameron is a permanent military professor teaching policy analysis in the National Security Affairs Department and the founding director of the Conflict and Human Security Studies Group at the Naval War College. Published courtesy of Lawfare.