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There has been a

approach."2 The consequence is that a diverse

Introduction

set of new problems and goals is entering secu-

conscious shift

rity discourse, and a whole range of social

from a limited,

issues that were previously limited to the civil-

In 2015 the United States invades Brazil

largely military,

ian sphere is increasingly falling under the

to put an end to logging in the rainforests. In

purview of the U.S. military. That develop-

2020 war breaks out in Western Africa as peo-

sense of "security"

ment is troubling for numerous reasons.

ple vie for arable land in the face of a rapidly

to one that

Since the policies resulting from this shift

encroaching desert, and the United States

in thinking have lain, by and large, on the

and its NATO allies intervene to prevent a

encompasses all

periphery of grand strategy, they have been

wider war. By 2022 the U.S. military is run-

manner of

subject to little public oversight and have

ning domestic and overseas poverty reduc-

"threats," ranging

been formulated very gradually. Although

tion and population control schemes and

the shift started in the academic community

dominates a global environmental surveil-

from environmen-

in the 1970s, it was only in the 1990s that it

lance network. Implausible? Not necessarily,

tal degradation to

took hold in the policy world. In 1990 then-

if current trends in U.S. security policy con-

poverty and from

senator Al Gore put environmental degrada-

tinue unabated.

tion on the national security agenda when he

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in

overpopulation

wrote that environmental neglect "threatens

1991, policymakers have struggled to redefine

to ethnic tensions.

not only the quality of life, but life itself. The

the security interests of the United States.

global environment has thus become an

With the overriding threat of the previous half

issue of national security."3 In the same year,

century no longer in existence, America has

had to take a new look at where threats to its

the Strategic Environmental Research and

security may occur, and how best to deal with

Development Program was initiated by Gore

them. While debate rages over what to do

and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) with the aim of

about the proliferation of weapons of mass

redirecting military resources toward "devel-

destruction, how to redefine America's strate-

oping and analyzing the data needed for

alerting us to possible security threats."4 As

gic relationships, and whether we need a

national missile defense system, more subtle

Nunn put it in his speech before approval of

changes in security policy thinking are taking

the initiative:

place in the background.

The concept of security has been expand-

I am persuaded that there is also a

ing gradually. In the past, "security," although

new and different threat to our

never rigorously defined, in practice usually

national security emerging--the

meant what Stephen Walt, in his classic defin-

destruction of our environment. The

ition, refers to as decisions involving "the

defense establishment has a clear

threat, use, and control of military force."1

stake in countering this growing

threat. I believe that one of our key

During the Cold War, that understanding of

national security objectives must be

security led to a policy of containing the Soviet

to reverse the accelerating pace of

Union through nuclear and conventional

environmental destruction around

deterrence strategies. In recent years, however,

the globe.5

there has been a conscious shift from a limit-

ed, largely military, sense of "security" to one

that encompasses all manner of "threats,"

Since that time, it has become standard

ranging from environmental degradation to

for security policy documents to cite social

poverty and from overpopulation to ethnic

issues as threats to American national securi-

tensions. New issues are continually being

ty. Environmental degradation is mentioned

classified as security issues or threats to

in almost all National Security Strategy docu-

national security in what one commentator

ments put out by the White House since

has referred to as "an additive `laundry list'

1991. In 1996 President Clinton introduced

2