The Environment as a Security Issue

Environmental degradation has been a central issue in the reinterpretation and redefinition o f security.5 Richard Falk’s (1971) This Endangered Planet is a landmark in the literature that links environmental issues to security. Falk did not coin the phrase ‘environmental security’, but he established many themes central to the subsequent literature. His basic point was that the international political system is unable to come to grips with environmental degradation as a security problem; for example: “specialists in foreign policy or world affairs still seem oblivious to the relevance o f environmental hazard to their professional concern with the management o f national pow er” (1971: 181).

A particularly insightful passage from Falk begins by stating that “there is at yet no firm evidence that human nature is violent by genetic disposition” (Falk

1971: 59). It then goes on to describe the relationship between resource scarcity and violence as being one o f the m obilisation o f the already powerful to defend against those who have less power:

(U)nder world conditions o f insufficient resources to satisfy total demand there is a natural tendency for those with less to seek a larger share. This tendency induces those with a larger share to organise their defences against those with less and to use their superiority to obtain still more. The rich get richer, the powerful grow more so (Falk 1971: 59).

5 It could be argued - via a definition of environmental security as a biosphere free from anthropogenic disturbances - that earlier environmental texts were implicitly about environmental security; Carson’s (1962) Silent Spring would certainly qualify in this respect. However, what is being considered here is that literature which explicitly links environmental problems to the concept of security.

So, for Falk, the powerful are likely to deploy the means of violence to maintain their power in the face of increasing calls for justice. This can be understood as counterrevolution (see Marcuse 1972). This argument is also made by Ophuls (1977). The implication is that responsibility for violent behaviour, and conversely for finding peaceful solutions, rests primarily with the already wealthy and

powerful.

Falk is not immune to the idea that engendering a sense of urgency about environmental problems is necessary to induce change. However, he is sensitive to the presentation of problems in the language of ‘crisis’, arguing that “the great danger of an apocalyptic argument is that to the extent that it persuades, it also immobilizes” (1971: 5). This is an observation of relevance for the notion of environmental security, which has a tendency to present environmental problems as an apocalypse and a ‘coming anarchy’ - bringing disease, pestilence, famine and warfare (Kaplan 1994). This kind of approach arguably does little to stimulate constructive and positive engagement on the substantive problems at hand, particularly their causes. A question emerges, then, about the politics of discourse. This pre-empts the larger debate, discussed later, of whether addressing

environmental problems in terms of security is a desirable strategy.

This Endangered Planet also recognises that a parochial national emphasis restricts attention to localised environmental impacts. Falk argues that this ignores the role of the nation in generating global environmental degradation, and

marginalises awareness of global responsibilities.6 In this way a state-centric focus limits action to local adaptive measures, rather than stimulating more widespread and globally-oriented restructuring. As the speech performance which delineates the national from the global, security discourse is fundamentally implicated in these denials and emphasis shifts. Falk identifies these concerns in his response to the 1970 (U.S.) State of the Union Address:

(N)ote that the definition of environmental problems continues to emphasise its domestic character and its sharp separation from concerns about

population pressure, resource depletion, and the war system. Nothing in the recent flourishes of public concern express the realisation that we need to revamp our entire concept o f ‘national security’ and ‘economic growth’ if we are to solve the problems of environmental decay. (Falk 1971: 185). A further passages stresses the point:

A prevalent misconception persists that national efforts, if sufficient, will guard the environment. The misconception arises from the failure to

6 As we shall see in chapter 7, the converse - that global processes threaten national security - also leads to a denial of a nation’s global responsibilities.

appreciate the actualities of interdependence: what we do needs to be coordinated with what others do... (Falk 1971: 196)

Also written in 1971 was Harold and Margaret Sprout’s Toward a Politics o f the Planet Earth (1971). Like Falk, the Sprouts saw the degradation of the environment as a major problem that requires a rethink of the state and national security. The Sprouts were concerned with the way interdependence, including issues of transboundary pollution, presented problems that were “becoming increasingly resistant to military solutions” (1971: 406).

Another early publication that explored the links between environmental degradation and security is Brown’s Redefining National Security (1977.) The title suggests that Brown remains captured by the ‘national’ component of security, however an underlying intent of the paper is to problematise national security practices:

In a world that is not only ecologically interdependent but economically and politically interdependent as well, the concept o f ‘national’ security is no longer adequate... Neither individual security nor national security can be sensibly considered in isolation. In effect, the traditional military concept of ‘national security’ is growing ever less adequate (Brown 1977: 40-41). Brown talks specifically in terms o f ‘the deterioration of biophysical systems’, and he identifies four systems under stress, fisheries, grasslands, forests and croplands. He also discusses the problem of climate modification, and he relates these to food security. Very little of this discussion talks in terms of the potential of environmental degradation to cause conflict, although this is given some consideration in the conclusions. The paper’s main contribution is a cogent overview of the social processes that pressure biophysical systems, their physical responses, and the resulting implications for human welfare. Brown’s paper should have provided policy makers and security analysts with an excellent background to the ecological dimensions of security, and its implications should have lead to a set of responses that took these causes and effects seriously. However, both the literature and the policy (see chapter 7) rarely demonstrate the same degree of awareness.

Brown considers that militaries are incapable of meeting the challenges posed to human well-being by the deterioration of biophysical systems:

National defense establishments are useless against these new threats. Neither bloated military budgets nor highly sophisticated weapons systems can halt deforestation or solve the firewood crisis now affecting so many Third World countries. (Brown 1977: 37)

Brown therefore m akes the reasonable suggestion that disarmament and budgetary

*7

reallocations are important initiatives for resolving environmental degradation. A year before this, O ’Riordan made a similar observation, saying that the scale o f military expenditure is worth focusing on because “it exemplifies the willingness to waste valuable resources and to destroy large areas o f ecological value in the interest o f security” (O ’Riordan 1976: 22).

In 1983 two im portant works were published on the subject o f environm ent and security. The first edition o f Buzan’s People, States and Fear was a sweeping discussion o f security, and it made passing reference to environmental degradation as a national security issue (Buzan 1983 - see note 2). A more influential work (at the time and in term s o f environmental security) was U llm an’s Redefining Security

(Ullman 1983). The principal contribution o f U llm an’s widely cited paper is the definition o f a national security threat as anything which can quickly degrade the quality o f life o f the inhabitants o f a state, or which narrows the choices available to people and organisations within the state. In many ways U llm an’s paper stands at the watershed o f contem porary environmental security studies. It carries with it murmurings o f peace and human security, yet it introduces an uncritical message o f coming conflict which was has since been a key theme o f the literature.

Redefining Security is notable for its crude discussion o f ‘Third W orld’ poverty as an engine for armed conflict and illegal immigration. Ullman suggests that environmental degradation is “likely to make Third World governments more militarily confrontational in their relations with the advanced, industrialised nations” (1983: 142 - my emphasis). The imagery in Redefining Security is provocative and ethnocentric, for example: “the image o f islands o f affluence amidst a sea o f poverty is not an inaccurate one”, and “the pressure engendered by population growth in the Third World is bound to degrade the quality o f life, and diminish the range o f options available, to governments and persons in the rich countries” (Ullman 1983: 143). This reference to islands o f affluence is indeed inaccurate, if for no other reason that this is a speculative observation about the future. It may become ‘accurate’ only in so far as this imagery contributes to a defensive W estern disposition which reifies the theory (as we shall see in chapters

7 Another Worldwatch publication, by Deudney in 1983, made considerable inroads into the myriad of connections between military activity, nuclear weapons, ecological interdependence and human survival; Hardin’s ‘lifeboat ethics’ is a key theme. This is an important precursor to Deudney’s later contributions to the literature.

6 and 7 it has). Further, the assumption that deprived ‘Third World governments’ may be ‘more militarily confrontational’ is notable. The possibility that they might seek to resist and engage for their betterment through non-violent means is not countenanced.

Ullman argues that “conflict over resources is likely to grow more intense” (Ullman 1983: 139). Lost in the analysis, however, is consideration of who will initiate this conflict. As Falk suggests, it may not be the poor who resort to force of arms (see above). Ullman is concerned with national security and threats to U.S. interests. These are identified as coming from the “outside” in the form of disrupted access to essential resources, and proxy wars (Ullman 1983: 140). To the list of traditional threats Ullman also adds the possibility of illegal immigration by environmental refugees (now a popular concern). So, Ullman views the problems industrialising countries face as problems only in as much as they might endanger the quality of life for the governments and inhabitants of industrialised countries. Little concern is paid to the problems that are experienced in these Other places, problems which are surely of concern in and of themselves. Because Ullman’s paper is very much framed in terms of national security, it appeals to Realist security discourse. These early analytical closures have been subsequently rewritten throughout much of the environmental security literature.

In 1986 Myers explicitly argued for the incorporation of environmental issues into security thinking. Myers claims to have been talking about

environmental security as early as 1984 when he was a “senior adviser” to the World Commission on Environment and Development process (Myers 1996: 5-6). Myers has consistently argued that environmental degradation will induce violent conflict, for example:

If a nation’s environmental foundations are depleted, its economy will steadily decline, its social fabric deteriorate, and its political structure become destabilized. The outcome is all too likely to be conflict, whether conflict in the form of disorder and insurrection within the nation, or tensions and hostilities with other nations (Myers 1986: 251).

This concern has been the most influential. In his 1986 paper Myers considers food shortages, fisheries depletion, water scarcity, climate change and

deforestation to be issues likely to induce conflict. Environmental refugees also figure prominently, and he focuses solely on industrialising countries.8 Despite the assertion that in many cases “the linkages [to conflict] are readily apparent”, the

8 For a more reasoned analysis of environmental refugees see Fell (1996), Jacobson (1988,