(Climate change in Africa: Sandstorm near Dollo Ado, Somalia region, Ethiopia. Photo by Shutterstock)
by MAJ Isra Pananon Weeks
The recently released National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy elevate climate change as a key issue and “existential threat” that our military forces need to manage and mitigate. According to the recent World Bank Groundswell report, Sub-Saharan Africa could see as many as 85.7 million internal climate migrants in the year 2050.[1] Human migration poses a significant threat to our interests and security in the region, in addition to violent extremism, authoritarianism and corruption, food and water scarcity, and other climate induced effects that are ongoing in the region. It will also critically impact infrastructure, governance, and freedom of maneuver. While we, as the Joint Force, cannot solve climate change, we can strategize to mitigate the effects of climate change on our interests and our partners. This piece will discuss why this is of strategic importance to the United States Government (USG), present operational and environmental considerations in the Horn of Africa and outline potential short- and long-term solutions towards the goal of bolstering climate security through a military response.
The Horn of Africa: A Diverse and Promising Region Ripe with Tension
While the Horn of is rich with diversity, ethnicities, landscapes, and cultures, it is a challenging operating environment for military professionals and most certainly, Civil Affairs (CA) professionals in the context of climate change impacts. Currently, there are active conflicts as a result of violent extremist organizations and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Ethiopia. Although a recent cease-fire was agreed to, both sides in the Tigray conflict are accused of human atrocities that include forced starvation, gender-based violence, and increased drone attacks resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties, and a huge mobilization of military forces and equipment in the area.[2] This conflict is not new; there is a longstanding relationship between environmental conditions and conflict. “After the drought of 1973, social and environmental systems went from crisis to chaos. The result of this sequence was a national revolution. Thus, environmental and social degradation created the climate that was conducive to conflict.”[3]
Another challenging aspect of the Horn is competition for resources as a result of climate change and conflict. Drought is affecting livestock, trade, and food supply, which is the livelihood of this region. Most concerning is the level of human migration in the region. The Horn is home to anywhere from 3 to 4.6 million refugees[4] and 18.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).[5] This is potentially the most challenging aspect of climate security as the human factor can limit the range of military responses and can create many risks for joint and international forces. There are few manuals and doctrine that address operational considerations, however, a Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) manual from 2012 suggests that there are specific operational considerations when managing a situation with refugees and IDPs. These risks and concerns include preventing disease, payment and funding of operations and camps, supply and distribution of medical supplies (Class VIII), establishment of collection points and transportation, compliance with legal statutes and authorities, and managing the wide variety of crimes and abuses that can occur as a result of intense migration and displacement.[6]
Why Climate Security in the Horn is of Interest to Us
“Africa is poised to become one of the world’s most important economic regions. When the 54-country African Continental Free Trade Area is fully implemented, it will comprise the fifth-largest economic bloc in the world, representing a huge source of jobs, consumers, innovation, and power to shape the global economy.”[7] — Secretary Anthony Blinken
Our interest in the Horn is as diverse as the region itself. Outside of the obvious geographical location adjacent to the Red Sea, the following reasons are why we’ve invested in the Horn and should care about climate security in this region: U.S. values and responsibility, deterrence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and attempting to reduce future cost as climate impacts worsen. The U.S. has always positioned itself as world leader in the international community and views itself as the arbiter of the international system. Our traditional role is as follows: global leadership, defense and promotion of the liberal international order, defense and promotion of freedom, democracy, and human rights, and prevention of the emergence of regional hegemons in Eurasia.[8] This responsibility drives us to assist those most impacted by climate change, ensuring that the Horn doesn’t deteriorate into vulnerable status.
The PRC is making considerable investments in the Horn in the form of basing and infrastructure. Simply put, the Chinese government is interested in Africa’s natural resources and wants to increase its geopolitical influence overall.[9] If the USG doesn’t maintain the Horn and other regions within the continent, the PRC is poised to make further investments. Secondly, if conflict with PRC occurs in 2030 or beyond, the U.S. will be challenged by simultaneous military operations and conflicts. In order to be successful in a future large-scale combat operation (LSCO), we must prevent terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab and ISIS-Somalia from further proliferating in the Horn so that we can mass combat power elsewhere.
Lastly, the USG is also making considerable investments in the Horn by providing COVID vaccines, building infrastructure, and executing training exercises with our African partners. “From 2000-2020, Africa represented approximately 1 percent of total U.S. investment positions abroad, totaling under $48 billion in 2020.”[10] With the potential impacts of climate change, the cost could be much higher in 2030 and beyond.
Thwarting the impacts of climate change and increasing climate security in this region means protecting Americans from proliferating diseases. It also means protecting economic interests as U.S. trade with Africa in 2021 totaled $83.6 billion,[11] and is expected to grow as U.S. businesses have committed to investing in innovation and entrepreneurship in areas of health, clean energy, technology, agriculture, water, and other fields. Climate security ensures that countries in the Horn and elsewhere in the continent can continue to grow, thrive, and exert effective governance free from conflict exacerbated by climate challenges.
This Isn’t a Win-Lose Issue: Climate Impacts are Complex, Unpredictable, and a Threat Multiplier
There isn’t a solo solution to combating climate change, bolstering climate security, and protecting our interests. There are multiple strategies and ways to think about how the military can respond to this longer-term issue. The first one is a review of our doctrine as it relates to climate change and security. Most of our written strategies address building renewable infrastructure and ensuring an adequate mix of energy sources. What we need is the operational answer. How do the effects of climate change impact how we operate? What are best practices for operating in an environment with millions of refugees, internally displaced persons, and migrants? How does extreme heat, drought, or disease impact stability operations? It is worth answering these questions and analyzing mass human migration through the lens of populace and resources control and civil security.
Interoperability will be key to solving this issue, which is a concept that is prevalent in joint doctrine. The Civil Military Operations Center is a structure that should be brought to life as a permanent task force, or at the very least, a planning construct. This “Climate and Conflict Stabilization Team” or task force should house Army, Marine, and Air Force assets in the fields of civil affairs, information operations, psychological operations, public affairs, logistics, and medical, with specialties in weather, governance, social work, and humanitarian aid and disaster response. This task force could also include nongovernmental and intergovernmental partners (NGOs and IGOs) as enduring members because climate security requires different operational perspectives, and the military cannot solve this problem alone.
NGOs and IGOs have been operating in the Horn and have expertise on food distribution and migration, which is extremely valuable for humanitarian aid operations. While there are persistent issues preventing military entities from maximizing partnership with NGOs/IGOs, there are many practical ways to improve the working relationship. To create role clarity, military professionals can consistently brief relief agencies and organizations on capabilities, limits, culture, and procedures.[12] The joint force can also support close working relationships between commands and NGOs before crisis occurs. This could come in the form of a climate and conflict team as mentioned, or as a formal partnership with a combatant command. The key is to co-develop strategy, establish communication norms, and better understand the cultures of different organizations.
Lastly, few international partners have voiced interest and concern about climate security from a military perspective, thus its pertinent that we consult with partners like France, Australia, England, and Canada to tackle climate security to better understand geographical concerns.
These are only a few perspectives to think about as military operators and planners. Although we can try to alleviate this problem set through planning and culling together expertise, the main challenge is predictability of climate related incidents and the interplay of all the effects. What we do know, however, is that future catastrophic events will further exacerbate current challenges in the operating environment, and will come with a financial cost to the U.S.
We Have the Tools We Need and National Will
Climate security in the Horn of Africa means that the USG – by unity of effort with partner nations, IGOs, NGOs, and civil society – mitigated failed and fragile states, prevented genocide, protected U.S. interests in the region, while promoting American values and democracy. We have expertise, resources, and funds to get ahead of this issue and fulfill the strategies set by senior government officials and leaders. Our current solution set of security cooperation activities are helping Horn nations in the short term by maintaining stability through public health initiatives, infrastructure projects, and joint exercises. Knowing what lies ahead, we will benefit from concentrating on long term planning and integrating our partners as this challenge is too great for the joint force to tackle this independently.
As tactical CA practitioners, we can incorporate a climate security lens to reconnaissance and engagement missions and to the analysis of the operational environment. Similar to other complex problems and missions, building relationships and trust with the local populace and NGO/IGO partners is a necessity. Once trust is established, we can ask deeper questions about resource competition, infrastructure challenges, and social concerns. CA teams are skilled at fact finding and establishing a common operating picture and could go one step further in mapping linkages and relationships between climate induced events and challenges in the operating environment. Taking this climate focused link analysis and comparing it to historical events is one way to build a historical archive and capture best practices. These analyses and lessons learned could also be incorporated into country plans and shared with interagency partners.
Another actionable item at the tactical level is to incorporate climate related scenarios into exercises. Scenarios could reflect supply staging and distribution, managing security and the flow of IDPs and refugees, working with military government specialists to simulate the construction, maintenance and monitoring of key infrastructure, protecting livestock and agriculture, and providing real-time information and analysis that advises transitional governance strategies and policies.
There are current and feasible short-and-long term actions that can be operationalized to bolster climate security in a region that is already fragile and experiencing climate impacts. These actions will further our discipline as CA officers, give us an additional problem-solving lens and tools, and maintain stability in times of climate crises.
About the Author
Isra Pananon Weeks, MPA, LMSW is a nonprofit executive and U.S. Army Reserve Civil Affairs Officer with experience in climate, conservation, and gender issues. Prior to the nonprofit sector, she worked at the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. House of Representatives. She recently attained her second master's degree in social work and is licensed in the State of New York.
Disclaimer
The opinions, conclusions and recommendations expressed or implied above are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of any organization or any entity of the U.S. government.
END NOTES
[1]Clement, Viviane, Kanta Kumari Rigaud, Alex de Sherbinin, Bryan Jones, Susana Adamo, Jacob Schewe, Nian Sadiq, and Elham Shabahat. 2021. Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Climate Migration. Washington, DC: The World Bank
[2] United Nations, Statement by Alice Wairimu Nderitu, Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, condemning the recent escalation of fighting in Ethiopia, press release, October 19, 2022, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/SA-Statement-on-Ethiopia.pdf
[3]Lanz, Tobias J. “Environmental Degradation and Social Conflict in the Northern Highlands of Ethiopia: The Case of Tigray and Wollo Provinces.” Africa Today 43, no. 2 (1996): 157–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4187094.
[4]Bechmann, Ingrid, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2022, October 18). Providing water, food and shelter for people displaced on the Horn of Africa, https://www.unhcr.org/neu/86727-providing-water-food-and-shelter-for-people-displaced-on-the-horn-of-africa.html#:~:text=As%20a%20result%2C%20an%20estimated,and%20Somalia%20are%20acutely%20malnourished
[5]European Union. (2019). Emergency Trust Fund for Africa: Horn of Africa Region, https://globalcompactrefugees.org/sites/default/files/2020-07/Pioneering%20the%20Global%20Compact%20on%20Refugees%20in%20the%20Horn%20of%20Africa%20Factsheet%202019.pdf
[6]Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL). Commander’s Guide to Supporting Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. (2012). https://call2.army.mil/toc.aspx?document=6985& filename=/docs/doc6985/12-21.pdf
[7]U.S. Department of State, “The United States and Africa: Building a 21st Century Partnership” (Economic Community Of West African States, Abuja, Nigeria, November 19, 2021) [8]O’Rourke, Ronald. U.S. Role in the World: Background and Issues for Congress. CRS Report No. R44891. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2019. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R44891.pdf
[9]Chinese Engagement in Africa: Drivers, Reactions, and Implications for U.S. Policy, by Larry Hanauer, and Lyle J. Morris, RR-521-OSD, 2014 (available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR521.html). [10]Morgan, Stephen, Jarrad Farris, and Michael E. Johnson, October 2022. Foreign Direct Investment in Africa: Recent Trends Leading up to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Number EIB-242, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
[11] The White House. FACT SHEET: U.S.- Africa Partnership in Promoting Two-Way Trade and Investment in Africa, December 14, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/12/14/fact-sheet-u-s-africa-partnership-in-promoting-two-way-trade-and-investment-in-africa/#:~:text=Since%202021%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Government,Africa%20valued%20at%20%248.6%20billion.
[12]Byman, Daniel, Ian O. Lesser, Bruce R. Pirnie, Cheryl Benard, and Matthew Waxman, Strengthening the Partnership: Improving Military Coordination with Relief Agencies and Allies in Humanitarian Operations. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2000. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1185.html. Also available in print form.