Taking Stock of the Situation: NATO

Abstract

This chapter first provides an overview of NATO’s current posture toward climate security risk, surveying the history of NATO’s institutional transformation, its current environmental policies, and its previous engagement and activities concerning the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the Arctic. The chapter then discusses two recent foresight efforts conducted by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT): The Strategic Foresight Analysis (SFA) and the subsequent Framework for Future Alliance Operations (FFAO). I discuss the relationship between these two efforts, as well as their outcomes. In particular, I identify three Instability Situations that will serve as the basis for analysis in subsequent chapters. I conclude the chapter with a critique of the common characteristics among these scenarios, and a discussion of how each one compares to its counterpart in the core conclusions of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers. In so doing, I establish why the NATO ACT Instability Situations serve as a reasonable proxy for the perspective of NATO Headquarters with respect to the security consequences anticipated to result from climate change.

Introduction

This chapter first provides an overview of NATO’s current posture toward climate security risk, surveying the history of NATO’s institutional transformation, its current environmental policies, and its previous engagement and activities concerning the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the Arctic. Looking at the history of NATO, the record suggests that large-scale institutional change and transformation comes only when NATO is confronted by dramatic events; otherwise change at NATO is achieved incrementally.

The chapter then discusses two recent foresight efforts conducted by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT): The Strategic Foresight Analysis (SFA) and the subsequent Framework for Future Alliance Operations (FFAO). I discuss the relationship between these two efforts, as well as their outcomes. In particular, I identify three Instability Situations that will serve as the basis for analysis in subsequent chapters.

I conclude the chapter with a critique of the common characteristics among these scenarios, and a discussion of how each one compares to its counterpart in the core conclusions of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers. In so doing, I establish why the NATO ACT Instability Situations serve as a reasonable proxy for the perspective of NATO Headquarters with respect to the security consequences anticipated to result from climate change.

NATO’s Big Picture—What Future?

In 2014, the NATO mission in Afghanistan transferred primary responsibility for security to the Afghan security forces, while NATO’s International Security Assistance Force transitioned into a training and mentoring role. With this shift, NATO finds itself without a major military operation for the first time since the early 1990s, when Yugoslavia began to disintegrate (notwithstanding a resurgent and militarily assertive Russia). The military operation in Kosovo (KFOR) is now nearing its final stage, although a small NATO presence will likely remain for several more years.

As the other commitments draw to a close, NATO must, simultaneously, consider how it will adapt to a precarious international security environment. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in the early months of 2014 brought renewed meaning to NATO’s role as a collective security organization. NATO’s engagement in Eastern Europe will require more attention and consideration moving forward. Conflicts further afield will need to be closely monitored. Civil strife in Syria continues to unfold along the southern border of Turkey. Furthermore, political fallout and tension throughout the MENA region—as well as Iran—suggests that NATO must divide its attention among several immediate, tangible, and conventional security matters.

Climate change will affect each of these regions, as well as the Arctic, in shaping the security landscape. As the security Alliance “of choice,” NATO must carefully consider how to adapt to meet demands, prepare for new situations, as well as manage the unforeseen consequences.¹ The IPCC notes that if extreme climate events increase significantly, adaptation and disaster risk management are likely to require transformative change in systems and institutional arrangements.² This could involve a change in paradigm, shifts in perception, changes in underlying norms and values, and new patterns of interaction.³ How and to what extent these changes will compel similar changes within NATO, and with what means these changes will be implemented, is a complicated question to answer. What is clear is that NATO must consider its role in the context of climate security, and whether it can integrate a climate dimension into established mechanisms.

Historical Development and Transformation of NATO

“Transformation” can be defined as the evolution and adaptation of an organization in response to (or, in anticipation of) a changing environment. For an international security organization such as NATO, this process is driven primarily by the changing nature of risks or “security threats” for which it must prepare. Combined with the objectives NATO seeks to achieve, these security threats drive the development of capabilities, policies, and procedures. Transformational policies can be employed to promote adaptation, although in many cases a “focusing event” precipitates those policies.

In the case of NATO, perhaps the most salient example of a focusing event is the end of the Cold War. NATO was established following World War II as an alliance to serve as a military and political counterweight to the Soviet Union. The fall of the Soviet Union compelled NATO to reassess its purpose when its original raison d’etre had disintegrated. The fall of the Soviet Union created new political dynamics with the independence of many Warsaw Pact countries, a re-awakening of suppressed political aspirations, and a realignment of political orientation (for many of them).

While several Warsaw Pact countries made relatively smooth transitions to democracy and aligned themselves with NATO and Western Europe, states within the former Yugoslavia witnessed their attempts to establish independence descend into civil turmoil and armed conflict that destabilized the western Balkans throughout the 1990s. These conflicts presented Western Europe and many NATO allies with an ongoing security and refugee crisis along its periphery. This new security dynamic, one very different from those confronted during the Cold War era, forced NATO to adapt (or “transform”) itself into an organization that conducts peacekeeping operations and post-conflict stabilization.

The post-Cold War era forced NATO to adopt a new ethos, develop new capabilities, establish new policies and programs, and operate in ways fundamentally different from the past. Other paradigm-shifting events, like the attacks of September 11, demonstrate that the nature in which the world changes can place new demands upon, and propel change within, organizations such as NATO. They force the organization to recognize and respond to a fundamentally new environment for which it must adapt its policies, political relationships, and operational concepts.

The present era introduces yet another element of uncertainty that could demand transformation within NATO: the potential for climate-induced change in the natural environment with globally cascading influence on social and political systems. While the implications are not fully known, it is evident from the contemporary literature surveyed in the previous chapter that it is now widely feared that this new environment will see greater instability and increased demand for security organizations such as NATO.

NATO, Climate, and the Environment

NATO divides its environmental perspective into two categories: Environmental Protection and Environmental Security. The focus of this book falls more directly on the latter than the former. Environmental protection issues addressed by NATO have been limited largely to technical issues surrounding the environmental impact of military operations and the necessity to limit environmentally harmful consequences. NATO’s efforts in this realm seek to promote cooperation and standardization of operating principles among NATO and partner countries. These measures to protect the environment range from safeguarding hazardous materials (including fuels and oils), to treating waste water and managing waste, to putting environmental management systems in place during NATO-led activities. NATO, “Environment—NATO’s Stake,” 2014.

Throughout the past decade, NATO has recognized the direct influence of climate on security. Yet, NATO’s involvement in climate and environmental security is modest in light of the significant attention climate change receives in academic journals, by other international organizations, and from individual NATO member states. All the while, NATO efforts are mostly directed at maintaining basic awareness of the issue, sponsorship and participation in events, or providing assistance to partnership countries.⁴

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly has consistently supported a global response to climate change, and repeatedly called to include climate change in NATO’s political agenda.⁵ In 2017, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Science and Technology Committee released three reports that highlight concern regarding the security consequences of climate change for NATO, including Water Security in the MENA, NATO and Security in the Arctic, and Assessing and Mitigating the Cost of Climate Change.⁶

Further, in 2015, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Science and Technology Committee released a report to draw attention to the security consequences of climate change, and to encourage NATO member states to support a climate agreement during the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).⁷ In 2009, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly released a report on the potential security consequences of climate change.⁸ In 2010, 2007, and 2005, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly released reports that focused on the relevance of climate change for NATO.⁹ In 2014, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Science and Technology Committee visited the IPCC Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.¹⁰

The 2010 Strategic Concept,¹¹ which identifies crisis management as one of NATO’s core tasks, contains a reference to climate change, as do the Declarations from the 2014 Wales Summit, the 2012 Chicago Summit, and the 2010 Lisbon Summit. The Lisbon Summit, in particular, noted that,

[k]ey environmental and resource constraints, including health risks, climate change, water scarcity, and increasing energy needs will further shape the future security environment in areas of concern to NATO and have the potential to significantly affect NATO planning and operations.¹²

Current and previous Secretaries General have acknowledged the potential security consequences of climate change. For example, in 2008, Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer acknowledged the potential for security concerns expected to result from climate change that no single nation could address independently.¹³ Shortly thereafter, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen raised the issue of climate-induced security consequences in 2009, suggesting that NATO become a “clearing house for the security-related challenges of climate change,” and noting that dealing with the security consequences of climate change is not a choice.¹⁴

NATO has used the Science for Peace and Security program to understand the environmental aspects of defense issues since 1969,¹⁵ and to facilitate discussion amongst climate scientists beginning in the 1980s. The latter initiatives include support for multiple workshops and other events on climate security and environmental change, as well as projects to assess vulnerable regions and to help partner countries prepare for environmental challenges.¹⁶ The Science for Peace and Security program also sponsored a series of research projects on Environmental Security.¹⁷

National representatives in NATO committees and working groups have responsibility for climate- and environment-related issues.

• NATO’s Military Committee Working Group on Meteorology and Oceanography helps NATO members and partner countries understand how, with national civil or military capabilities or within a collective capability, to assess and prepare for climate change and related national security threats.¹⁸

• NATO’s Civil Emerging Planning Committee (CEPC) provides NATO with civilian expertise in consequence management, humanitarian and disaster response, and protection of critical infrastructure. The CEPC also oversees the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC),¹⁹ which coordinates disaster relief efforts among NATO and partner countries, and in countries where NATO operates.²⁰

NATO has responded to natural disasters or assisted civil emergencies in the past,²¹ including incidents caused by extreme weather events, such as those estimated to become more frequent (and severe) as a result of climate change.

• Since 2000, the EADRCC has organized natural disaster response exercises, and coordinated live response operations, on multiple instances—including several where extreme weather conditions played a role.²²

• In September and October 2005, aircraft from the NATO Response Force delivered supplies to assist in the US response to Hurricane Katrina.²³

• From October 2005 to February 2006, aircraft from the NATO Response Force provided an air bridge to deliver nearly 3500 tons of supplies to Pakistan, following a devastating earthquake. Engineers and medical personnel were also deployed to assist in the relief effort.²⁴

• NATO operated an air bridge for humanitarian assistance to help Pakistan cope with unprecedented monsoon flooding in 2010.²⁵

• In 2016, NATO deployed ships to the Aegean Sea to assist with the crisis of migrant smuggling from Syria. NATO agreed to monitor migrant flows and share information with Greek and Turkish coast guards, as well as the EU border control agency.²⁶

NATO’s International Staff and International Military Staff have worked with non-governmental organizations and independent experts on climate by participating in roundtables and other initiatives:

• NATO is a member of the European Security Roundtable, which held an event on the security aspects of climate change in November 2013 entitled, “Challenges and Capabilities: Towards a European Response to Climate Insecurity.”²⁷

• In 2004, NATO joined the Environment and Security Initiative (ENVSEC)²⁸; other members include the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and the Regional Environment Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC).

Following the Chicago Summit in 2012, where allies agreed to “work together toward significantly improving the energy efficiency of our military forces,” the Emerging Security Challenges Division (ESCD) launched the NATO Smart Energy Team (SENT), which seeks to identify national energy efficiency projects to pursue on a multinational basis.²⁹ In 2012, the ESCD also hosted a roundtable on climate security risks,³⁰ and a workshop on energy and environmental risks facing the Alliance.³¹

Other initiatives work on similar goals. The multinational NATO Military Engineering Centre of Excellence (Ingolstadt, Germany), and the Energy Security Centre of Excellence (Vilnius, Lithuania), devote part of their work to energy efficiency by developing policies, training courses, and concepts. In 2003, NATO held a workshop to discuss “Security issues related to desertification in the Mediterranean region.”³²

NATO and Middle East/North Africa

With a longstanding relationship with several North African countries in the Mediterranean,³³ assistance to the African Union (with respect to Darfur), humanitarian support in Somalia, and the 2011 military intervention in Libya, NATO has recognized that it must be available to play a role in African security affairs. NATO’s principal platform for engagement in the region is the Mediterranean Dialogue. However, it also partnered with the African Union to provide airlift for peacekeepers to the UN Mission in Darfur. NATO’s intervention in Libya helped end the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi, although relations with the African Union suffered as a result. NATO ships, submarines, and planes patrolled Libya’s coast to enforce the UN arms embargo, and NATO planes enforced the UN-mandated no-fly zone over Libya.³⁴

NATO and the Arctic

The melting of the polar ice caps will enable enhanced maritime access and natural resource exploration in the Arctic region, where the impact and rate of change (stemming from climate change) are significant, and where temperatures have been increasing at about twice the global rate over the past four decades.³⁵ In 2013, Smith-Windsor also recognized these characteristics and their implications for NATO:

by virtue of the Washington Treaty, all 29 member states have a collective interest and responsibility [in the Arctic] … [T] he particularly challenging operating conditions of the High North, where no one nation has the capacity to act alone, also explain the logic of more, not less Allied collective engagement, leveraging shared capacities and experience.³⁶

NATO Secretary General Jaap de hoop Scheffer cited these issues and their potential consequences in 2009 in his statement at a NATO conference on security in the high north.³⁷ The acknowledgement that the Arctic region will require more attention from the Alliance moving forward was noteworthy, Smith-Windsor observes, because “it represented the first serious consideration of the Alliance’s interest and role in the region since the conclusion of the Cold War.”³⁸

A 2010 report from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly noted that, while the Arctic was important strategically during the Cold War, it became less important post-1989, and it has only now re-emerged in importance as a result of a changing climate.³⁹ This report cites fisheries and tourism as interests for North Atlantic countries in the region, in addition to those de hoop Scheffer noted above, identifying China’s considerable interest in the Arctic, since the Northern Sea Route and the Northeast and Northwest Passages will allow for shorter shipping routes that provide access to the ports of Europe and the east coast of North America. This report acknowledges Russia’s assertiveness in exploring and claiming territory, its military presence and activity, and the amount of Russian natural resources in the area.

While the Arctic does not appear in the 2010 Strategic Concept and is absent from the 2012 Chicago Summit Declaration, the 2010 Group of Experts report identified NATO’s need to enhance its situational awareness in the High North.⁴⁰ Other observers recognize that “air and maritime surveillance platforms operated by the military could contribute significantly in Arctic security.”⁴¹ NATO’s presence in the High North includes the NATO Integrated Air Defense System (NATINADS), which includes fighters on Quick Reaction Alert (QRA), AWACS airborne early warning flights, and exercises in Norway and Iceland.⁴²

In January 2009, NATO members gathered in Iceland to consider the changing maritime domain in the Arctic,⁴³ and Norway supported a role for NATO in the Arctic in a NATO Parliamentary Assembly session in Oslo in May 2009.⁴⁴ Norway has actively promoted NATO’s capabilities, interoperability, operational experience, and partnership frameworks (along with Russia) to fill the Arctic’s “collective” security void.⁴⁵ Norway has particular interest in Arctic security, given both its coastline and a border with Russia.⁴⁶ Since 2006, NATO conducted cold weather exercises termed “Cold Response,” which incorporate a range of scenarios, including one involving resource-led conflict in the Arctic Ocean.⁴⁷

Coffey observed (in 2012) that Russian air and submarine patrol activity in the Arctic and the North Sea has returned to Cold War levels, pointing out that “the North Sea Fleet is now the largest fleet in the Russian navy. Recently, Russia announced the reopening of airbases on archipelagos above the Arctic Circle that were closed at the end of the Cold War.”⁴⁸

Creation of NATO’s Emerging Security Challenges Division

In 2010, NATO established the ESCD to focus on non-traditional security threats.⁴⁹ ESCD also maintains a strategic analysis capability to support political consultation among allies on potential crisis areas and to work with other organizations, such as the European Union, the United Nations, the OSCE, and other partners, to “head off” a crisis in advance.⁵⁰ NATO’s former Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges noted that, “the issues for which ESC has responsibility are not handled solely, or even primarily, by defense ministries or foreign ministries, which are the traditional interlocutors or channels through which NATO operates.”⁵¹ The security consequences of climate change fall within the scope of this definition.

This section illustrates that NATO has clear interests in the environment and its relationship to security, and highlights two regions that are predicted to be severely impacted by climate change: MENA and the Arctic. NATO has recognized that the strategic importance of these interests could require military resources and new policy initiatives to protect its members under conditions of climate change. These examples also demonstrate that NATO has both recognized the influence of climate on international security and has previously contributed resources to security events that arise as a consequence of it. Indeed, NATO has a variety of established program and policy mechanisms (and military resources) through which it can prepare itself and its partners to play an important role within the climate-security context.

While the 2011 intervention in Libya demonstrates that NATO is capable and willing to employ its resources in Africa when necessary, in an era of increasingly austere defense budgets throughout the alliance, NATO likely does not want to create expectations that it is available for regular military operations or long commitments in Africa. That NATO deflected a request for involvement in Mali in 2013 suggests either a high threshold to take action or that very specific interests must be at stake before it agrees to commit forces in Africa.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea in Ukraine (early 2014) forced greater urgency for Arctic nations to shift their thinking with respect to Russia, and fundamentally altered the perspective on Russia more generally. For instance, Canada has long maintained a policy that precluded NATO in the Arctic. However, this position may have softened following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Given these circumstances and dynamics, the real question is then whether NATO needs to further develop a collective, institutional commitment to the region.⁵² NATO’s initial focus appears to be on improving coordination of security-related issues, such as search and rescue.⁵³

NATO Foresight Efforts: The Future Security Environment

In recent decades, NATO has employed foresight methodology⁵⁴ to better understand the security challenges of the future, and to better understand how the Alliance may be required to adapt and transform.⁵⁵ These efforts include NATO’s Long Term Requirements Study⁵⁶ (conducted in 2005), a 2009 scenario analysis by ACT—“Multiple Futures,”⁵⁷ and a 2011 study by NATO’s Research and Technology Organization (RTO) entitled, “Joint Operations 2030”⁵⁸ as well as a conference entitled “Long Range Forecasting of the Security Environment,” to review national and international perspectives, methods, and supporting analytical techniques for long-range forecasting of the security environment.⁵⁹

Other NATO foresight efforts have assessed emerging and disruptive technologies.⁶⁰ For example, on 1 January 2015, the NATO Science and Technology Organization began a lecture series focused on “Horizon Scanning and Strategic Futures Analysis,” to discuss methodologies, tools, and techniques on the current best practice in horizon scanning and strategic futures (HSSF) analysis. In 2011, the NATO RTO held a conference on risk-based planning.⁶¹

Since 2012, NATO ACT has conducted additional foresight initiatives. The first of these, the SFA, resulted in the NATO Strategic Foresight Analysis Report (SFA) 2013. SFA 2013 was among the initial efforts to establish institutional foresight within NATO ACT; with this document, NATO ACT sought to provide NATO, national leaders and defence planners with a common perspective of the challenges facing NATO. In 2016, NATO ACT released the SFA 2015 Interim Update to the SFA 2013 report, which reaffirmed the conclusions of its predecessor.⁶² NATO released the most recent version of the SFA report in 2017.⁶³

The second initiative, which builds upon the first, is the FFAO.⁶⁴ NATO released the most recent version of the corresponding report, the FFAO, in 2018.⁶⁵ The joint SFA/FFAO efforts attempt to craft and exploit a unified view of the future security environment for the purpose of NATO strategic planning. The SFA sought to understand the contours of the future strategic environment. The FFAO effort seeks to develop a conceptual framework for future NATO operations.⁶⁶

Taken together, these two initiatives seek to shape thinking about the strategic environment, scenarios, and concept of operations for NATO in the year 2035. The SFA and FFAO are designed to improve NATO’s long-term perspective of the future security environment to inform the NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP), as well as other NATO and national processes that require an assessment of the long-term future.⁶⁷ To be clear, that NATO ACT created the Instability Situations does not imply that they have been embraced by NATO Headquarters—even though they are fairly generic, and similar scenarios (and associated concerns) are expressed throughout the literature on climate change and security. Therefore, the Instability Situations should be viewed as a proxy for NATO (and the institutional perspective of the associated risks).

Though neither an intelligence estimate, nor an approved NATO policy, these initiatives recognize that the world is changing in ways that create new challenges and paradigm scenarios for NATO. They also reveal insight into how NATO views the underlying drivers of change, and the manner in which such changes threaten security in the future. Ultimately, their objective is to understand how NATO can best operate in the anticipated future environment.

Though the precise methodology is not described, both the SFA and FFAO convened with a wide range of participants.⁶⁸ The Strategic Foresight workshops identified a variety of “themes” of the future security environment, with corresponding “trends” and “Security Implications.” The FFAO workshops built upon this work and created several “Instability Situations,” three of which include climate/environmental change as a factor.

Seventy-eight (78) participants from twenty one (21) nations attended the initial SFA initiative, as well as personnel representing the NATO International Staff, NATO International Military Staff, NATO Allied Command Operations—Comprehensive Crisis and Operations Management Centre (CCOMC), NATO ACT, national ministries of defense, and national delegations to NATO.⁶⁹ The FFAO initiative included national representatives, the NATO Military Committee, and the NATO Defense Policy and Planning Committee.⁷⁰ Both also had participation from NATO Centers of Excellence (COE), think tanks, and from within academia.

For the FFAO 2018 report, NATO ACT also provided draft chapters to NATO bodies and all NATO member state representatives, and included their input and recommendations. Additionally, NATO ACT reviewed the report using an independent concept test.⁷¹ Finally, NATO Strategic Commands performed a line-by-line review prior to release of the report.⁷²

Despite the participation from the NATO International Staff, the NATO International Military Staff, various other NATO components, and national delegations to NATO, policy planning efforts at NATO Headquarters are not bound to include the results of the workshops—or the corresponding insights—in their considerations. However, in 2015 the NATO Military Committee decided that the FFAO report can be used to inform the NDPP, and that it can be expanded in the long-term.⁷³

Political guidance approved by the Heads of NATO member states and governments provides direction on the number, scale, and nature of the operations the Alliance should be able to conduct.⁷⁴ It also sets the aims and objectives to be met by NATO, defines the qualitative capability requirements, and includes associated priorities and timelines for policy planning.⁷⁵ Two sets of political guidance (from 2006 and 2011) are in effect as of late-2018.⁷⁶ However, both are broad enough to encompass the Instability Situations examined in this book.⁷⁷

This book now focuses on the scenarios resulting from these two exercises to discuss the climate-related challenges seen as being most likely to develop and evolve with time. The analysis conducted in this book complements, and further builds upon, the baseline perspective established in the SFA/FFAO efforts. It does this by diving deeply into one area that the SFA Team acknowledged is a principle driver of the future security environment: climate.⁷⁸

NATO ACT Strategic Foresight Analysis

The SFA effort comprised a series of workshops facilitated by NATO’s ACT to map the contours of the future security environment. The overarching aim of the effort was to identify the principal themes (drivers) that would influence the world in 2035, create a shared perspective, identify the most likely scenarios that could present a risk (security implication), and describe them in a common language.⁷⁹

Reaching consensus on the future security environment was one objective of the SFA initiative.⁸⁰ By identifying and analyzing the defense and security implications that will shape the Alliance through 2035 and beyond, the SFA serves as a foundation to create a long-term perspective on the security environment for the Alliance.⁸¹ The examination of themes, trends, and implications, as well as their interactions, supports the alignment of future national and collective defense planning and capability development.⁸²

The SFA studied a range of publications on “futures” to analyze similarities, differences, and gaps in their perspective of threats, challenges, and opportunities. The SFA workshops identified twenty “drivers” of change, which were sorted into four groupings: Political, Human, Physical and Resources, and Economy.⁸³ Eleven (11) drivers were used to distill the future security implications most relevant to NATO: technology, global power dynamics, shared threat perceptions, global interconnections, demographics, resource competition, globalization of finance, health, disasters, weapons of mass destruction, and climate.⁸⁴

Climate was identified as a “driver” of the future security environment across six (6) streams of publications (International Organizations, National Organizations and Governments, NGOs, Academic Institutions, and Industry).⁸⁵ The literature revealed that the implications of climate change appeared most frequently,⁸⁶ which the workshops characterized as increasing global temperatures, rising sea levels, warming oceans, receding glaciers, frequent droughts, and extreme weather events.⁸⁷

The security risks of climate change identified by the SFA Workshop included the following⁸⁸:

Driver: Climate Change. Extreme weather events increase in frequency and intensity. Increased occurrences of tropical cyclones, severe storms and tornadoes, coastal flooding, and drought cause extensive damage to infrastructure, arable land, habitat, and feedstock, creating conditions for insecurity and instability. Famine, drought, or flood driven populations force migration exacerbated by expanding transnational criminal and extremist activity, and border tensions will be a recipe for conflict.

Rising temperatures will contribute to the increasingly accessible Arctic and Antarctic regions. Ocean warming and reduced sea ice will foster greater access to and exploitation of previously inaccessible natural resources in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Additionally, reduced seasonal ice no longer restricts use of maritime global trade routes prompting possible resource competition, which may expand beyond traditional Arctic Council nations and affect NATO members with regional interests or actual territorial claims.

The SFA final report noted the impact of climate change is “becoming apparent throughout the world and is projected to intensify; record numbers of climate events and extreme weather will demand an increase in humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and recovery operations.”⁸⁹ Moreover, the SFA 2013 report also recognized the impact of broader environmental change, noting “other environmental threats like air and water pollution or deforestation may contribute to insecurity and instability.”⁹⁰

The SFA 2017 report paid significant attention to environmental security, including the impact of climate change and natural disasters. Although the perspective expressed in the final report lacks the precision one may find in academic publications, it demonstrates an awareness of the big picture and its implications and is generally consistent with the findings of both academia and other organizations.

The following includes the most relevant points from the final report with regard to climate⁹¹:

Arctic sea ice will continue to shrink and thin [as a result of climate change], the Greenland ice sheet and glacier volumes will reduce, and the extent of near-surface permafrost in high northern latitudes will recede. In addition, sea levels will increase through ice-melt and ocean thermal expansion. Likewise, changes to rainfall patterns will occur, with climate projections indicating increases in precipitation in high latitudes and tropical regions, and decreases in mid-latitude and subtropical dry regions. There will be increased intensity and frequency of high surface temperatures and heatwaves.

Rising sea- levels will continue to threaten low-lying coastal states and regions and increase the impact of storm surge events.

Changing climate will also shape the security environment in numerous indirect ways that impose stresses on current ways of life, on individuals’ ability to subsist and on governments’ abilities to keep pace and provide for the needs of their populations. The costs of adaptation and mitigation can be extremely high and fall disproportionately across the globe, such that some of the world’s poorest nations, which contributed very little to creating the crisis, will face some of the greatest challenges. The legitimacy of governments could be undermined by their inability to respond to evolving climate and environmental stressors, and thereby failing to uphold the implicit social contract with their populace. Where governance fails and populations migrate, power vacuums could be created, allowing other state and non-state actors to move in and take advantage of the situation.

Where water scarcity or mismanagement exists, localized or even inter-state conflict can result… Climate change is expected to exacerbate the problems, with rainfall patterns shifting away from already dry regions and toward wetter ones. More broadly, losses to bio-diversity and the stresses on eco-system services may reduce resilience and carry deep consequences that will be difficult to quantify or address.

IMPLICATIONS

• Increased range of activities in the Arctic due to growing accessibility.

• Climate and environmental challenges to governance.

• Increased requirements for environmental awareness.

• Increased need for climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.

The following includes the most relevant points from the final report with regard to natural disasters ⁹²:

Natural disasters will have increasing impact, partly due to overall increases in the severity and prevalence of severe weather events, but also due to changes in the regions and times of the year where these events may occur, and increases in the population, infrastructure and assets that are exposed. Regions that are accustomed to hurricanes have adapted over time to this threat by developing infrastructure standards to cope; similarly, arid regions have developed farming patterns to suit. However, with an expected rise in severe weather events and a change in their patterns, newly affected regions may struggle to actively adapt. This could be further compounded by cascading disasters, both natural and also manmade, such as the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami that triggered the nuclear crisis in Fukushima Daiichi.

Some nations will not be able to cope with natural disasters and still meet the needs or expectations of their populations. It may be enough to force migration or displacement.

Climate change, in tandem with people’s increasing exposure and vulnerability, is expected to magnify the impact of natural disasters, as extreme weather events become more frequent and intense in the coming decades.

IMPLICATIONS

• Increased requirement for Humanitarian Support.

• Unavailability of national military assets due to natural disaster.

• Increased requirement to improve resilience.

The foregoing summary is set forth in broad brushstrokes to capture the range of security risks that could arise from climate change. The security implications generated through the SFA process were later refined during the first FFAO workshop and categorized according to their relevance to NATO’s three (3) core tasks: Collective Defense, Cooperative Security, and Crisis Management.⁹³

NATO ACT—Framework for Future Alliance Operations

The NATO FFAO initiative is a continuation of the SFA.⁹⁴ If the SFA was foundational in setting the strategic context by establishing a shared perspective of the long-term future, then the FFAO developed its corresponding concept and understanding for how NATO will operate in that future.⁹⁵ The FFAO describes the abilities NATO forces will need in the future to cover the full range of NATO military missions. Abilities are defined as critical attributes needed to achieve success in the execution of a future military activity.⁹⁶

The FFAO report describes the anticipated characteristics of the future security environment and a series of “Instability Situations,” both of which derive from the trends and security implications described in the SFA 2017 report.⁹⁷ The Instability Situations are a non-exhaustive list of future events that could result in a NATO decision to employ military forces.⁹⁸

Instability Situations—(Hazards)

These situations straddle two of the three primary NATO mission areas: crisis management and cooperative security (and potentially collective defense as well—depending on context). The following three sections include the characteristics for each of the three instability situations that NATO released to the public.

Access and Use of Global Commons Challenged

Hostile actors may use force to challenge international laws and norms in the global commons. Hostile actors could disrupt space or cyberspace activities by kinetic or non-kinetic means, such as direct attack, jamming, or cyberattacks.⁹⁹

Disruptive Impact of Mass Migration

Due to economic issues, social inequality, armed conflicts, population growth (or demographic pressure) and environmental degradation, more areas may reach tipping points triggering increased migration. The size of migrant groups and their rate of movement may increase, thus stressing efforts to control migration. Additionally, future migration and population flows could contribute to the emergence of governance challenges. This may result in increased internal tension between government and immigrants or between different subnational groups. Mass migration may be used as an opportunity by hostile actors to destabilize the security environment.¹⁰⁰

Large-Scale Disaster

A sudden large-scale man-made or natural event could result in serious damage, widespread death, and injury that exceeds national civil response capacity. Concurrent small-scale disasters may have an effect similar to that of a large-scale disaster. Climate change will likely increase the frequency and impact of natural disasters.¹⁰¹

Review & Critique of the Instability Situations

The FFAO report identified three (3) security implications with climate change as a driving factor: (1) access and use of global commons challenged, (2) disruptive impact of migration, and (3) large-scale disaster. These suggest the potential for new roles and geographic presence.¹⁰² The Instability Situations concerning the Arctic and natural disasters are relevant for the immediate interests of the organization. The implied role or response remains broadly consistent with NATO’s core tasks or other missions NATO has conducted.

Each individual security implication is emerging slowly and at different rates. For example, increasingly frequent and severe natural disasters have already emerged or have begun to reveal their future impact. In the future, migration could alter the long-term sociological landscape within which NATO must operate. The effect of climate on migration and the resultant urbanization that NATO identified is of greater concern in the more distant future, and it is thus the most speculative of the three situations identified.

The security consequences in the Arctic are perhaps more transparent (also more conventional) and the political challenges are therefore more stark. The melting of the polar icecaps will open the region to commercial shipping traffic as well as oil and gas exploration. However, the use of the Arctic for commercial maritime activity is potentially years away (though natural resource exploration and extraction is taking place presently).

The melting of the polar ice caps has already raised concerns, particularly with respect to political engagement with Russia. Whatever the consequences of this scenario, however, they stand in contrast to those that may result along NATO’s southern flank. On the southern flank, a different range of potential climate-induced problems may be included in the Instability Situations that consider the impact of migration and the potential consequences of increased natural disasters.

Seeming division in the focus of NATO and academic research in the future security environment is apparent. Both the practitioner and academic communities emphasized the idea that conflict will arise in the future as a result of climate change. While this is potentially true, and not entirely absent from the NATO perspective, the SFA/FFAO concerned itself just as much with identifying the nature of the environment in which NATO will find itself in the future and understanding what this implies in the absence of violent conflict.

None of the situations identified by the FFAO workshop addressed the issue of surprise. While the instability situations are broad and encompass many potential situations, there was also limited discussion of cascading impacts. The Instability Situation concerning the “Global Commons” (Arctic) was particularly scant on detail and unspecific, considering what is known about the risks. It was highly general, not insightful, and lacked specificity in terms of the risk for NATO.

To What Extent Do the NATO ACT Instability Situations Represent NATO Perspective?

That NATO ACT created the Instability Situations does not imply that they have been embraced by NATO Headquarters—even though similar scenarios (and associated concerns) are expressed throughout the literature on climate change and security. While NATO ACT created these Instability Situations with input from a broad range of experts, including members of the International Staff and International Military Staff at NATO Headquarters (as well as national delegations to NATO and national ministries of defense), NATO Headquarters is not bound to include them—or the corresponding insights—in their policy planning considerations.

Therefore, the Instability Situations should be viewed as illustrative examples of concern for NATO (and the institutional perspective of the associated risks). Despite that NATO is a single organizational entity, a distinct division exists between the political headquarters in Brussels and the military organizations that fall beneath it (among which NATO ACT is one). Although NATO ACT intends for the SFA/FFAO efforts to enhance the Defense Policy Planning Process at NATO Headquarters, cooperation between NATO ACT and NATO Headquarters is not always seamless.¹⁰³

The SFA/FFAO documents were selected because NATO Headquarters had not released any similar scenario documents into the public domain, and the SFA/FFAO reports were the most recent NATO ACT scenario documents available at the time the research began. I wanted to preserve a linkage to NATO’s institutional perspective (of climate-related risks) by sourcing NATO documents to the greatest extent possible, rather than look to a non-NATO source or design scenarios independently (both of which would have been inconsistent with the IRGC Risk Governance Framework).

To further assess the rightness of fit of using the NATO ACT scenarios in this book, I examined the core conclusions of the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. The IPCC creates Summary for Policymakers through a consensus process (similar to NATO), and all NATO member states are also IPCC members. Therefore, the extent to which the core features of the Summary for Policymakers are reflected in the foundation of the Instability Situations allows for additional insight into the ability of the Instability Situations to serve as a proxy for the NATO perspective on climate change and its security impact.

• Arctic: In 2014, the IPCC Working Group II Summary for Policymakers concluded that “with increasing warming, some physical systems or ecosystems may be at risk of abrupt and irreversible changes,”¹⁰⁴ while also noting (with confidence) the reduction in ice volume in Arctic glaciers and decreasing Arctic sea ice in summer.¹⁰⁵ The IPCC also judged (with medium confidence) that Arctic ecosystems are already experiencing irreversible regime shifts.¹⁰⁶ In particular, they noted the “potential for a large and irreversible sea level rise from ice sheet loss”¹⁰⁷ and further judged (with very high confidence) that “[d]ue to sea level rise projected throughout the twenty-first century and beyond, coastal systems and low-lying areas will increasingly experience adverse impacts such as submergence, coastal flooding, and coastal erosion.”¹⁰⁸

• Migration: The IPCC judged (with medium evidence and high agreement) that climate change over the twenty-first century is projected to increase displacement of people,¹⁰⁹ noting that changes in migration patterns can be responses to both extreme weather events and longer-term climate variability and change, and migration can also be an effective adaptation strategy. The IPCC also noted (with medium confidence) that many global risks of climate change are concentrated in urban areas.¹¹⁰

• Large-Scale Disaster: The IPCC judged (with high confidence) that climate-change-related risks from extreme events, such as heat waves, extreme precipitation, and coastal flooding, are already “moderate,” and will be “high” with 1 °C additional warming (medium confidence).¹¹¹ Moreover, they noted that with increased warming, “some physical systems or ecosystems may be at risk of abrupt and irreversible changes,”¹¹² and noted the following two key risks (with high confidence) related to natural disasters: (1) systemic risks due to extreme weather events leading to breakdown of infrastructure networks and critical services such as electricity, water supply, and health and emergency services,¹¹³ and (2) risk of food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes, particularly for poorer populations in urban and rural settings.¹¹⁴

Moreover, the IPCC Working Group II Summary for Policymakers concluded that “climate change is projected to amplify existing climate-related risks and create new risks for natural and human systems,”¹¹⁵ and that “climate change can indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts in the form of civil war and inter-group violence by amplifying well-documented drivers of these conflicts, such as poverty and economic shocks (medium confidence).”¹¹⁶ The IPCC further concluded in the same document that,

[i] mpacts from recent climate-related extremes, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires, reveal significant vulnerability and exposure of some ecosystems and many human systems to current climate variability (very high confidence). Impacts of such climate-related extremes include alteration of ecosystems, disruption of food production and water supply, damage to infrastructure and settlements, morbidity and mortality, and consequences for mental health and human well-being.¹¹⁷

Even without considering the cascading impacts among and between these three situations (that sea level rise as a result of polar ice melt can lead both to migration and large-scale disaster, and that large-scale disasters, in non-sea level rise scenarios, can lead to migration), the core foundation upon which NATO ACT created the Instability Situations is fairly well-supported by the conclusions of the IPCC.

Conclusions

This chapter reviewed the history of NATO’s institutional transformation and provided an overview of NATO’s posture toward climate security risk. NATO’s history of institutional transformation demonstrates its ability to adapt its policies, programs, and military operations to changes in the security environment. However, without a “focusing event” (such as 11 September 2001) or a paradigm shift (such as the end of the Cold War), change happens slowly. Indeed, NATO’s deployment of forces to the Balkans—which transformed NATO into an organization that conducts out-of-area peacekeeping operations—gathered momentum over a period of years, and in response to circumstances that compelled change.

The chapter also detailed two foresight efforts conducted by NATO ACT: The SFA and the subsequent FFAO. To establish the context to understand the Instability Situations that were identified as having climate change as a driving factor, I discussed NATO policies with respect to environmental issues and NATO’s interest in the MENA region and the Arctic.

Throughout the past decade, NATO has recognized the influence of the physical environment on international security, and it has contributed resources to security events that arose when other regions lacked the capacity to respond to natural disasters and related crises. Indeed, NATO has program, policy mechanisms, and military resources through which it can play a role in the climate-security context. Moreover, NATO has clear political and security interests in the MENA region and the Arctic, and it has recognized that protecting those interests could require military resources and new initiatives.

I concluded the chapter with a discussion and critique of common characteristics among the three (3) Instability Situations that serve as the basis for analysis in subsequent chapters. Indeed, NATO sought to understand how various “drivers” of security can act either individually or collectively to form trends and/or alter future security and operating landscapes. To further address the appropriateness of using the NATO ACT scenarios to serve as a proxy for the NATO perspective on climate change and its security impact, I examined the core conclusions of the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.

A more difficult question to answer is what can or should NATO do at the headquarters level to anticipate, avert, alter, or mitigate predictable or unpredictable outcomes that result from these drivers.¹¹⁸ The FFAO workshops did not engage with this question. To attempt to answer this question, the analysis in the following chapters will consider the Instability Situations identified by the FFAO workshops in the context of the International Risk Governance Council’s Risk Governance Framework.