Countering Threats To Environmental Security: The Role Of Nato

The North Atlantic Treaty governing NATO contains in Article 2 an explicit recognition of NATO's role in developing peaceful international relations and promoting stability and wellbeing. This role has been implemented since 1958 through the civil (non-military) NATO Science Programme. The Science Programme was merged into a new Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme in 2006. The rationale of the SPS Programme is based on the recognition that cooperative activities in science can serve to promote peaceful dialogue, technology exchange and cultural understanding whilst at the same time delivering results that contribute to peace through countering diverse threats to security in a broad sense. One such threat addressed by the SPS Programme is that of adverse environmental influences occurring in circumstances where they can be a cause of or serve to amplify tension and conflict. The paper begins by setting such environmental influences in a broadly-defined security context. The evolution of the SPS Programme is explained and its objectives, characteristics and organisation are described. The range of environmental security topics included in the Programme is illustrated by some examples of constituent activities. These come from widely different areas of science but they all have in common their potential or actual impact on the environment and hence on the security and wellbeing of people, countries and regions.