Climate change increasingly is being viewed as a threat to US national security, say military and intelligence analysts. Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are among the regions believed to be most immediately vulnerable to climate-related crises that could promote instability and demand US humanitarian relief or military responses, according to a New York Times article.
The leading US newspaper reports that experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies say climate-induced crises, such as violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilise entire regions. These analysts are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change for the first time.
An exercise last December at the National Defence University, an educational institute that is overseen by the military, explored the potential impact of a destructive flood in Bangladesh that sent hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into neighbouring India, touching off religious conflict, the spread of contagious diseases and vast damage to infrastructure.
To read the full New York Times article, go to
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html.