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Meeting the Challenge
of Global Threats
The decisions we make today regarding military force
structures typically influence our ability to respond to threats 20 to 30 years
in the future. Similarly, our current decisions regarding the environment and
natural resources will affect the magnitude of their security risks over at
least a comparable period of time. The measure of our difficulties in the
future will be settled by the steps we take in the present.
...Rapid population growth in the developing world and unsustainable
consumption patterns in industrialized nations are the root of both present and
potentially even greater forms of environmental degradation and resource
depletion. A conservative estimate of the globe's population projects 8.5
billion people on the planet by the year 2025. Even when making the most
generous allowances for advances in science and technology, one cannot help but
conclude that population growht and environmental pressures will feed into
immense social unrest and make the world substantially more vulnerable to
serious international frictions.
- A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, 1995
The President's 1995 National Security Strategy of Engagement and
Enlargement recognizes that a broad class of global threats evident in the
post-Cold War world affect our nation's security. The United States is not
isolated from the effects of disease, disasters, or misery elsewhere in the
world. In the modern world, diseases readily cross borders, and environmental
degradation can have global consequences that threaten the populations of all
nations. Great human suffering due to natural disasters or to other
environmental, economic, or social and political factors may lead not only to
large numbers of refugees crossing international borders but also to
instability that increases the likelihood of ethnic and regional civil
conflict. Understood in these terms, the security of the United States
therefore requires engagement with the developing world and with countries in
transition to democracy, to take steps to prevent deadly conflict, to encourage
economic development that can be sustained for growing populations, and to
respond to threats to the environment and human health.
Outbreaks of new or reemerging infectious diseases may endanger the
health of U.S. citizens even if the root causes of the problem lie in distant
parts of the world. The tragedy of HIV/AIDS has already made this clear.
Diseases affecting humans, plants, and animals are spreading rapidly as a
result of trade and travel and, especially when combined with malnutrition,
threaten public health and productivity on a broad scale. The rapidly growing
human population, widespread pollution, and the deterioration of other
environmental factors that contribute to the maintenance of good health, as
well as the lack of dependable supplies of clean drinking water for fully a
fifth of the world's people, contribute to the acceleration and spread of such
diseases.
Natural disasters, the burden of which falls disproportionately on the
poor, pose an especially dramatic threat to sustainable development. The costs
of natural disasters are high and have been escalating. For example, domestic
natural disasters (ranging from hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods to
wildfires and ice storms) now cost the United States more than $1 billion each
week. Internationally, the impacts can be greater still. In addition to causing
widespread human tragedy and loss of life, for the poorest nations of the world
a single natural disaster can reduce the gross national product for that year
by as much as 25 percent. Losses of this magnitude represent enormous setbacks
to a nation's or region's economic and human development. And in a number of
regions, these events occur frequently.
Whereas natural disasters threaten human life and sustainable
development in a catastrophic manner, global threats such as climate change,
ozone depletion, and ocean pollution may take years or even decades to become
apparent and build toward crisis. Yet each of these poses challenges to the
health and long-term well-being of both U.S. citizens and people throughout the
world.
The loss of biodiversity is an especially urgent threat, the
consequences of which are irreversible. The permanent loss of species means
we will no longer have these organisms as sources of medicines, oils, fibers,
food, chemicals, and other commodities of importance to both industrial and
developing societies.
The explosive growth of the world's population is of primary importance
and exacerbates many of the dilemmas already discussed. Recent history has
shown that, in some developing countries, even the most impressive gains in
total economic output can be offset by rapid population growth. Population
pressures already contribute to violent disorder and mass dislocations in poor
societies. Internally displaced persons-who might become refugees-pose a
long-term threat to the integrity of their own and other nations as well as to
global stability.
As the world's population grows to exceed 8 billion people by 2025, most
of this increase will occur in the cities of developing countries. Worldwide,
urban population is expected to increase from 1 billion people in 1985 to 4
billion in 2025. Increases in income, greater urbanization (which leads to a
shift in diet from roots, tubers, and lower quality grains to higher quality
cereals, livestock, and vegetables), and overall population growth could mean
that the demand for food in 2025 will be more than double that of current
levels of production.
Individually or collectively, threats such as these can increase the
likelihood of destabilization of countries in the developing world. Regional or
civil conflicts, hastened or exacerbated by environmental stress, could involve
the United States in costly and hazardous military interventions, peacekeeping,
or humanitarian operations. As is the case in Haiti, severe environmental
degradation and resource depletion may make economic recovery much more
difficult, thereby prolonging dependence on aid and impeding a nation's
recovery from social or political chaos and progress toward democracy and
prosperity.
Research in the natural and social sciences helps us to understand the
origins, characteristics, and consequences of global problems. Finding
solutions to these problems, and elucidating the complex chains of cause and
effect through which they may be linked, requires a coordinated effort by
natural and social scientists, engineers, and policymakers. U.S leadership in
science and technology is therefore an important element of our national
security.
In some cases, research and monitoring programs offer the only
substantial warning to government officials and to the public of an emerging
problem. For example, through remote sensing, we can have warning of famine and
continue to accumulate a record of the state and evolution of the basic
components of our biosphere. Such observations and measurements, coupled with
the development of predictive models, are necessary tools for policymaking in
the post-Cold War security environment.
Transforming scientific breakthroughs into new technologies can have a
profound impact on development. Wise stewardship of these technologies is
essential. One challenge is to use technology in such a way that it achieves
advances in productivity without compromising long-term natural resource
viability. For example, technology helped bring about the Green Revolution,
which resulted in increased agricultural productivity worldwide. But at the
same time, poorly designed irrigation systems led to soil degradation in some
areas. In the decades ahead, technology will be required to feed and provide
energy for a growing world population while minimizing impact on the integrity
of soil, water, air, forests, and other natural resources. In addition,
insights from the social sciences can provide the basis for redesigning
research and resource management institutions to achieve the efficient use of
resources with minimal disruption to the environment. A major parallel
challenge to science and technology will be to make contraception more
affordable and effective.
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