Where environmental concerns and security strategies meet : green conflict in Asia and the Middle East

Explores the ways environmental issues may lead to international conflict, and identifies strategies that might head off potential conflict. This study examines the intersection between the worlds of the national security strategist and those concerned about degradation of the earth's environment. Borrowing from the small body of analytic literature on the subject and constructing three regional case studies, the authors use a variety of matrices to provide analytic focus on specific environmental concerns and where they join more traditional national security issues. The authors speculate on the likelihood of environmental conflict and its possible severity in environmental and national security dimensions in case studies of the Middle East, China, and Indonesia. The authors recommend greater attention to the impact of environmental degradation on national security decisionmaking -- changed objectives, narrowed options, and policy constraints. The authors also recommend a more open dialog between national security policymakers and environmental constituencies. One reviewer noted that this report is a useful attempt to bridge a communications gap, but it is much more than that, providing some helpful general guidelines to ensure that security strategies and policies advocated by the United States become more attuned to environmental pressures that are growing ever more acute