Natural Disasters Aren't Security Issues

In this class we have explored different problems facing countries and asking the question "What is security?" Katz's book explores the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in 2008. We read this book and here the horrors of the earth quake and how the world reacted. Then we ask the question is the earthquake one of National Security for the United States? My answer "No." The United States is intervening in Haiti because it is what the US does. When disaster strikes and government is affected like it was in Haiti the US gets involved. What is the purpose? The US wants to make sure that a democratic nation doesn't change its government system during this time of crisis. The US would not give Préval the money that the US promised until an election date was set. This can be taken as the US worried that the democratic system in Haiti was be depleted by the disaster and this would be an issue for Democracy world wide. I personally do not this this would have happened. Haiti had relatively no power before the storm and even with a change in government the country did not have the funds to even rebuild, never mind to become a threat to the US.
This disaster is one about people. People were killed. Homes were destroyed. The country was in shambles. The priority should have been to help rebuild however it became one of the US intervening. Corruption may have been something on the minds of US people and politicians but the money would have been better served in the hands of people who could have made substantial change but this thought of corruption kept that from happening. Programs like Red Cross did not have the resources to help the country yet most money goes to them but could have been better served other places. Overall Haiti needed help. It needed to rebuild before another disaster hit but this became an issue of security and putting money into a corrupt government. This should not have been an issue of security.

Need for Two Responses to the Sierra Leone Conflict

The conflict in Sierra Leone generated a series of problems that were unprecedented in prior internal conflicts. Women and children were never drafted into military or used as human shields. At the outset of the conflict, Sierra Leone faced difficult problems rebuilding and integrating the once warring sides together into one harmonious society. Rebuilding Sierra Leone requires both Sierra Leone to accept foreign companies to invest in its resources and offer contracts with the government because they will help stabilize and strengthen the economy while the Sierra Leone government can focus its attention to rebuilding internal relations between groups and helping all citizens prosper.

Just because the civil war in Sierra Leone has ceased does not mean the life style is perfect. Foreign governments and companies can help reconstruct Sierra Leone by investing in their natural resources. International mining or timber companies can offer contracts to Sierra Leone which can offer a sense of income to the government as well as offer the government to learn from influential companies pertaining to strategically collecting and selling resources. A problem with trying to nationalize a country’s natural resources is that it can cause conflicts between leaders leading to civil war. Citizens of these states often support foreign companies because their experience yields the best profits for the people and state. Attempts to nationalize can just lead to conflict like in the Congo in 1961 and in Sierra Leone in the 1990’s. In 1961 Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of Congo attempted to nationalize the mines across the country, but many people enjoyed foreign companies owning the mines because it established trade relations and the companies were effective at yielding the most materials and income.  Alas the dispute over leadership led to a proxy war and UN intervention. Foreign companies will hire security contractors to protect their property which will not overstretch Sierra Leone’s undeveloped military. Foreign governments are doing an adequate job trying to limit the amount of conflict diamonds being bought and sold on the world market through the Kimberley Process, but the world needs to do more. Blood diamonds still make their way onto the black market, often through neighboring countries. CNN reported even though the conflict has ended in Sierra Leone, conflict diamonds still flow into neighbor country Zimbabwe, which is also a member of the Kimberley Process[1]. The Kimberley Process needs to be enforced with stricter punishments and more screenings especially in the neighboring areas of Sierra Leone and all conflict zones to show support for rebuilding a fragile world economy. Economists from other countries can help guide Sierra Leone’s government as how to diversify its economy so it does not totally depend on its natural resources.

Foreign governments cannot totally intervene in Sierra Leone’s country. Much of Sierra Leone’s population was affected by the civil war, the government must rebuild relations between the once warring sides into a harmonious society to represent caring for all the people not just one side. Other governments cannot rebuild the society as well because they do not understand the culture or conflict like the people who experienced it first hand. Many of the problems Sierra Leone faces are internal threats to their human security such as reintegrating warring sides, disarming soldiers and giving them the training or education for jobs, or helping feed and offer medical assistance to these people, the government needs to focus on these issues because they need to appear legitimate and reputable in citizens’ eyes. Opening a country’s doors to too much or the wrong type of foreign intervention can be hazardous to the long term stability of governments as seen in Iraq, Iran, or Chile. An ideal form of foreign aid would be through charities or NGO’s aimed at the sole purpose of helping provide humanitarian aid to people because they would focus on the civilians’ best interests in mind. Usually humanitarian charities would not be interested with the political leaders or the economic trade agreements of a government, but with the health and quality of life of people within the state.

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[1] Paul Armstrong, “How diamonds fuel African conflict” on CNN, (May 16, 2012), Accessed November 3, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/26/world/africa/blood-diamonds/.

Why Daniel Deudney should have done his homework

The environment is a security threat by its own right and for its potential for it to cause violence and conflict. While new national security threats, such as mass migration, are caused by and will continue to be caused by climate change, the focus here is why it is a threat in its own right and why Daniel Deudney argument to not associate climate change with security makes generalizing, and frankly, under researched assumptions. (1) (If there is any question as to if climate change can actually cause security threats, one only need to take a quick peek at Tuvalu and the first climate change refugees). (2)

The argument becomes more complicated when one tries to argue that it should be considered a threat to national security, particularly if it is going to be given funding from the national defense budget. However, I argue that this is a national security threat to developing nations in particular because climate change is a man made phenomena. It is a threat that has been created and defended by countries in the Global North while states in the Global South, most of which have contributed far less to climate change are facing the most disastrous consequences of this global disaster. Policies of government regarding the abuse of the environment by corporations for the past century have permitted and protected the right of transnational, profiting Global North Corporations to abuse the environment for profit.

While I acknowledge that not all threats to human life can be considered security threats, for the potential of having the word lose all meaning, however, threats that are created by people that intentionally abuse and exploit other people are national security threats to the states being abused. So, in the example of climate change, the United States will not experience a direct national security threat until its policies have threatened and destroyed several other states, but it will eventually experience a threat from climate change, even though it may be perpetrated by its own policies, and not necessarily the policies of another state.

Deudney attempts to defend is argument in “The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and Security” by stating that the environment is not a threat perpetrated on one state by another state. However, I would argue that a collective of states are perpetrating this threat onto another collective of states. This immediately negates his argument because both World Wars were security threats perpetrated by a collective of states and no one is going to argue that those wars were not national security threats.

Also, the conception that security threats only come from states is completely outdated since the end of the Cold War. If Deudney intends to argue that, because current “defense” is only able to protect citizens from threats originating from states, then this is not an issue of the environment not “fitting” into what is categorized as “national security,” but rather that “national security” can no longer respond to relevant and modern threats. This is true in more cases than just the environment. For example, the most relevant threat terrorism poses to the United States is in the case of homegrown terror, where U.S. citizens perpetrate attacks on their fellow citizens in the name of a terrorist organization. Even though this is the security concern we are facing most directly, the defense department has little to no plans to avoid the cultivation of these homegrown terrorists and instead is “fighting terror” by dropping bombs via drones on innocent civilians in Syria despite statistics that indicate that the most common reason for terrorist activity is foreign occupation.(3) This example is to indicate that saying the environment doesn’t fit our current definition of “national security” should not be used as a justification to not consider the environment a national security issue. Rather, it should be used as a justification to adapt our modern definition of “national security” to one that includes relevant threats.

Deudney next argument is that the environment should not be considered a national security threat because it is largely unintentional. I agree that this may have been the case in the early stages of industrial development, but it is far from the reality today. Abusive policies have been intentionally committed, even when the effects of climate change were known. Actions are taken and regulations are negotiated and avoided every day to ensure that transnational corporations can abuse the environment for profit. Studies are recently being brought to light that Exxon had scientists on staff in the 1970’s that knew about climate change and the disastrous effects Exxon’s business model was having on the environment.(4) Instead of changing their business model to avoid this abuse, they continued to profit off of it as the world became increasingly dependent on oil and gas. To this day, representatives from transnational corporations are permitted to sit at negotiating tables along with world diplomats to negotiate approaches to combatting the global climate change crisis. Representatives that have to prioritize profit from BP, Shell, Exxon and others sit at the same table as diplomats who are responsible for protecting their citizens from the disastrous effects of climate change. (5) These examples are all to rebuke Dewdney's claim that this abuse is not intentional because it is clearly quite intentional as is even being used for profit. For these reasons and others, the environment should be considered a security issue by its own right.

1. Daniel Deudney, "The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security," in Green Planet Blues, Westview Press: 2010. 
2. Cole Mellino, “Meet the World’s First Climate Change Refugees,” EcoWatch, January 5, 2016, http://www.ecowatch.com/meet-the-worlds-first-climate-refugees-1882143026.html.
3. Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict,” International Security, Vol. 33, No. 1, Summer 2008.  
4. Michael Slezak, “Marrakech climate talks: giving the fossil fuel lobby a seat at the table,” The Guardian, November 6, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/07/marrakech-climate-talks-giving-the-fossil-fuel-lobby-a-seat-at-the-table?CMP=share_btn_tw.
5. “Uncovered: Fossil Fuel Industry has back-door access to UN Climate talks,” Corporate Accountability International, November 1, 2016, https://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/blog/uncovered-fossil-fuel-industry-has-back-door-access-un-climate-talks. (See image above).