Donald Trump will cap his ongoing assault on climate change this year by dropping the issue from a list of global threats in his 70-page National Security Strategy (NSS), to be unveiled later today.
In yet another stinging rebuke to his predecessor, Barak Obama, whose Administration listed climate change as an “urgent and growing threat to” US national security in 2015, the new NSS ignores the issue.
A senior Administration spokesperson is quoted as saying “Climate change is not identified as a national security threat but climate and the importance of the environment and environmental stewardship are discussed.”
But rather than stress the importance of the environment, the document reportedly just stresses the need for economic security, based on Trump’s America First thinking. “American’s economic security is national security,” a second senior administration official said yesterday to the Boston Globe.
According to the Associated Press, the simplistic plan “is to focus on four main themes: protecting the homeland and way of life; promoting American prosperity; demonstrating peace through strength; and advancing American influence in an ever-competitive world.”
So its all about economic security being part of national security which is aided and abetted by a powerful military: So the flawed strategy is to give extra funding to the miltiary without understanding the risks they face. It is not rocket science to work out how rising sea levels, more violent storms and extreme weather will impact US national security and interests both home and abroad, if nothing else by creating millions of potentially displaced people and rising conflict from which the US nor its other allies are isolated.
Nor is it rocket science to note that, if Trump’s new security policies are implemented, it “could sharply alter the United States’ relationships with the rest of the world”, even its traditional allies, including military ones.
Moreover, not everyone in the Administration is likely to support the plan, either. As the Guardian notes, the new stance is at odds with some in the Trump Administration. For example, back in January, Defense Secretary, James Mattis, noted in unpublished testimony that: “Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today.”