Environmental Security: Concept and Implementation
| Published date | 01 January 2000 |
| Date | 01 January 2000 |
| Author | Braden R. Allenby |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512100211001 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Environmental Security:
Concept and Implementation
BRADEN R. ALLENBY
ABSTRACT. Environmental security, a relatively new and still somewhat
contentious concept, may be defined as the intersection of environ-
mental and national security considerations at a national policy level.
It may be understood as a result of several important trends. One, of
course, is the breakdown of the bipolar geopolitical structure that
characterized the cold war. A second, less visible to many in the policy
community, is the shift of environment from compliance and remedia-
tion to strategic for society. This process is occurring at many differ-
ent scales, from implementation of Design for Environment
methodologies within firms, to integration of environmental and trade
considerations in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Taken
together, these trends suggest that environmental security may be an
important evolution of national state and international policy systems.
If this is to occur, however, the concept must be defined with sufficient
rigor to support an operational program.
Introduction
For many readers of this journal, the concept of “environmental security,” or the
integration of environmental issues and national security considerations at a
national policy level, may well be novel, perhaps even a trifle oxymoronic.1It is,
however, a predictable product of an environmentally constrained world where the
previous stability generated by the ideological confrontation between capitalism and
communism has broken down. Indeed, the shifting institutional context within
which this potential policy program arises is unique and complicates both the
conduct and development of policy generally: the rate of change since the end of
World War II along many critical dimensions has accelerated dramatically, and by
all indications is set to continue. Institutionally, we are beginning to recognize that
the scale of human economic activity is for the first time fundamentally affecting
International Political Science Review (2000), Vol. 21, No. 1, 5–21
0192-5121 (2000/01) 21:1, 5–21; 011069 © 2000 International Political Science Association
SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
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a number of basic global and regional physical, chemical, and biological systems
(Turner et al., 1990; LLNL, 1996).
The structure of developed economies is undergoing a similar discontinuous
evolution with the rise of the service and knowledge-based economy, and a concomi-
tant change in patterns of work and the social contracts which previously linked
workers with firms (Judt, 1997; Mathews, 1997; Wriston, 1997). At the same time,
the revolutionary nature of the globalizing economy, which not only changes
regional and global class structures and distribution of income, but increasingly
generates economic activity at a geographic scale beyond the national state, is now
just becoming apparent (Drucker, 1997).
On the geopolitical side, the end of the bipolar cold war structure with its ironi-
cally comfortable definition of global geopolitics as conflict between capitalist and
communist global ideologies has led to a more fragmented, complex world as previ-
ously submerged local and regional tensions emerge, often explosively. Not only are
these regional perturbations difficult to manage in themselves, but they are compli-
cated by important shifts in institutional authority—such as devolution of power
from the national state to local, regional and international institutions, to non-
governmental organizations (NGOs), and to transnational corporations and capital
markets—which are occurring at the same time (Cooper, 1996; Sassens, 1996;
Mathews, 1997).
Taken together, such trends suggest that human societies are moving towards a
globalized economy and society which will not, however, be necessarily more
homogeneous than those which characterized the cold war period. Rather, both
economy and society will become more complex in the technical sense. There will
be more communities, defined both in terms of traditional geographical space and,
increasingly, of common interests defined in cyberspace; and more units, systems,
interests, political and social entities, and technology clusters, at many different
levels. As a result, of course, there will be many more interrelationships among
them. This obviously implies that substantially more sophisticated policy structures
will be required to define and manage the interests of national states in such an
environment.
Moreover, consider for a moment the policy structures that the concept of
environmental security potentially affects, such as foreign policy, security policy,
environmental policy, and science and technology policy. All of these generally
function in the short term and focus on the interests of a specific geographic area.
Limits arise either from political structures—such as terms of office, or the physi-
cal boundaries of national states—or, more fundamentally, from human psycholog-
ical boundaries. Few people think beyond a time horizon of a few years, and a
geographic range of miles. Many of the natural and human systems with which
national security and environmental policy in the broadest sense must deal,
however, lie far beyond these intuitive boundaries. Stratospheric ozone depletion,
for example, will require decades to mitigate, even though the anthropogenic
forcing factors, such as emissions of CFCs, are already being scaled down rapidly.
The natural systems whose perturbations cause global climate change have
responses measured on time scales from (possibly) decades, to centuries, to millen-
nia. On the human side, the evolution of successful institutions, such as national
states, also occurs over decades and centuries. As societies, economies, and human
activity generally become more complex even in the short term, it also becomes
increasingly critical to develop pragmatic policy systems which integrate gracefully
and robustly over very disparate temporal and spatial scales, particularly where a
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