Environmental Security and Global Stability: Problems and Responses - Book Review

Parameters, Winter, 2003 by Ambler H. Moss, Jr.

Edited by Max G. Manwaring. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2002. 210 pages. $65.00.

During the Cold War, policymakers all knew, or thought they did, what security and stability meant. In the West, at least, the two concepts had to do with containment of the Soviet Union and its allies, alias the "evil empire," and with the reduction of threats, largely nuclear, which could annihilate mankind. Their subject matter and focus were largely military, following historical tradition. Now, in the "new world disorder," the concept of security itself is the subject of debate and doubt. In everyone's mind, including within the concerns of military planners and strategists, any definition of security is certainly far broader than it ever has been.

Moreover, the actors involved in security issues are no longer limited to nation-states. If we did not appreciate that fact earlier, it was certainly brought home on 11 September 2001. A terrorist movement not easily defined or located wreaked more havoc within the territory of the United States than any foreign power had done.

But is the newest perspective of stability and peace so broad that it includes the environment as a security issue? Professor Max G. Manwaring of the US Army War College thinks so. In this book, he has compiled a succinct volume of expertise, including his own, which makes the case solidly. Among those convinced by its argument is Vice Admiral Paul G. Gaffney II, the former President of National Defense University, who says in the book's Foreword: "Well, pay attention now.... This subject will increasingly consume the national security debate."

The ways in which environment and security are related, however, are not easily summed up. In one sense, we are talking about the internal security and governability of countries that are suffering the severe depletion of their water supply and other resources and the contamination of the air their people breathe. Environmental degradation almost inevitably leads to the progressive disappearance of available food resources. These are life-and-death issues for populations. They are also a potential source of conflicts across boundaries; future wars in the Middle East likely will have more to do with water than with oil. All over the world, severely depleted fisheries already have led to conflict and certainly will bring more as this food source disappears from continued overfishing.

This book is a tour de force in identifying specific and typical problems and flashpoints. The chapters on Asia and Latin America are ably handled by Ambassador Frank McNeil, a diplomat and area expert who is also well versed in environmental and security policy. Pertinent chapters by area experts on the Middle East and West Africa evaluate problems in those regions. A common denominator throughout the book's chapters is the prevalence of many of the same environmental problems in virtually every region of the world today, and these threaten global stability. Environmental degradation is frequently a key intervening variable in security dilemmas, not simply an incidental issue.

In his masterful concluding chapter, Professor Manwaring brings to a head the specific causal links between environmental degradation, instability, and conflict. Taking us from beginnings, such as essential resource shortages, he shows us how such phenomena, if left uncorrected, will lead ultimately to major threats. The solutions to these problems are largely nonmilitary. The military, however, can bring attention to them. A complete response will require a new, comprehensive architecture for a "global security campaign plan" or "blueprint for thinking and action." Manwaring sees what is needed as being something akin to George Kennan's containment theory of engagement with the expansionist Soviet Union, which guided the West's policy over nearly half a century. Where would the West have been without those guiding principles? Of course, in many ways the contemporary challenge to stability is more difficult. Professor Manwaring is right, but what he proposes involves a level of international cooperation and an ability to engage in long-term analysis, planning, and implementation that is not characteristic of the world we live in. Yet, that is not a fault of the book. Consciousness-raising has to start somewhere, and it is no good to dismiss Professor Manwaring's prescriptions as unrealistic.

This book has tremendous value for both civilian and military planners at high levels. It is alarming in its predictions and irrefutable in its logic. At the same time, it is readable, not loaded with academic jargon and not overly lengthy. Is furnishes the right basis for discussion of what is to be done in an insecure world before it is too late. Admiral Gaffney summed it up well with those two words: "pay attention."

Ambassador Ambler H. Moss, Jr., Director, Dante B. Fascell North-South Center and Professor of International Studies, University of Miami.