Climate threat in military's sights
Tom Allard
May 17, 2007
THE Australian Defence Force has identified climate change as a national security threat for the first time, as it predicted the military would become more involved in stabilising failing states than fighting conventional wars.
Outlining its vision for the future of the armed services to 2030, the force has also foreshadowed an era where crises flare more suddenly while its adversaries, including terrorists and insurgents, become more cunning and capable.
Launching the document - Joint Operations for the 21st Century - the Chief of Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, said the military faced security challenges it had not envisaged before, specifically "climate change and the impacts of global demography".
It is the first time a publicly released document from Australia's security and intelligence apparatus has acknowledged the threat.
Analysts such as Professor Alan Dupont from the University of Sydney have argued that climate change has the potential to devastate the productive land and water supply in struggling nations across the region.
It risks overwhelming fragile governments, producing massive movements of refugees while unleashing civil strife and violence.
The defence force must adapt and jettison some of its orthodoxies to tackle the threat posed by terrorism, as well as the risk of pandemics and natural disasters, the document says.
"That will require a measured and orderly transition from a force heavily weighted to countering a conventional threat against Australian territory to a more adaptable and agile force," it said.
"The ADF should expect to be involved in a larger number of low intensity operations, particularly stabilisation operations."
Such stabilisation operations take time and will require close co-operation across government departments and agencies.
Air Chief Marshal Houston said he could see a time when Australian Federal Police officers and diplomats were closely involved with the ADF's planning and operational processes.
Such operations would also increasingly require multinational co-operation, with the document foreshadowing a "deepening interdependence with the forces of our allies".
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