Developing Strategic and Operational Environmental Intelligence Capabilities

Abstract This article examines the role of environmental change in conducting intelligence assessments, and the important role in integrating scientific data with background assumptions behind military and security planning. Tracing the development of environmental security concepts, recent military and intelligence interest in climate and environmental changes are based on practical concerns over critical vulnerabilities of infrastructure, energy supplies, and system stability. Examples from Central Asia illustrate the cascading nature of environmental security risks, particularly with water and energy systems. The discussion follows with how scenarios and risk assessments can be integrated with concepts from environmental net assessments, and why traditional assumptions of probabilities, uncertainties and secrecy may be misleading. It is essential to understand not only how extreme future changes might be, but what capabilities we and allies posses to adapt to environmental-related hazards.