Climate security is the ultimate systems-level challenge, i.e., it is highly complex, non-linear, and multidimensional. Since 2021, when the Secretary of Defense directed all defense components to include climate change in strategies and plans, the Pentagon has released multiple key assessments, policies, tools, and classified and unclassified reports related to climate change threats, trends, hazards, impacts, risks, vulnerabilities, and resilience. These documents do speak to climate change impacts on defense strategies, plans, capabilities, missions, and equipment, yet collectively these are imprecise. That is, although there seems to be an understanding that climate security means the security implications of climate change – which is not incorrect – it is quite vague. Quite simply, if climate security is everything, then it risks being nothing. This Special Report asks two fundamental, yet practically-oriented questions, with strategic implications: How does DoD define climate security? Relatedly, what are the key climate security dimensions in the Arctic most relevant to DoD? These questions serve as the foundational inquiry in a collaborative effort among several of the DoD Regional Centers to create a climate security framework for DoD and its Allies and partners.
