Friends and Colleagues,

At the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR), we have continued to expand our activities, our team, and our impact through 2023. Today, I’d like to share some of our accomplishments with you—and thank you, our supporters, networks, and participants in our efforts. Here are just a few of CSR’s 2023 highlights:

Creating New Tools to Help Understand & Address Systemic Global Risks. In June, CSR’s Center for Climate and Security (CCS) launched its Military Responses to Climate Hazards (MiRCH) Tracker, a first-of-its-kind effort to quantitatively track and qualitatively understand the security implications of the growing demand for military humanitarian assistance and disaster relief around the globe. Meanwhile, in September CCS launched two interactive reports that help visualize climate security impacts in Turkey and Iran, continuing an innovative partnership with the Woodwell Climate Research Center, and briefed key Executive Branch officials and bipartisan Congressional staff on the findings.

In September, CSR’s Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons launched the CSR Biodefense Scorecard through which we track where stronger policy development is occurring or lagging, and highlight markers of policy implementation. In the coming weeks, the Nolan Center will release two additional open-access tools: a biodefense budget tracker to serve as a companion to the Scorecard; and The Nuclear Weapon Systems Project, a qualitative approach to portray data and visualize how the types of nuclear capabilities fielded in the world have evolved since the advent of these weapons.  

Influencing Policy. CSR’s impact on key policy issues continues. For example, the first U.S. Department of Defense Biodefense Posture Review, released this summer, reflected many priorities CSR has helped to push such as increasing international collaboration, expanding biological threat training and exercises, raising the Department’s emphasis on early warning, and more. CCS also continues to track U.S. Government actions toward climate security recommendations from its 2022 Challenge Accepted report. This includes incorporating climate in military wargames and training, progressing toward a National Adaptation Plan via the National Resilience Framework and the American Climate Corps, and supporting climate vulnerable allies and partners by sharing the DOD Climate Assessment Tool.  

Elevating Focus on the Unique Risks of Tactical Nuclear Weapons. In 2023, CSR experts conducted an extensive analysis of the types of nuclear weapons that the P5 nations—the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, and China—developed since the start of the nuclear age. Through extensive historical research, CSR was able to highlight a wide range of reasons that leaders of these nations chose to end dozens of types of tactical nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The results are captured in an extensive report, Ending Tactical Nuclear Weapons: A Brief History and a Path Forward, which CSR experts have briefed extensively to U.S. and global diplomatic and defense leaders, legislators, and more. 

Engaging Globally to Address A Broad Range of Climate Security Risks. In September, World Food Program head, Cindy McCain noted in an NPR interview, “food assistance, starvation, that’s a national security issue. It’s not just a food security issue. It’s national security. And it affects everyone involved, including the United States.” This message reflects the work of CSR’s Feeding Resilience project, which explores the U.S. national security benefits of addressing climate change, food insecurity, and stability together. 

Another example of the broader range of topics tackled this year by the Center for Climate and Security was our first-ever field research effort. Our team traveled to Nairobi to conduct scenarios exercises with a range of Somali government and NGO actors to explore the nexus of climate change, conflict, and humanitarian response in Somalia, and we are planning similar trips to Mozambique and Papua New Guinea in the coming year.  

Convening Stakeholders on Strategic Weapons Threats and Responses. In 2023, CSR held multiple events to bring together policymakers and thought leaders to discuss how strategic weapons challenges are evolving and what to do about them. This included a fireside chat with U.S. interagency leaders on chemical weapons threats in November, multiple dialogues on reducing nuclear risks, and a September workshop on biomanufacturing for addressing high-consequence biological events co-hosted with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

Deepening CSR’s Trailblazing Ecological Security Program: The Ecological Security Program team ran a major, in-person scenario exercise with its Alliance for Ecological Security, and published the results in September in a report, Ecological Risk in a Future Southeast Asia. Set in 2040, the scenario led participants through a large-scale ecological disruption from deforestation, food insecurity, climate change, and marine issues culminating in a complex crisis. The unique exercise demonstrated that where social imperatives meet ecological degradation, the resultant cascade of risk pathways will be unpredictable and hazardous, and that policy solutions must therefore be layered and multi-sectoral in nature. CSR continues to expand its cutting-edge ecological security analytical content and outreach in what is a critical, yet still emerging space.

Reinvigorating U.S. Civil Nuclear Leadership. CSR continues the work of its Commission on Nuclear Energy and Climate Security, a group of multi-sector U.S. leaders dedicated to promoting responsible leadership in nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation to create a safer future for nuclear energy. In October, CSR hosted an evening Commission event with keynote remarks by Hon. Jill Hruby, Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, and CSR’s presentation of a nuclear leadership award to Susan Eisenhower. 

Addressing the Intersection of Biosecurity and Ecological Security. CSR’s Converging Risks Lab (CRL) successfully concluded an initial, pathbreaking project, Addressing the Threat of Disease Spillover, with a special focus on approaches that mitigate both biological security and ecological security risks.  

Fostering Next Generation Leaders: CSR continues to expand fellowship programs and projects dedicated to mentoring and creating opportunities for future leaders to address global risks. The Nolan Center’s Ending Bioweapons Fellowship brought early-career experts to experiential learning site visits and to interact with government leaders in the United States and United Kingdom, as well as National Labs, innovative companies and international organizations, and leading academics. 2023 also saw the kickoff of our early-career Nuclear Risk Reduction Fellowship. With its first two cohorts of fellows, the CSR team hosted discussions on our Code of Nuclear Responsibility, led visits to see a B-2 Bomber and former nuclear missile site at Whiteman Air Force Base in the spring and to USS NEBRASKA (SSBN 739) at Naval Station Kitsap-Bangor in the fall. Fellowship participants are also conducting research on new risk reduction concepts. 

In 2023, the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS) launched its first “young leaders” cohort, focused on NATO member states. U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO, Julianne Smith, said our young leaders program fulfills a “priority for the entire NATO Alliance to find more effective and productive ways to engage the next generation.” Six of the young leaders joined IMCCS at the NATO Public Forum in Vilnius in July to share their climate security priorities in one-on-one conversations with their legislators and defense leadership. In 2024, we will expand this program to the Indo-Pacific. Additionally, CCS launched the fourth cohort of the Climate Security Fellowship which focuses on providing early- to mid-career change makers with the tools and network they need to bring a climate lens to their work going forward; and the Ecological Security Fellowship continued through 2023, with the CSR team facilitating meetings with a range of experts and the fellows exploring various ecological tipping point concerns. 

As daunting as the strategic risks we face continue to be, we are seeing significant progress in addressing them. With your support, CSR will continue working toward further progress through our exceptional team, extensive networks, and unique approaches to developing bold ideas and fostering change.

This Giving Tuesday, your tax-exempt donation will help us to continue driving progress against many of the world’s greatest threats.

Thank you for your support and generosity. The Council on Strategic Risks is a U.S.-based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Follow us on Twitter @CSRisks or our website, www.councilonstrategicrisks.org. Please contact the CEO, Christine Parthemore, at cparthemore@csrisks.org if you would like to discuss donations of stocks to CSR.