Home » Posts tagged 'Americas'
Tag Archives: Americas
US Northern and Southern Command: Climate Change Impacts Our Area of Responsibility
Admiral Craig S. Faller, USN, Commander of U.S. Southern Command, speaks to the House Armed Services Committee on March 11, 2020
In case you missed it – on March 11, the Full House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on “National Security Challenges and U.S. Military Activity in North and South America.” Witnesses providing written statements and answering questions included the HON Kenneth Rapuano, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security, Admiral Craig Faller, Commander, U.S. Southern Command, and General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, Commander, U.S. Northern Command. In their conversations with committee members, the two commanders acknowledged that climate change is affecting their Area of Responsibility, or AOR.
Venezuela: Drought, Mismanagement and Political Instability
By Lieutenant Commander Oliver-Leighton Barrett, US Navy (Ret)
Most of the story-lines driving the international community’s understanding of the Venezuelan crisis center on the Maduro regime’s gross mismanagement of the economy, and its clean break from democratic laws and tradition. That makes sense, not least as the most “proximate” causes of the current political turmoil in the country seem to be clearly related to those factors. However, there are some background factors that have gone less noticed. The Venezuelan government’s inability to manage its strained water resources in the face of a drought that the nation’s meteorologists characterized as “the worst in at least 40 years,” for example, is a largely unwritten part of the story that deserves to be aired. (more…)
Science Helps Build Climate Security
Preparing for climate change security challenges is often about managing uncertainty and risk. Scientific advancements in measuring and monitoring climate and environmental change can help decrease uncertainty and minimize those risks. With this in mind there were several interesting stories this week on new advancements in the area: (more…)