Environment & Climate Change

To date, most of the climate policy attention has been focused on the need to reduce the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change and, as a corollary, to accelerate the U.S. economy’s transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Yet climate change also is straining our nation’s emergency response capabilities as traditional climate-infused disasters such as hurricanes and floods become more frequent and destructive. At the same time, the emergency response community faces new challenges as slower-to-develop climate impacts like drought, heat, and wildfire increasingly are hitting an acute tipping points and becoming life- and livelihood-threatening disasters.

Steven E. Miller provides an analysis of what the Russian invasion of Ukraine means for the security dynamics of the Arctic and Northern Europe.

Stephen Walt enumerates the challenges the U.S. president should prepare for in 2021.

At one point in human history, water’s importance in war went beyond bearing convoys, hiding submarines, and slaking soldiers’ thirst. Water was often itself a weapon. In areas where it was scarce, armies took action to make it scarcer to force besieged enemy cities to capitulate, and in areas where it was abundant, combatants destroyed dams and watched the resulting floods carry their adversaries away. Today, however, most combatants recoil at the use of water as a weapon, and only the most depraved deploy it.

Since the end of World War II, nation-states in international conflict have made concerted efforts to restrain the weaponization of water. Distinct from realist and rationalist explanations, the historical record reveals the rise of an international normative inhibition—a “water taboo”—on using water as a weapon.

Stephen Walt writes that the United States' unusual historical experience, geographic isolation, large domestic market, and general ignorance have weakened its ability to make viable foreign-policy strategies.

Stephen Walt writes that several important events occurred in 2019, but few did anything to significantly alter global trends.

Stephen Walt's Top 10 Reasons to Give Thanks This Thanksgiving includes Greta Thunberg, Emmanuel Macron—and the fact that things aren't as bad as they could be.