NL ARMS | Cooling the Cauldron: A Climate Security Intervention Framework

At the opening of each academic year, the Faculty of Military Sciences (FMS) of the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA) publishes the Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies (NL ARMS). This peer-reviewed series offers an overview of cutting-edge scientific research on military sciences drawing on scholarship from researchers at the FMS and colleagues around the world.

The theme for the 2023 edition is “Climate Security and the Military: Concepts, Strategies and Partnerships”.

Edited by Georg Frerks, Rinze Geertsma, Jeroen Klomp and Tom Middendorp, the book reviews the climate Security Nexus from the military angle and proposes the design of climate security strategies and how they can contribute to adaptation to and mitigation of the related challenges.

HCSS strategic analysts Laura Birkman, Irina Patrahau, Tim Sweijs and assistant analyst Matti Suomenaro contributed a chapter to the book, “Cooling the Cauldron: A Climate Security Intervention Framework.” To support strategic and operational decision making, there is a need to move beyond current thinking of climate change as a conflict multiplier and consider the causal mechanisms that lead from climate change to conflict outcomes, the authors state.

The HCSS chapter offers a framework for the design of climate security interventions that may prevent and mitigate climate-related security effects. The framework is based on qualitative and quantitative studies of the climate and conflict nexus, theoretical and empirical studies on early warning and public policy programming, and in-depth case studies.

More specifically, the framework informs interventions that can reduce the security risks of climate change and bolster climate adaptation policy and programming. It employs an implementation logic based on an integrated and multi-level stakeholder approach, that includes the security sector. Using the case of Iraq, the chapter builds on but goes beyond the current body of academic literature by showcasing concrete intervention options that are conflict-sensitive and inclusive, leveraging local knowledge and capabilities.

“Climate Security and the Military: Concepts, Strategies and Partnerships” is available now from the Leiden University Press website, and as open access PDF file here.