Quoted: The 2018 Camden Conference — A New Player in the Global Security Game — Rising Sea Levels (The Free Press)

by Christine Parrish

Thursday, February 22, 2018 6:52 AM

Melting polar ice, rising sea levels and catastrophic hurricanes are now established factors in national security and foreign policy, according to Cleo Paskal, a policy analyst based at Chatham House in London who researches the security, economic, and political implications of climate change around the world. 

Paskal looked at two major players at the Camden Conference: the U.S. and China.

Airports are typically built on river plains or in flat places that are subject to flooding, said Paskal. As such, American air force bases are increasingly becoming liabilities, not defense installations. This was the case at Keesler Air Force Base during Hurricane Katrina and at other U.S. military bases around the world. A report released to Congress this January showed that over half of the 3,500 U.S. military bases around the world are affected by the changing climate.

The Arctic is becoming increasingly important in global security as melting polar ice opens up the way for shipping. Chinese leaders surprised many security analysts in January when they announced plans to establish a new trade route called the Polar Silk Road across the top of the world — in spite of the fact that China has no territory adjacent to the Arctic. There is no internationally adopted Arctic Treaty in place to stop them, although Arctic powers, including the U.S., are concerned.

Little islands are having big impacts, too. The 200-mile marine Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ, gives each small island a big territorial footprint on the globe under the international treaty known as the Law of the Sea.

Right now, the U.S. has the largest EEZ footprint in the Asia Pacific due to its territorial claim to islands. But the Law of the Sea left a big loophole: it didn’t account for rising seas swallowing up islands — something that is currently happening. Will the 200-mile EEZ go down in the drink, too? Maybe. If it does, it will change American influence in the region. 

While islands sink in some places, China is building islands in the South China Sea to capture the territorial claim to the 200-mile EEZ. 

A rock with a hut attached manned by three unlucky Chinese soldiers doesn’t look like part of a grand territorial strategy, but it is. A military installation built on a Chinese-made island at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands shows why. 

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the man-made islands have hardened shelters with retractable roofs for mobile missile launchers, enough hangars to house 28 military planes, and a runway long enough to land a Chinese bomber that could perform combat operations within 3,500 miles of the reclaimed reef.

The islands also overlap territorial claims made by Vietnam and the Philippines.

Without American engagement in the Law of the Sea and the other international agreements, the U.S. is poised to lose territorial advantage and strategic power that will have real consequences for American trade and security, said Paskal. The costs will make their way down to Main Street and American wallets.

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