Climate security

“All hell breaking loose”: How the Pentagon is planning for climate change

Extreme temperatures. Collapsing countries. Wars on multiple continents. Simultaneous natural disasters. And a US military completely unprepared to deal with it all.

Welcome to all hell breaking loose.

That’s not the plot of some apocalyptic novel — it’s a scenario the Pentagon is deeply concerned could happen in the not-so-distant future due to climate change.

Over the past decade, the Pentagon has consistently, repeatedly cited climate change as a serious threat to America’s national security in official public documents.

A new book, aptly titled All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, reveals the Pentagon is far more worried about the potential impacts of climate change than most probably realize. The good news is that it’s doing a lot to develop ways of coping with that uncertain future. The bad news is that it still may not be enough.

I called up the book’s author, Michael Klare, to find out more about what the US military is so worried about, what it’s trying to do about it, and whether any of it will be enough to mitigate the coming challenges.