Global Warming = Military Issue?

I think, at this point, we're all extremely concerned about the threat of climate change. But is global warming a military issue?

The House of Representatives just passed a Defense Authorization Bill "which includes a requirement for future defense planning to include consideration of the risks posed by global warming to current and future Department of Defense facilities, capabilities, and missions," according to a statement from Rep. Ed Markey's office.

“Long-term planning for all possible threats is an integral part of our national security preparation. For the Department of Defense to include the impacts of global warming in its regular strategic reviews is a natural and necessary step in light of the broad threats that global warming could pose to our military facilities, capabilities, and missions,” said Rep. Markey...

The Defense Authorization Act breaks new ground in safeguarding the future of our country by requiring, for the first time, that the growing threat of global warming be fully integrated into our defense planning. This bill ensures that the full panoply of global warming impacts will be assessed, and guidance for military planners will be issued, in the next versions of three central defense planning documents:

· The National Security Strategy

· The National Defense Strategy,

· and the Quadrennial Defense Review.

In 2003, the Pentagon commissioned a study on the impact of global warming on our national security which concluded that global warming “should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern.”

UPDATE: The Pentagon is already doing this -- kinda, sorta, a little. According to Inside Defense, folks in the five-sided building are "drafting a new strategic construct that strives to better prepare for 'shocks' to national security and international order." They "could include major changes in global climate, a nuclear attack against a major western city, a new technology revolution or a financial market collapse that triggers a global depression."

If adopted, this new “trends and shocks” construct -- which aims to widen the aperture of threats considered in long-term military planning
-- could lay the foundation for the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review and influence the Pentagon’s upcoming six-year investment plan, with significant ramifications for the mix of weapons and types of forces the
Defense Department develops and fields.