The U.S. military's new Africa Command was touted as a way to stop the spread of global jihadism. But it looks like AFRICOM is going to be handling a whole lot of other issues along the way... including the consequences of climate change, Inside the Pentagon reports.
*Last spring, research and analysis firm CNA Corp. conducted a study proposing a link between climate change and war. The authors of the report, drafted with the help of a military advisory board of 11 former officers, expressed concern that several regions like Africa vulnerable to climate change may be drawn into conflict in the future. The study specifically mentioned the Darfur area of Sudan.
**According to the latest United Nations figures, more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2 million others forced to flee their homes since 2003. The
U.S. government has described the situation as genocide. The conflict between the Sudanese government and Darfurians is rooted in the migratory movement of farmers into herders’ areas due to the loss of arable land following weather pattern changes.
*“The issues of changing weather patterns and a sustained severe drought has impacted on Darfur and set the conditions for the increase in tensions between those that were farmers and those that were camel herders,” Theresa Whelan, the
Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, tells Inside the Pentagon.*“And certainly, peripherally, to the extent that the Africa Command...
enables African forces to be more effective in deterring conflicts, defusing conflicts, responding to local flare-ups that might occur because of some environmentally caused issue -- then, yes, you could say that AFRICOM is part of the process of addressing the consequences of environmental change,” she added.
*
*AFRICOM may be able to intervene in other situations created by climate change, Whelan said.
**In the event that an African country experiences a spike in rainfall, making a stream no longer crossable via foot, the command may work with that nation’s military engineers to help build a bridge over the water, she said.
**“You could imagine scenarios like that,” she said.
**The United
States and Africa already have certain relationships revolving around the environment that involve both militaries, added Whelan.
*The U.S. and
South African governments have had a working group on climate-related security for several years aimed at reducing the impact of military operations on the environment and developing procedures for environmentally safe training practices, she explained. Under AFRICOM
she expects the bilateral relationship to build on “core competencies,”
but did not mention specifics.
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