The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security

For an overview of the role of environmental factors in early theories of politics, see Daniel Deudney , 'Early Theories of the Influence of Geography and the Environment Upon Politics', Global Geopolitics: Materialist World Order Theories of the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Politics Department, Princeton University. 1989), Chapter III.

Lester Brown , Redefining National Security ( Washington, DC: Worldwatch Paper, No. 14, October 1977); Jessica Tuchman Matthews , ' Redefining Security', Foreign Affairs (Vol. 68, No. 2, 1989), pp. 162-77; Michael Renner , National Security: The Economic and Environmental Dimensions ( Washington, DC: Worldwalch Paper, No. 89, May 1989): and Norman Myers , 'Environmental Security'. Foreign Policy (No. 74, 1989), pp. 23-41.

Richard Ullman , 'Redefining Security'. International Security (Vol. 8, No. I, Summer 1983), pp. 129-53.

Hal Harvey , 'Natural Security', Nuclear Times (March/April 1988), pp. 24-26.

Philip Shabecoff , 'Senator Urges Military Resources to be Turned to Environmental Battle', The New York Times, 29 June 1990, p. 1A.

'Strategic Environmental Research Program', Congressional Record (28 June 1990), pp. S.8929-43.

Quentin Skinner , 'Language and Political Change', and James Farr , 'Understanding Political Change Conceptually', in Terence Ball , et al., (eds.), Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

For a particularly lucid and well-rounded discussion of security, the state and violence, see Barry Buzan , People, States, and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), particularly pp. 1-93.

Michael Howard , 'War and the Nation-State', Daedalus (Fall, 1979). Emphasis in original.

See, in particular, Peter Gleick , 'The Implications of Global Climatic Changes for International Security', Climatic Change (Vol. 15), pp. 309-25; and Peter Gleick , 'Global Climatic Changes and Geopolitics: Pressures on Developed and Developing Countries', in A. Berger et al., (eds.), Climate and Geo-Sciences (Amsterdam: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989).

Arthur H. Westing. 'Global Resources and International Conflict: An Overview', in Arthur H, Westing (ed.), Global Resources and Errrieoramcnrul Conflict: Environmental Factors in Strategic Policy and Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 1986). p. 1.

For a useful survey of theories relevant for such analysis, see Tad Homer Dixon. Environmental Change and Human Conflict (Cambridge, MA : Working Paper, American Academy of the Arts and Sciences . 1990).

For discussions of resource autarky during the 1930s, see Brooks Emeny , The Strategy of Raw Materials (New York: Macmillan , 1934); Nonnan Rich. Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, The Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion ( New York: W.W., Norton & Co., 1973); William Carr , Arms. Auturchy, and Aggression: A Study in German Foreign Policy, 1933-1939 (London: Edward Arnold. 1972): and Daniel Deudney. 'Haushofer, Burnham, and Carr: Panregional Superstates', in Deudney. op. cit, in note 1, Chapter VII.

James Crowley , Japan's Quest for Autonomy: National Securisy and Foreign Policy. 1930-1938 (princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966).

Nicholas John Spykrnan , America's Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1942).

Alfred E. Eckes. Jr.. The United States and the Global Struggle for Minerals ( Austin. TX: University of Texas Press , 1979).

Ronnie D. Lipschutz . When Nations Clash: Raw Materials, Ideology and Foreign Policy (New York: Ballinger , 1989).

Among the most recent versions of the argument that war is of declining viability are: Evan Luard. The Blunted Sword: The Erosion of Military Power in Modern World Politics (New York: New Amsterdam Books. 1989): and John Mueller. Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolscence of Major War (New York: Basic Books. 1989).

H.E. Goeller and Alvin Weinberg. 'The Age of Substitutability ', Science (Vol. 201. 20 February 1967). For some recent evidence supporting this hypothesis, see Eric D. Larson. Marc H. Ross and Robert H. Williams , 'Beyond the Era of Materials', Scientific American (Vol. 254. 1986). pp. 34-41.

For a discussion of authoritarian and conflictual consequences of environmental constrained economies, see William Ophuls , Ecology and the Polities of Scarcity (San Francisco, CA: Freeman. 1976), p. 152. See also Susan M. Leeson. 'Philosophical Implications of the Ecological Crisis: The Authoritarian Challenge to Liberalism '. Poliry (Vol. 11, No. 3, Spring 1979) ; Ted Curr. 'On the Political Consequences of Scarcity and Economic Decline', International Studies Quarterly (No. 29. 1985 ), pp. 51-75; and Robert Heilbroner . An Inquiry Into the Human Prospect ( New York: W.W. Norton, 1974).

See, for example, Robert Gilpin , War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

Bernard Brodie , 'The Impact of Technological Change on the Interstational System', in David Sullivan and Martin Sattler (eds.), Change and the Future of the International System (New York: Columbia University Press. 1972), p. 14.

For a particularly lucid argument that the nation-state system is over-developed relative to its actual problem-solving capacities, see George Modelski , Principles of World Polities (New York: The Free Press. 1972).