Effects of Clinton’s Global Warming Treaty on U.S. Security Gives New Meaning to the Term ‘Environmental Impact’
(Washington, D.C.): Lest there be any
doubt that the U.S. military has a stake
in the outcome of President Clinton’s
decision concerning the size, nature and
timing of mandatory reductions in
greenhouse gas emissions,(1)
consider the 23 September 1997 edition of
the trade publication Defense
Environment Alert. On that date, the
newsletter reprinted in its entirety a
memorandum circulated on 5 September by
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Environmental Security Sherri Goodman.
‘Smoking’ Gun
The Goodman memo underscored the
immense quantity of fossil fuels consumed
by the Nation’s armed forces:
“The United States is the
world’s largest source of carbon
dioxide emissions, approximately
20% of the world total, resulting
primarily from burning fossil
fuels. Within the U.S.,
the Federal government is the
single largest user of energy,
with the Department of Defense
accounting for 73% of the Federal
government’s total.
Overall, DoD uses 1.4% of the
energy used within the United
States.”
Goodman estimates that the Pentagon’s
gross energy consumption totals
“about 24 million metric tons of
carbon equivalent of greenhouse gas
emissions.” Of this,
“about 58% was used for operations
and training in military tactical and
strategic systems (i.e., equipment,
vehicles, aircraft and vessels designed
or procured for use in military
operations). The remaining 42%
was used at DoD installations by
facilities and non-tactical
vehicles.”
A Bill of
Particulars
The memorandum declares that “Any
restriction on allowable carbon dioxide
emissions for these [tactical and
strategic] systems will affect DoD
military operations and readiness.”
It goes on to offer illustrative
examples, by service, of what those
repercussions might be, assuming a 10%
reduction in fuel usage. For example:
- “For the Army,
a 10% reduction in operations and
training fuel use would cut
328,000 miles per year from tank
training, impacting its ability
to fully execute the National
Military Strategy….[It]
would reduce the operational
tempo mile-average training
strategy to a level that would
downgrade unit readiness and
require up to six additional
weeks to prepare to deploy.
Strategic deployment schedules
would be missed, placing
operations at risk. Furthermore a
10% reduction in training hours
for flight crews could reduce
their readiness status, requiring
four-to-six weeks of additional
training to deploy and will
jeopardize crew safety.” - “For the Navy,
a 10% reduction in fuel use would
cut 2,000 steaming days
per year from training
and operations for deployed
ships. This would impact
the National Security Strategy…result[ing]
in some ships being deployed at a
less acceptable readiness rate.
Naval aviation (Navy and Marines)
would also be adversely
impacted….The readiness of
Marine Corps air-ground task
forces would also be
significantly affected. These
integrated combined areas [form
the] fundamental component of
forward deployed United States
forces and are vital to fostering
regional stability and
maintaining the overall readiness
of the Navy-Marine Corps
team.” - “For the Air Force,
a 10% cut in fuel usage would
result in the loss of
over 210,000 flying hours
per year. This would reduce Air
Force readiness to the point it
would be incapable of
meeting all of the requirements
of the National Military Strategy.
Fighter and bomber crews would be
unable to maintain full combat
readiness. This means that many
advanced capabilities would be
lost….” - “In addition, airlift
capacity would be reduced 10%,
impacting all supported agencies.
Reduced aerial tanker capacity
would further impact operations
and training. Finally, training
not only keeps existing units and
crews ready to fight, it also
prepares new crews to replace
those lost through normal
attrition. For example, the Air
Force’s critical pilot shortage
would be further exacerbated by
reducing the production of new
pilots through Undergraduate
Pilot Training.”
The background memorandum concludes:
“In summary, DoD found
unacceptable impacts to national security….While
the results of this analysis provide
useful insight into some of the potential
short-term impacts of limiting fuel
usage, there are serious shortfalls in
this type of ‘static’ analysis. First,
the analysis does not address possible
threats to national security that will
emerge in the future. The impacts
described above assume that the force
structure in place today will be adequate
throughout the greenhouse gas reduction
period. Second, the analysis assumes
DoD’s fuel needs are relatively stable
and predictable. This means assuming that
a major crisis requiring the use of
military forces that will increase fuel
use will not occur.”
A
National Security Waiver?
For all these reasons, Secretary
Goodman attached to her background
memorandum a proposed “national
security waiver” to the treaty
expected to be adopted at Kyoto, Japan in
December. This waiver, the
memorandum says, “should address
military tactical and strategic systems
used in training to support readiness or
in support of national security,
humanitarian activities, peace keeping,
peace enforcement and United Nation’s
actions.” Seems reasonable.
Defense Environment Alert
reported, however, that “some
DoD sources say the September 5th
memos on the climate change treaty do not
represent the Pentagon’s current position
and are now outdated.“
Unfortunately, Goodman declined to return
phone calls seeking clarification as to
whether the Defense Department no longer
believes that a national security waiver
is required, or whether it no longer
believes that the impending presidential
decision would have “unacceptable
impacts to national security.”
What is clear, however, is
that this issue seems not to be
getting the sort of high-level attention
one would expect from the Pentagon
leadership, given the stakes. At
a Washington conference last week, the Chief
of Staff of the Army, senior
civilian and military strategic planners
(including, an Assistant
Secretary of Defense, a Navy
admiral assigned to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, and generals
representing the Army and Air
Force) and the Chairman
of the National Defense Panel —
a congressionally mandated panel tasked
with preparing an independent review of
the Pentagon’s future requirements — all
confessed that they were unaware
of what was being done to protect defense
equities in the Clinton Administration’s
decision-making on global warming.
The Bottom Line
We can be sure of one thing: If
the Pentagon is not going to look after
those equities, no one else in the
Clinton Administration will do so.
Press reports say that behind the
tag-team hard-sell being mounted by
Messrs. Clinton and Gore for the Kyoto
treaty, a battle royal is raging between
environmental officials, on the one hand,
and those responsible for the U.S.
economy, on the other. The U.S. military
seems to be AWOL at a moment when its
support for the latter could help spare
the Nation as a whole the severe, and
unwarranted, impact of the President’s
emissions-reduction scheme upon our
future economic growth and standard of
living — to say nothing of its effect on
the readiness, power projection and
war-fighting capabilities of America’s
armed forces.
– 30 –
1. See the
following Casey Institute and Center for
Security Policy products: As
Clinton Pushes For Radical Approach To
Global Warming, Will Impacts On U.S.
National Security Be Frozen Out?
(No. 97-C 147,
2 October 1997) and Center
Asks: Are White House Climate Change
Extravaganzas Meant To Facilitate
Informed Debate — Or Just The Party
Line? (
September 1997).
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