6 April 1997
Source:
http://denix.cecer.army.mil/denix/Public/ES-Programs/Speeches/speech-22.html
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Environmental Security)
National Defense University
August 8, 1996
Good morning. I am pleased to join you today to launch this discussion of the environment's key role in Secretary Perry's recent call for a revolution in security strategy.(Tab A) In his landmark speech at Harvard last May, the Secretary emphasized that our security depends on more than being able to guard against missile attacks. Our security depends equally as much on preventing the conditions that lead to conflict and on helping to create the conditions for peace. He calls this strategy "preventive defense." In Secretary Perry's words, with preventive defense we can "promote trust, stability, and democratic reform, and so help to prevent the conditions for conflict and build the conditions for peace." (Tab B). This morning I would like to give you my vision of environmental security as a key component of "preventive defense." First, I will discuss Secretary Perry's concept of "preventive defense." Second, I will review briefly the current knowledge about the relationship of the environment to national security. Third, I will present my thesis about the two ways in which environmental security supports preventative defense.
Fifty years ago, during an equally tumultuous time, our "preventive defense" posture in Europe -- what became known as the Marshall Plan -- recognized reconstruction of war-shattered economies as fundamental to peace and stability. Secretary Perry has stressed that today's "preventive defense" strategy -- one that will support peace, making war less likely and deterrence unnecessary -- must be based on three premises:
"...first, that fewer weapons of mass destruction in fewer hands
makes America and the world safer; second, that more democracy in
more nations means less chance of conflict in the world; and
third, that defense establishments have an important role to play
in building democracy, trust, and understanding."[Tab A]
For "preventive defense" to succeed we must address the increasingly diverse threats to our security in the post-Cold War world. President Clinton in his 1996 State of the Union Address described these threats in his call to maintain America's leadership in the world:
"The threats we face today as Americans respect no nation's
borders. Think of them: terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, organized crime, drug trafficking, ethnic and
religious hatred, aggression by rogue states, environmental
degradation." (Tab C)
State Of The Union Adress Of The President January 23, 1996
As the President recognized, the underlying causes of conflict and instability, such as ethnic cleavages and environmental degradation, may threaten our national interests in regions of strategic importance. Understanding the causes of conflict and instability, providing adequate warning of potential crises, and acting well before a crisis to avoid costly military interventions are at the heart of "preventive defense;" Operationalizing "preventive defense" will pose what I believe is a primary challenge to policymakers in the years ahead.
Policy makers are beginning to delve more deeply into the causes and consequences of conflict and instability in the post-Cold War world. It is increasingly clear that environmental degradation and scarcity play a key role in this complex equation. In 1996, for the first time, the National Security Strategy recognizes that "a number of transitional problems which once seemed quite distant, like environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, rapid population growth and refugee flows, now pose threats to our prosperity and have security implications for both present and long-term American policy." [Tab D] Secretary Christopher, in a major speech in April at Stanford, stressed that "addressing natural resource issues is frequently critical to achieving political and economic stability, and to pursuing U.S. strategic goals around the world." [Tab E]. Indeed, Secretary Christopher has embarked on an effort to fully engage the State Department in the environmental aspects of foreign policy. And, as you all know, Vice President Gore has been a tireless champion of the environment. For example, his recent work on the cooperative effort he chairs with the Russian Prime Minister, known as the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, has been based in part on his recognition that underlying environmental problems are linked directly to the future stability and security of Russia.
The role of environmental degradation and scarcity in causing instability and conflict is the subject of much debate in the academic community, as you will hear about later this morning. Despite the lack of academic consensus, it is clear that environmental degradation and scarcity and related conditions (such as increased population growth, urbanization, and migration, and the spread of infectious diseases) may contribute significantly to instability around the world.
Scarcity of renewable resources such as water, forests, cropland, and fish stocks occur from degradation and depletion of resources, overconsumption and overuse of resources, and/or inequitable distribution of resources. Often these causes of scarcity combine to exacerbate the scarcity's impact.
Environmental scarcities can interact with political, economic, social, and cultural factors to cause instability and conflict. Particularly in poorer countries, scarcities can limit economic options and therefore force those already impoverished to seek their livelihood in ecologically endangered areas such as cities. The "megacities" of the South are especially vulnerable. The developing world's urban population is expected to increase from I billion in 1985 to 4 billion -- or almost half of the world's population -- by 2025. [Tab F] Such areas can become teeming areas for disease, crime, and social decay. The multiple effects of environmental scarcity, including large population movements, economic decline, and capture of environmental resources by elites, can weaken the government's capacity to address the demands of its citizens. If the state's legitimacy and capacity for coercive force are undermined, the conditions are ripe for instability and violent conflict. If the state's legitimacy and coercive force capacity remain intact or are bolstered, the regime may turn more authoritarian and challenge the trend of democracy and free markets around the world. Either way, our security is affected, and U.S. military forces may become involved, when environmentally linked instability spills over to other states in a key region, or when a complex humanitarian emergency results from environmentally rooted population movements.
For example, in Haiti, environmental conditions, such as deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution, along with demographic, socioeconomic, and political problems including poverty, urban overpopulation, and a highly centralized government combined to create the societal decay that led to the involvement of American troops. Haiti's deforestation is its most severe environmental concern, one that world relief agencies have explicitly tied to the country's refugee crisis which brought in American troops. One need only look at satellite photos of Haiti and its island neighbor, the Dominican Republic: on the Dominican side lie vast, forested areas; on the Haiti side, the land has been stripped bare by rampant clear-cutting. The disappearance of Haiti's forests and its consequent soil erosion are so extreme that coral reefs have been damaged, resulting in devastating reductions in fish stock. Economic deprivation has driven people from their land, which in turn has deepened the country's political crisis and intensified the outpouring of people seeking refuge in the United States. An environmental crisis similar to Haiti's thus may have significant regional or even international effects, which, in combination with other factors, could compel U.S. military involvement.
Even where environmental degradation or scarcity is not likely to be a cause of instability or conflict, military environmental cooperation can help promote democracy trust, and capability to address environmental problems. In this context, defense environmental cooperation supports one of Secretary Perry's three premises of preventive defense: that "defense establishments have an important role to play in building democracy, trust and understanding."
I believe our environmental security challenge now under "preventive defense" is twofold. One challenge is to understand where and under what circumstances environmental degradation and scarcity may contribute to instability and conflict, and to address those conditions early enough to make a difference. The second challenge is to determine where military environmental cooperation can contribute significantly to building democracy, trust and understanding. These two elements together constitute the environmental security pillar of "preventive defense."
We must begin these efforts now. As the National Security Strategy observes, our current decisions regarding the environment and natural resources will affect the magnitude of the security risks we face over the next generation. [Tab D]
The first need under the environmental security pillar of "preventive defense" is adequate indications and warnings of potential crises. The Intelligence Community has begun to take a leading role in this important area. Last year DoD co-sponsored a conference with the Intelligence Community on environmental security. and national security. The conference participants concluded that the Intelligence Community has the information-gathering infrastructure and the ability to perform integrated analysis on linkages between environmental problems and other instability factors necessary to contribute to an indications and warning system. [Tab G] In his speech to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles two weeks ago, the Director of Central Intelligence, John Deutch, emphasized the importance of the environment in the Intelligence Community's priorities:
"There is an essential connection between environmental
degradation, population growth, and poverty that regional analysts
must take into account. National reconnaissance systems that
track the movement of tanks through the desert, can, at the same
time, track the movement of the desert itself, see the sand
closing in on formerly productive fields or hillsides laid bare by
deforestation and erosion. Satellite systems allow us to quickly
assess the magnitude and severity of damage. Adding this
environmental dimension to traditional political, economic, and
military analysis enhances our ability to alert policy makers to
potential instability, conflict, or human disaster and to identify
situations which may draw in American involvement."
[Tab H]
DCI Speech at the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles, California
As long ago as 1991 then-Senator Gore urged the Intelligence Community to create a task force to determine ways that intelligence assets could be tapped to support environmental research. The Environmental Task Force Gore helped create found that data collected by the Intelligence Community from satellites and other means can fill important information gaps for the environmental science community. [Tab H] Examples of the specific products the Intelligence Community can produce for environmental purposes are maps depicting environmental contamination at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and Yeysk Airbase in Russia that Vice President Gore and Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin exchanged in January 1996 at a meeting of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission. These maps were prepared exclusively from classified assets. We hope to continue this cooperation and develop our respective capabilities previously used exclusively for intelligence purposes to support creation of warning mechanisms for potential crises.
In a speech on the Senate floor on June 28, 1990, Senator Sam Nunn spoke of the need to "harness some of the resources of the defense establishment ... to confront the massive environmental problems facing our nation and the world today." [Tab J] That led to the establishment of the multiagency Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), which plays an important role in developing and analyzing the data needed for alerting us to possible security threats. Through SERDP, which was established in 1990, Senator Nunn and then-Senator Gore had the foresight to recognize that the U.S. defense posture had to be adjusted to meet the challenges of the post-Cold War world, challenges that include environmental degradation. SERDP has made significant contributions to our understanding of global environmental trends, with key projects including the Joint DoD/Energy Department Atmospheric Remote Sensing and Assessment Program, which monitors ozone levels; and the Acoustic Monitoring of the Global Ocean Climate, which measures global ocean temperature and incorporates these data into climate change models. This analysis is important to developing the types of warning systems I believe we need.
Military operators are also paying more attention to how we can be alert to potential crises. We were certainly surprised that Canada and Spain -- two NATO allies -- would nearly come to blows over fishing rights. This dispute, which happened just off the U.S. coast, proved that even among developed countries, there is the potential for fierce resource competition. This incident was a real wake up call to our military operators, who reviewed the origins of the dispute carefully and are now seeking to work with other organizations in improving international fisheries management.
We have also begun looking at assessment and warning mechanisms with our NATO partners. "Environment and Security in an International Context," a new pilot study launched by NATO's Committee on the Challenges of Modem Society this past March, calls for the NATO representatives to work closely with representatives of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council and the Partnership for Peace countries. During the course of the study we will identify and assess security risks posed by environmental problems, prioritize those risks for action, and devise a action plan to address them -- with a strong emphasis on preventive actions [Tab K]
Promoting military environmental cooperation that contributes significantly to democracy, trust and understanding is the second element of the environmental security pillar of "preventive defense." Secretary Perry himself has acknowledged the unprecedented opportunity the Defense Department has today to establish and reinforce key relationships:
"Our environmental efforts are also having a global impact. All over the world, American forces are sharing the wealth of their environmental experience with foreign militaries, showing them by example and instruction how to protect and preserve the air, lands, and waters in their own countries. This is one of many forms of military-to-military engagements our forces are conducting to help America build cooperative relations with new friends and former foes." [Tab B]
In the last few years, the Defense Department has established a number of defense environmental relationships that fulfill Secretary Perry's premise that "defense establishments have an important role to play in building democracy, trust and understanding." Perhaps the most significant is our defense environmental relationship with Russia, a key nuclear power in the post-Cold War world. We have both a bilateral relationship, and a trilateral arrangement with Norway, focused on the environmental security of the fragile and militarily active Arctic region. This environmental trilateral, called the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC), is a promising effort begun in 1994 by Secretary Perry and Norwegian Defense Minister Kosmo with the express purpose of promoting military environmental cooperation. Russia, Norway and the U.S., through AMEC, have already evaluated specific projects to reduce environmental degradation in the Arctic caused by defense activities. Marking the importance of the bilateral defense environmental relationship, Secretary Perry signed a separate Memorandum between the U.S. Department of Defense and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on Cooperation in Environmental Protection Issues with the Russian Minister of Defense in 1995. The U.S. and Russia are utilizing the MOU's information exchange mechanisms as the beginning of a new bilateral environmental relationship. In late October, I will be leading a delegation to Russia to exchange experiences in environmental education and training. Another promising initiative lauched under the MOU is Russia's development of derived products on the Johnston Atoll, where the U.S. has a plant that destroys chemical weapons. [Tab L]
At the end of the Cold War our European Command (EUCOM) initiated a military-to-military program in Central and Eastern Europe to encourage and facilitate the democratization process. Early in that program the environment emerged as an important area for cooperation as the militaries of these . countries became aware of and sought to address their environmental responsibilities. Since the beginning of this "mil-to-mil" program we have engaged multiple federal agencies, state and local governments, non-governmental organizations, the public, and the military in programs geared toward meeting environmental challenges. We have shown our Central and Eastern European partners, through working with representatives of a wide array of organizations, that the military can and should participate easily and effectively in open and cooperative processes within a democratic framework. [Tab L]
We are also using environmental topics within NATO to promote democracy and build free markets. Last year we hosted an environmental conference in Germany for all the NATO, North Atlantic Cooperation Council, and Partnership for Peace nations, a gathering which include both military and civilian delegates as well as representatives of the American environmental private sector. Partnership for Peace countries are now participating in all of the major NATO environmental projects. Environmental cooperation helps NATO and Partnership for Peace countries learn about each others' capabilities, thus facilitating the process of bringing new members into the NATO alliance.
Given Russia's strategic importance to the NATO organization, we are continuing our continuous line of effective cooperation with the Russians under the NATO rubric. Our activities are geared towards furthering Secretary Perry's six postulates for NATO. Next month, several NATO countries hope to meet with Russian defense representatives to discuss the 16 plus 1 initiative on environmental cooperation. The 16 plus 1 initiative process brings the sixteen full members of NATO together with Russia to explore areas for potential cooperation. Emergency preparedness was the first issue addressed under this umbrella. As the second area of cooperation between NATO and Russia under the 16 plus 1 imitative, environmental cooperation has a significant role in promoting trust and understanding between NATO and Russia at this crucial time.
Cooperation with other key U.S. Government agencies is important to designing the most effective forms of environmental cooperation. Recognizing that the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts, on July 3, 1996, Secretary Perry, Secretary O'Leary, and Administrator Browner signed a Memorandum of Understanding calling for cooperation among DoD, the Energy Department, EPA, to jointly address critical environmental concerns. [Tab M] Cooperative activities under the MOU will focus on enhancing other nations' abilities to identify and manage environmental threats, as well as on addressing the environmental consequences of both the military and civilian Cold War defense activities, and on strengthening ties with developing and democratizing nations. Methods of cooperation will include information exchange, research and development, monitoring, risk assessment, technology demonstration and transfer, emergency response training, regulatory reform, and environmental management. We plan to engage the other key U.S. Government departments and agencies in our MOU activities. In fact, we already are: last week, at DOD's invitation, we hosted a Polish delegation from the Ministries of Defense and Environment to develop bilateral, multiagency environmental cooperation involving the Environmental Protection Agency and Departments of State, Energy, and Commerce. By the end of the week, the Polish delegation had proposed five areas for defense environmental cooperation, the heart of which is making American environmental technology and services available to assist Polish environmental problems, both in the military and the commercial sector.
We are also seeking to transfer our successful European cooperation model to the Asia Pacific region. We have invited representatives from the Environmental and Defense ministries of nearly 50 nations to an Asia-Pacific Defense Environmental Conference to be held in Hawaii next month. The purpose of the conference is to establish a defense environmental foundation for the region and to use environmental cooperation to strengthen the military-to-military relationships among the three co-sponsoring nations Canada, Australia, and the U.S. - and the invited nations. The conference will emphasize basic principles such as cooperation with civilian authorities, non-governmental organizations and the public, and partnerships with the private sector. We have carefully crafted our invitations to these conferences to include representatives from both defense and environmental agencies to promote a constructive relationship between the military and civilian entities.
We are now also embarking-on environmental security cooperation with SOUTHCOM. In fact, the new SOUTHCOM commander himself, General Wes Clark, recently expressed his personal interest in such cooperation to me. Through military environmental cooperation, he will be able to build bridges to our neighbors in Central and South America that will help to strengthen the new democracies in many of these countries. Indeed, when I told him I thought we could kick off this cooperative effort in 12-18 months, after laying the appropriate groundwork and organizing a conference among nations in South and Central America, his response was "Can't we do this sooner!"
To summarize, you've heard me discuss 1) the concept of "preventive defense," 2) how the environment and security are linked, and 3) my vision of the environment's role in "preventive defense." This vision has two parts: first, obtaining adequate indications and warnings of potential crises; and two, using defense environmental cooperation to build democracy, trust and understanding. In conclusion, I would like to talk briefly about what you, the members of our military academic community, can do to support us in our initiatives. "Preventive defense" calls for a variety of tools to create the conditions for peace and cooperation. These include educating both U.S. and foreign officers to understand the causes and consequences of conflict and the requirements for peace; educating foreign officers at our military staff and command colleges to learn how to operate in a democratic society under civilian control; and sending teams of U.S. military officers and civilians to help nations build modern professional defense establishments capable of cooperating effectively with civilian authorities. (Tab A) My message to you is that environmental security concerns must be an important part of this education and training process. Some of you have already integrated environmental security issues into your curricula and research; some of you may be contemplating just how to incorporate these issues into your programs; others may still be skeptical that environmental problems can actually pose threats to our security, although I expect I've gone some ways toward making that case this morning. Even if you do not accept that premise, it is now indisputable that defense environmental cooperation can help build trust, understanding and capability to address environmental challenges. I hope that over the next day and a half you will share your course outlines and your ideas, your research plans and your objectives, your publications and your needs. I am pleased to be working with you during this time to determine how you can best aid us in our efforts, and I look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration with you. After all, educating the new generation of military officers to understand and address environmental threats to our security is critical to the ultimate success of "preventive defense." The President said it best in his State of the Union Address in January: "If we fail to address these threats today, we will suffer the consequences in all our tomorrows." (Tab C)
Sherri Wasserman Goodman
References
Tab Title A Secretary Perry's Speech, Harvard University, May 13, 1996 B Secretary Perry's Forward, "Good Stewards at Home, Good Examples Abroad," Today Magazine, 1996 C President Clinton's State of the Union Address, January 23, 1996 D 1996 National Security Strategy (excerpts) E Secretary Christopher's Speech, Stanford University, April 9, 1996 F 1996 National Security Science and Technology Strategy (excerpts) G Environmental Security/National Security Conference Findings, June 1995 H DCI Deutch's Speech, World Affairs Council, Los Angeles, July 25, 1996 J SERDP Quarterly Newsletter, October 1994, and SERDP Index (no date), WWW Pages K Terms of Reference, NATO/CCMS Pilot Study Environment and Security in an International Context, April 1996 L Memorandum Between the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on Cooperation in Environmental Protection Issues M MOU and Press Release, "Agreement Reached on Environmental Security Plan," July 16, 1996
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May 13, 1996
In a famous 1837 lecture at Harvard, Ralph Waldo Emerson asked his audience, If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution, when the old and the new stand side by side, when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope, when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new?
Like Emerson, we, too, live in an age of revolution: In politics, with the ending of the Cold War; in economics, with the dramatic growth in global trade; and in technology, with the continuing explosion of information systems. Today, we are living Emerson's desire in a revolutionary era of rich possibilities, an era when our energies are searched by fear and by hope. Our hope is symbolized by the success of democracy around the globe, by the growth of new global trade relationships, by the expansion of global communications, and by the explosion of information. Indeed, in this revolutionary new era, the term "closed society" is rapidly becoming obsolete. Even those states that still desire isolation find it increasingly difficult to achieve. Indeed, it is impossible to achieve if they want to reap the benefits of the global economy, as China discovered during the Tiananmen Square crackdown, when they could not control the fax machines and modems.
But along with this hope, our energies in this revolutionary era are also searched by fear: Fear of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; fear of ethnic hatreds ripping asunder existing states; fear of terrorism by extremist groups; and fear of aggression by rogue nations freed from the constraints of their former Cold War alliances. For many, this revolutionary new era has meant a decreased sense of personal safety, symbolized by pictures of the bodies being carried from the Federal building in Oklahoma or of the gassed passengers rushing from a Tokyo subway.
The stark contrast between our hopes and our fears makes clear that this revolutionary new era is characterized by the increased capacity of humankind for good and for evil. It also makes clear that in addition to revolutions in politics, economics and technology, there must also be a revolution in our thinking about security strategy.
The security of the United States continues to require us to maintain strong military forces to deter and, if necessary, to defeat those who threaten our vital national interests -- and we do. But today, the United States also has a unique historical opportunity, the opportunity to prevent the conditions for conflict and to help create the conditions for peace. Today, I want to talk to you about how America's security policy in the post-Cold War era requires us to take advantage of that opportunity: to make "preventive defense" the first line of defense of America, with deterrence the second line of defense, and with military conflict the third and last resort.
Preventive defense may be thought of as analogous to preventive medicine. Preventive medicine creates the conditions which support health, making disease less likely and surgery unnecessary. Preventive defense creates the conditions which support peace, making war less likely and deterrence unnecessary.
Twice before in this century, America has had similar opportunities to prevent the conditions for conflict. After World War I, the United States had the opportunity to help prevent conflict by joining the League of Nations and engaging the world. Instead, we chose to isolate ourselves from the world. That strategy of isolationism, coupled with the Europeans' strategy of reparations and revenge, utterly failed to prevent the conditions for future conflict. In fact, it helped create them. And over three hundred thousand Americans paid with their lives in a second World War. After World War II, America was determined to learn from that costly lesson -- this time we chose the path of engagement. We sought to prevent conflict from recurring. Through our engagement in the United Nations and by our leadership, we promoted a post-war program of reconciliation and reconstruction, in sharp contrast to the reparation and revenge practiced after World War I. Our most dramatic national effort to prevent future conflict was announced at Harvard's 1947 commencement by George C. Marshall. It came to be called the Marshall Plan.
Marshall acted at a pivotal moment in this century. Like Emerson, Marshall saw America in a world standing between two eras, a period Marshall described as between a war that is over and a peace that is not yet secure. At this pivotal moment, Marshall set forth a strategy of preventive defense. The soldier in Marshall wanted desperately to prevent war from recurring -- the statesman in Marshall found a way. His vision was of a Europe -- from the Atlantic to the Urals -- united in peace, freedom and democracy. His tool for realizing his vision was a plan for rebuilding a European continent that had been physically, economically and spiritually shattered by war.
The Marshall Plan rested on three premises: That what happens in Europe affects America; that economic reconstruction in Europe was critical to preventing another war; and that economic reconstruction of Europe would not happen without US leadership. Acting on these premises, Marshall and his generation rebuilt Europe and they led America to assume the mantle of world leadership. Their preventive defense program was successful in creating the conditions of peace and stability wherever applied.
In the end, however, Marshall's vision was only half realized, because Joseph Stalin slammed the door on Marshall's offer of assistance. Within a matter of years, the world was divided into two armed camps. And deterrence, not prevention, became the overarching security strategy of the Cold War. While geopolitics doomed Marshall's efforts at preventive security for Europe, the technology of nuclear weapons made a global war too terrible to contemplate -- so deterrence worked. Now, after more than forty dangerous years of the nuclear balance of terror, the Cold War is over.
Today, we are at another pivotal moment in history, a point between two centuries -- a point between a Cold War that is over and a peace that is not yet secure. Today, the world does not need another Marshall Plan. But to ensure that it is our hopes and not our fears that will be realized in this revolutionary age, we do need to build on Marshall's core belief that the United States must remain a global power, and that our best security policy is one which prevents conflict.
Just as the Marshall Plan was based on a set of premises, so today our program of preventive defense rests on its own set of premises. First, that fewer weapons of mass destruction in fewer hands makes America and the world safer. Second, that more democracy in more nations means less chance of conflict in the world. And third, that defense establishments have an important role to play in building democracy, trust and understanding in and among nations.
From these premises follows the conclusion that for the post- Cold War world to be one of peace, and not conflict, America must lead the world in preventing the conditions for conflict and in creating the conditions for peace. In short, we must lead with a policy of preventive defense. So we have created an innovative set of programs in the Defense Department to do just that -- some national, some international. They include: The Cooperative Threat Reduction program to reduce the nuclear weapon complex of the nuclear nations of the former Soviet Union; the counter- proliferation program to deal with the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the Framework Agreement to eliminate the nuclear weapons program of North Korea; and the Partnership for Peace to begin the integration of 27 nations of Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia into the European security structure. I will describe the progress in some of these programs, and how they are, in fact, creating conditions which prevent conflict.
Nowhere is preventive defense more important than in countering the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. During the Cold War, the world lived with the nightmare prospect of global nuclear holocaust, and the United States and the Soviet Union relied on deterrence, a balance of terror known as Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD. Today, the threat of global nuclear holocaust is vastly reduced, but we face the new danger that weapons of mass destruction will fall into the hands of terrorist groups or rogue states. The threat of retaliation may not matter much to a terrorist group or a rogue nation -- deterrence may not work with them. This new class of undeterrables may be madder than MAD.
The aspiration of these rogue nations to obtain weapons of mass destruction is set against the backdrop of the disintegration of the former Soviet Union. This disintegration meant that instead of one nuclear empire, we were left with four new states, each with nuclear weapons on their soil: Russia, Kazakstan, Ukraine, and Belarus. The depressed economies of these nations created a buyer's market for weapons of mass destruction, including the materials, infrastructure, and work- force, and the unsettled political conditions made it potentially harder to protect those weapons and materials.
The increase in demand for nuclear weapons, and the potential increase in supply of weapons, material and know-how have required us to augment our Cold War strategy of deterrence with a post-Cold War strategy of prevention. The most effective way to prevent proliferation is to dismantle the arsenals that already exist. Fortunately, through our Cooperative Threat Reduction program with Russia and the other nuclear states of the former Soviet Union, we have the dismantlement well started. Through a defense program created by Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, we have helped Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan dismantle thousands of nuclear warheads and destroy hundreds of missiles, bombers and silos. This January, I personally detonated an SS-19 silo at Pervomaysk, which once had 700 nuclear warheads aimed at targets in the United States. By the end of the month, this missile field will have been converted to a wheat field. By the end of the year, Kazakstan, Ukraine and Belarus will be entirely free of nuclear weapons. We are also using Nunn-Lugar funds to help these nations safeguard and secure the weapons and materials to keep them out of the global marketplace. Under Project Sapphire, for example, we bought 600 kg of highly enriched uranium from Kazakstan to ensure that it did not fall into the hands of nuclear smugglers.
But preventing proliferation means more than just dismantling the Cold War nuclear arsenals. It also means leading the world in the right direction, as we did last year in gaining a consensus for the indefinite extension of the Nuclear non- Proliferation Treaty. It means working to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention and ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention. It means taking the lead in a range of international export controls to limit the flow of goods and technologies that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction. During the Cold War, for example, we had the COCOM regime of export controls, designed to prevent the spread of dangerous technologies to the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. Today, we are creating the Wassenaar regime, set-up in cooperation with Russia, updated to fit today's technology and designed to prevent the spread of dangerous technologies to potential proliferators and rogue regimes.
Preventing proliferation also means leading the international community in opposing rogue nations with nuclear and/or chemical weapon aspirations, such as Iran and Libya. Economic sanctions and export controls have helped prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and they have significantly slowed Libya's efforts to put a chemical weapons production plant into operation.
Sometimes preventing proliferation means employing coercive diplomacy -- a combination of diplomacy and defense measures. In North Korea, for example, we used such a combination to stop that nation's nuclear weapons program. The diplomacy came from the threat by the United States and other nations in the region to impose economic sanctions if North Korea did not stop their program and the promise of assistance in the production of commercial power if they did. The defense came from our simultaneous beefing up of our military forces in the region. The result is that today, while North Korea continues to pose a conventional military threat on the peninsula, it is not mounting a nuclear threat.
Overall, the United States has been instrumental in eliminating or reversing nuclear weapon programs in six states since 1991: Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakstan, Iraq, North Korea and South Africa. These efforts have made both America and the world safer; and the gains to our national security have been dramatic, direct and tangible. I can think of few more satisfying moments in my life than when I turned the key to blow up that missile silo in Pervomaysk.
But the story of preventive defense is not merely one of preventing threats from weapons of mass destruction. It is also the story of engaging military and defense establishments around the world to further the spread of democracy and to further trust and understanding among nations. Here, the results may be less immediately tangible, but they are no less significant.
America has long understood that the spread of democracy to more nations is good for America's national security. It has been heartening this past decade to see so many nations around the world come to agree with us that democracy is the best system of government. But as the nations of the world attempt to act on this consensus, we are seeing that there are important steps between a world-wide consensus and a world-wide reality. Democracy is learned behavior. Many nations today have democracies that exist on paper, but, in fact, are extremely fragile. Elections are a necessary but insufficient condition for a free society. It is also necessary to embed democratic values in the key institutions of nations.
The Defense Department has a key role to play in this effort. It is a simple fact that virtually every country in the world has a military. In virtually every new democracy -- in Russia, in the newly free nations of the Former Soviet Union, in Central and Eastern Europe, in South America, in the Asian Tigers -- the military represents a major force. In many cases it is the most cohesive institution. It often contains a large percentage of the educated elite and controls key resources. In short, it is an institution that can help support democracy or subvert it.
We must recognize that each society moving from totalitarianism to democracy will be tested at some point by a crisis. It could be an economic crisis, a backslide on human rights and freedoms, or a border or ethnic dispute with a neighboring country. When such a crisis occurs, we want the military to play a positive role in resolving the crisis, not a negative role by fanning the flames of the crisis -- or even using the crisis as a pretext for a military coup.
In these new democracies, we can choose to ignore this important institution, or we can try to exert a positive influence. We do have the ability to influence, indeed, every military in the world looks to the U.S. armed forces as the model to be emulated. That is a valuable bit of leverage that we can put to use creatively in our preventive defense strategy.
In addition, if we can build trust and understanding between the militaries of two neighboring nations, we build trust and understanding between the two nations themselves. Some have said that war is too important to be left solely to the generals. Preventive defense says peace is too important to be left solely to the politicians.
In this effort, preventive defense uses a variety of tools, such as educating foreign officers at our military staff and command colleges, where they learn how to operate in a democratic society and how to operate under civilian control and with legislative oversight. Over 200 officers from the Former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries are right now studying at U.S. institutions, and another 60 are about to complete a special course we have set up at the Marshall Center in Germany.
Another tool is sending out teams of American military officers and civilians to help nations build modern, professional military establishments under strong civilian defense leadership. Since 1992, these teams have had thousands of contacts with dozens of newly-free nations. These contacts have led Hungary, for example, to enact new laws placing the Hungarian military under civilian, democratic control. They have helped Romania develop a new code of conduct for their military forces based on the American military's Uniform Code of Military Justice. They have helped Lithuania, Kazakstan, and Uzbekistan to improve their training for Non-Commissioned Officers.
We also use tools such as joint training exercises in peacekeeping, disaster relief and search and rescue operations. We have held four such training exercises in the last year with Russian troops -- two in Russia and two in the U.S. We also held a joint peacekeeping exercise in Louisiana last July, involving troops from fourteen nations with whom we had never had security relations, including Albania and Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, Uzbekistan and Kazakstan, and all three Baltic nations. Next month, I will meet up with the ministers of defense from Ukraine, Russia, Poland and other nations for the opening ceremonies of an exercise in Lviv, Ukraine.
Confidence-building measures are another important tool, particularly in building trust between countries. One of the most important confidence building measures is developing openness about military budgets, plans and policies. Openness is an unusual concept when it comes to defense. The art of war, after all, involves secrecy and surprise, but the art of peace involves exactly the opposite -- openness and trust. That's why when I travel to newly democratic states, I try to set an example by handing out copies of my annual report to Congress, which details our defense budget and our security policies. I also talk about legislative oversight and our budget process. These concepts seem elementary to you and me, but to military officers and defense officials who grew up under totalitarianism, they are positively revolutionary.
In Europe and Central Asia, these tools of preventive defense come together in a NATO program known as Partnership for Peace, or PFP. The name Partnership for Peace was coined by Joe Kruzel, a former fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs we honor today, who died while working for peace in Bosnia last August.
Through Partnership for Peace, NATO is reaching out to the nations of Eastern and Central Europe, Russia and the Newly Independent States, and truly integrating them into the security architecture of Europe. It used to be when the Secretary of Defense went to meetings at NATO headquarters in Belgium, he sat next to his counterpart from the United Kingdom. Today, when I go to meetings in Belgium, I sit with my counterpart from Uzbekistan on one side and the ministers from the United Kingdom and Ukraine on the other.
Just as the Marshall Plan had an impact well beyond the economies of Western Europe, PFP is echoing beyond the security realm in Partner nations and into the political and economic realms. PFP members are working to uphold democracy, tolerate diversity, respect the rights of minorities and freedom of expression. They are working to build market economies. They are working hard to develop democratic control of their military forces, to be good neighbors and to respect the sovereign rights of bordering countries. They are working hard to make their military forces compatible with NATO.
For those Partner countries that are embracing PFP as a path to NATO membership, these actions are a key to opening that door. For many of these nations, aspiration to NATO membership has become the rock on which all major political parties base their platforms. It is providing an overlapping consensus on a unifying goal, making compromise and reconciliation on other issues possible. To lock in the gains of reform, NATO must ensure that the ties we are creating in PFP continue to deepen and that we actually proceed with the gradual and deliberate, but steady process of outreach and enlargement to the East.
Ultimately, PFP is doing more than just building the basis for NATO enlargement. It is, in fact, creating a new zone of security and stability throughout Europe, Russia and the NIS. By forging networks of people and institutions working together to preserve freedom, promote democracy and build free markets, PFP today is a catalyst for transforming Central and Eastern Europe, much as the Marshall Plan transformed Western Europe in the '40s and '50s. In short, PFP is not just defense by other means, it is democracy by other means; It is helping prevent the realization of our fears for the post-Cold War era and taking us closer to realizing our hopes.
One of these hopes is that Russia will participate in a positive way in the new security architecture of Europe. Russia has been a key part of the European security picture for over 300 years. It will remain a key player in the coming decades, for better or worse. The job for the United States, NATO and Russia is to make it for the better. Unlike with the Marshall Plan 50 years ago, Russia today has chosen to participate in Partnership for Peace. We welcome Russia's participation, and hope that over time it will take on a leading role in PFP commensurate with its importance as a great power.
NATO's efforts to build cooperative ties with Russia complement the bilateral efforts of the United States and Russia to build what we call a "pragmatic partnership" -- another piece of preventive defense. The pragmatic partnership involves working with Russia in important areas where our interests overlap, such as Nunn-Lugar; while trying to build trust and cooperation through such things as military exchanges and joint exercises.
The immediate payoff for our joint training with the PFP nations and our efforts to build a cooperative relationship with Russia has come, ironically, in Bosnia. Up until late last year, to say that the future history of Europe is being written in Bosnia, would have been a profoundly pessimistic statement. Today, however, this statement qualifies as guarded optimism; not only because there is satisfactory compliance with the Dayton peace agreement, but because of the way IFOR has been put together and because of the way it is performing. IFOR is not a peacekeeping exercise it is the real thing. Fourteen Partner nations have joined NATO nations in shouldering the responsibility in IFOR. A Russian brigade is operating as part of an American division in IFOR -- the top Russian commander in Bosnia, General Shevtsov, visited your Center for Science and International Affairs just last week. NATO itself has a renewed sense of purpose and sense of its own ability to put together a force for a post-Cold War military mission. This is all positive history, and it shows why I believe that Bosnia is turning out to be the crucible for the creation of Marshall's Europe.
We are also seeking to use the tools of preventive defense to prevent the occurrence of future Bosnias. Last month, I attended a conference of ministers of defense in Tirana, Albania, directed to the specific military cooperation and confidence building measures that would be most effective in building peace and stability in the South Balkans. The enthusiasm of these leaders for the tools of preventive defense made me very hopeful that we can be effective in preventing future conflict in this famously troubled region.
Our hopes for democracy and regional understanding and our opportunities to support them through the tools of preventive defense are not confined to Europe. We have these same hopes and opportunities here in our own Hemisphere. Ten years ago, Latin America was made up mostly of dictatorships, but today, 34 nations in our hemisphere -- all the nations save one -- are democracies. I have tried to seize this opportunity by opening relationships with the defense ministries of these countries. Our efforts came to a climax last summer when I invited the defense ministers from the other 33 hemispheric democracies to join me at Williamsburg, Virginia, to discuss confidence building measures and defense cooperation designed to minimize the risk of conflict in the hemisphere. The conference was a resounding success. As a result, today we are not only seeing increased cooperation between the U.S. and Latin American militaries, we are also seeing cooperation between and among the Latin American militaries themselves -- with renewed efforts to resolve outstanding disputes peacefully and create new levels of confidence. A second hemispheric ministerial meeting is scheduled to be held in Argentina this fall.
Preventive defense also has a role in our effort to manage our relationship with China. We are using some of these same tools to build cooperative security ties between the United States and China. We do this not because China is a new democracy -- it obviously is not. Rather, we do it because China is a major world power with whom we share important interests, with whom we have strong disagreements, and which has a powerful military that has significant influence on the policies that China follows. We do it, ultimately, because we believe when it comes to strategic intentions, engagement is almost always better than ignorance.
That is why we have sent teams to China to present our strategic thinking, and have invited the Chinese to reciprocate. It is why we are encouraging exchanges between academic institutions within our military structures. And it is why we have conducted reciprocal ship visits and tours by senior officers. In the best case, engaging China's military will allow us to have a positive influence on this important player in Chinese politics, opening the way for Chinese cooperation on proliferation and regional security issues. At the very least, engagement between our two military establishments will improve our understanding of each other, thus lowering the chances for miscalculation and conflict.
What makes preventive defense work -- whether it is in Russia, Europe, the Balkans, Latin America, or China -- is American leadership. There is no other country in the world with the ability to reach out to so many corners of the globe. There is no other country in the world whose efforts to do so are so respected. At the same time, no one should think that preventive defense is a philanthropic venture -- it is not. It's about hard work and ingenuity today, so that we don't have to expend blood and treasure tomorrow.
While preventive defense holds great promise for preventing conflict, we must appreciate that it is a strategy for influencing the world -- not compelling it to our will. We must frankly and soberly acknowledge that preventive defense will not always work. That is why as Secretary of Defense, my top priority is still maintaining strong, ready forces and the will to use them to deter and defeat threats to our interests. We still maintain a smaller but still highly effective nuclear arsenal. We have a robust, threat-based, ballistic missile defense program. We maintain the best conventional forces in the world, many of which are forward-deployed in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific, and we continue to maximize our technological advantage over any potential foe, giving us dominance on any battlefield in the world. These forces and capabilities, coupled with the political will to use them, allow the United States to be very effective at deterring conflict around the world. These same capabilities and forces mean that if we cannot prevent or deter conflict, we can defeat aggression quickly and with a minimum of casualties.
The converse is also true. If we can prevent the conditions for conflict, we reduce the risk of having to send our forces into harm's way to deter or defeat aggression. The pivotal role of preventive defense, however, is not widely known to the public. Indeed, it is not well understood even by national security experts. The same was true, in fact, about the Marshall Plan in its early days. The Marshall Plan did not arise full grown like Venus from the shell. Indeed, George Marshall often maintained that when he gave his speech at Harvard in 1947, he did not present a "Marshall Plan." He said, instead, that it was a proposal, but he did not simply offer his proposal and go home. Marshall the statesman was a visionary man, but Marshall the soldier was also a practical man. As a practical man, he recognized that in a democracy, no national proposal, especially one involving US engagement in the world, becomes a reality unless you can win public support. The Marshall proposal became the Marshall Plan because George Marshall spent the next year going directly to the public and seeking its support.
Today, I am not issuing a proposal for preventive defense, but rather a report on how it is already shaping our world and the world of future generations in a positive way. But in order for preventive defense to succeed as an approach to national security, we, too, need to convince the American people. We need to convince America that at this pivotal point in history, as we seek to realize our fondest hopes for the revolutionary era in which we live, our engagement with the world and the programs supporting preventive defense are critical to our security. I have chosen the Kennedy School to present my thoughts on preventive defense because as scholars, the students and faculty here are uniquely equipped to understand what is at stake when we talk about preventive defense. As leaders and future policy makers, you are also uniquely equipped to explain the benefits of preventive defense to the American public and to take the concepts I have talked about today and expand upon them in your own careers. I urge you to do so.
-END-
Over the years, the U.S. Armed Forces have woven environmental protection into the daily military mission. In the process, the American soldier, sailor, airman and Marine have emerged as the unexpected heroes of our nations quest to preserve and protect the environment.
The Department of Defense works prevent pollution, restore Contaminated properties, conserve natural resources, comply stringently with environmental laws and regulations, and develop new technologies to improve environmental protection and restoration. We do these things in partnership with communities, industry and other government agencies. And we do these things because it is the right thing to do, and it is smart management. It protects the health and safety of our troops and their families, and tge communities that host our military facilities.
Our environmental efforts are also having a global impact. All over the world, American forces are sharing the wealth of their environmental experience with foreign militaries, showing them by example and instruction how to protect and preserve the air, lands and watrs in their own countries. This is one of the many formas of military-to-military engagements our forces are conducting to help America build cooperative relations with new friends and former foes. We call these engagements "preventative defense," because they promote trust, stability and democratic reform, and so help to prevent the conditions for conflict and build the conditions for peace.
Being good stewards at home and good examples abroad is just one more way in which the U.S. Armed Forces are making the world a better place for our children and our grandchildren.
Dr. William J. Perry
Secretary of Defense
STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
U.S. CAPITOL
JANUARY 23, 1996
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of the 104th Congress, distinguished guests, my fellow Americans all across our land:
Let me begin tonight by saying to our men and women in uniform around the world, and especially those helping peace take root in Bosnia and to their families, I thank you. America is very, very proud of you.
My duty tonight is to report on the state of the Union -- not the state of our government, but of our American community; and to set forth our responsibilities, in the words of our Founders, to form a more perfect union.
The state of the Union is strong. Our economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades. We have the lowest combined rates of unemployment and inflation in 27 years. We have created nearly 8 million new jobs, over a million of them in basic industries, like construction and automobiles. America is selling more cars than Japan for the first time since the 1970s. And for three years in a row, we have had a record number of new businesses started in our country.
Our leadership in the world is also strong, bringing hope for new peace. And perhaps most important, we are gaining ground in restoring our fundamental values. The crime rate, the welfare and food stamp rolls, the poverty rate and the teen pregnancy rate are all down. And as they go down, prospects for America's future go up.
We live in an age of possibility. A hundred years ago we moved from farm to factory. Now we move to an age of technology, information, and global competition. These changes have opened vast new opportunities for our people, but they have also presented them with stiff challenges. While more Americans are living better, too many of our fellow citizens are working harder just to keep up, and they are rightly concerned about the security of their families.
We must answer here three fundamental questions: First, how do we make the American Dream of opportunity for all a reality for all Americans who are willing to work for it? Second, how do we preserve our old and enduring values as we move into the future? And, third, how do we meet these challenges together, as one America?
We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means.
The era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves. Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation working together to meet the challenges we face together. Self-reliance and teamwork are not opposing virtues; we must have both.
I believe our new, smaller government must work in an old-fashioned American way, together with all of our citizens through state and local governments, in the workplace, in religious, charitable and civic associations. Our goal must be to enable all our people to make the most of their own lives -- with stronger families, more educational opportunity, economic security, safer streets, a cleaner environment in a safer world.
To improve the state of our Union, we must ask more of ourselves, we must expect more of each other, and we must face our challenges together.
Here, in this place, our responsibility begins with balancing the budget in a way that is fair to all Americans. There is now broad bipartisan agreement that permanent deficit spending must come to an end.
I compliment the Republican leadership and the membership for the energy and determination you have brought to this task of balancing the budget. And I thank the Democrats for passing the largest deficit reduction plan in history in 1993, which has already cut the deficit nearly in half in three years.
Since 1993, we have all begun to see the benefits of deficit reduction. Lower interest rates have made it easier for businesses to borrow and to invest and to create new jobs. Lower interest rates have brought down the cost of home mortgages, car payments and credit card rates to ordinary citizens. Now, it is time to finish the job and balance the budget.
Though differences remain among us which are significant, the combined total of the proposed savings that are common to both plans is more than enough, using the numbers from your Congressional Budget Office to balance the budget in seven years and to provide a modest tax cut.
These cuts are real. They will require sacrifice from everyone. But these cuts do not undermine our fundamental obligations to our parents, our children, and our future, by endangering Medicare, or Medicaid, or education, or the environment, or by raising taxes on working families.
I have said before, and let me say again, many good ideas have come out of our negotiations. I have learned a lot about the way both Republicans and Democrats view the debate before us. I have learned a lot about the good ideas that we could all embrace.
We ought to resolve our remaining differences. I am willing to work to resolve them. I am ready to meet tomorrow. But I ask you to consider that we should at least enact these savings that both plans have in common and give the American people their balanced budget, a tax cut, lower interest rates, and a brighter future. We should do that now, and make permanent deficits yesterday's legacy.
Now it is time for us to look also to the challenges of today and tomorrow, beyond the burdens of yesterday. The challenges are significant. But America was built on challenges, not promises. And when we work together to meet them, we never fail. That is the key to a more perfect Union. Our individual dreams must be realized by our common efforts.
Tonight I want to speak to you about the challenges we all face as a people.
Our first challenge is to cherish our children and strengthen America's families. Family is the foundation of American life. If we have stronger families, we will have a stronger America.
Before I go on, I would like to take just a moment to thank my own family, and to thank the person who has taught me more than anyone else over 25 years about the importance of families and children -- a wonderful wife, a magnificent mother and a great First Lady. Thank you, Hillary.
All strong families begin with taking more responsibility for our children. I have heard Mrs. Gore say that it's hard to be a parent today, but it's even harder to be a child. So all of us, not just as parents, but all of us in our other roles -- our media, our schools, our teachers, our communities, our churches and synagogues, our businesses, our governments -- all of us have a responsibility to help our children to make it and to make the most of their lives and their God-given capacities.
To the media, I say you should create movies and CDs and television shows you'd want your own children and grandchildren to enjoy.
I call on Congress to pass the requirement for a V-chip in TV sets so that parents can screen out programs they believe are inappropriate for their children. When parents control what their young children see, that is not censorship; that is enabling parents to assume more personal responsibility for their children's upbringing. And I urge them to do it. The V-chip requirement is part of the important telecommunications bill now pending in this Congress. It has bipartisan support, and I urge you to pass it now.
To make the V-chip work, I challenge the broadcast industry to do what movies have done -- to identify your programming in ways that help parents to protect their children. And I invite the leaders of major media corporations in the entertainment industry to come to the White House next month to work with us in a positive way on concrete ways to improve what our children see on television. I am ready to work with you.
I say to those who make and market cigarettes: every year a million children take up smoking, even though it is against the law. Three hundred thousand of them will have their lives shortened as a result. Our administration has taken steps to stop the massive marketing campaigns that appeal to our children. We are simply saying: Market your products to adults, if you wish, but draw the line on children.
I say to those who are on welfare, and especially to those who have been trapped on welfare for a long time: For too long our welfare system has undermined the values of family and work, instead of supporting them. The Congress and I are near agreement on sweeping welfare reform. We agree on time limits, tough work requirements, and the toughest possible child support enforcement. But I believe we must also provide child care so that mothers who are required to go to work can do so without worrying about what is happening to their children.
I challenge this Congress to send me a bipartisan welfare reform bill that will really move people from welfare to work and do the right thing by our children. I will sign it immediately.
Let us be candid about this difficult problem. Passing a law, even the best possible law, is only a first step. The next step is to make it work. I challenge people on welfare to make the most of this opportunity for independence. I challenge American businesses to give people on welfare the chance to move into the work force. I applaud the work of religious groups and others who care for the poor. More than anyone else in our society, they know the true difficulty of the task before us, and they are in a position to help. Every one of us should join them. That is the only way we can make real welfare reform a reality in the lives of the American people.
To strengthen the family we must do everything we can to keep the teen pregnancy rate going down. I am gratified, as I'm sure all Americans are, that it has dropped for two years in a row. But we all know it is still far too high.
Tonight I am pleased to announce that a group of prominent Americans is responding to that challenge by forming an organization that will support grass-roots community efforts all across our country in a national campaign against teen pregnancy. And I challenge all of us and every American to join their efforts.
I call on American men and women in families to give greater respect to one another. We must end the deadly scourge of domestic violence in our country. And I challenge America's families to work harder to stay together. For families who stay together not only do better economically, their children do better as well.
In particular, I challenge the fathers of this country to love and care for their children. If your family has separated, you must pay your child support. We're doing more than ever to make sure you do, and we're going to do more, but let's all admit something about that, too: A check will not substitute for a parent's love and guidance. And only you -- only you can make the decision to help raise your children. No matter who you are, how low or high your station in life, it is the most basic human duty of every American to do that job to the best of his or her ability.
Our second challenge is to provide Americans with the educational opportunities we will all need for this new century. In our schools, every classroom in America must be connected to the information superhighway, with computers and good software, and well-trained teachers. We are working with the telecommunications industry, educators and parents to connect 20 percent of California's classrooms by this spring, and every classroom and every library in the entire United States by the year 2000. I ask Congress to support this education technology initiative so that we can make sure this national partnership succeeds.
Every diploma ought to mean something. I challenge every community, every school and every state to adopt national standards of excellence; to measure whether schools are meeting those standards; to cut bureaucratic red tape so that schools and teachers have more flexibility for grass-roots reform; and to hold them accountable for results. That's what our Goals 2000 initiative is all about.
I challenge every state to give all parents the right to choose which public school their children will attend; and to let teachers form new schools with a charter they can keep only if they do a good job.
I challenge all our schools to teach character education, to teach good values and good citizenship. And if it means that teenagers will stop killing each other over designer jackets, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear school uniforms.
I challenge our parents to become their children's first teachers. Turn off the TV. See that the homework is done. And visit your children's classroom. No program, no teacher, no one else can do that for you.
My fellow Americans, higher education is more important today than ever before. We've created a new student loan program that's made it easier to borrow and repay those loans, and we have dramatically cut the student loan default rate. That's something we should all be proud of, because it was unconscionably high just a few years ago. Through AmeriCorps, our national service program, this year 25,000 young people will earn college money by serving their local communities to improve the lives of their friends and neighbors. These initiatives are right for America and we should keep them going.
And we should also work hard to open the doors of college even wider. I challenge Congress to expand work-study and help one million young Americans work their way through college by the year 2000; to provide a $1000 merit scholarship for the top five percent of graduates in every high school in the United States; to expand Pell Grant scholarships for deserving and needy students; and to make up to $10,000 a year of college tuition tax deductible. It's a good idea for America.
Our third challenge is to help every American who is willing to work for it, achieve economic security in this new age. People who work hard still need support to get ahead in the new economy. They need education and training for a lifetime. They need more support for families raising children. They need retirement security. They need access to health care. More and more Americans are finding that the education of their childhood simply doesn't last a lifetime.
So I challenge Congress to consolidate 70 overlapping, antiquated job-training programs into a simple voucher worth $2,600 for unemployed or underemployed workers to use as they please for community college tuition or other training. This is a G.I. Bill for America's workers we should all be able to agree on.
More and more Americans are working hard without a raise. Congress sets the minimum wage. Within a year, the minimum wage will fall to a 40-year low in purchasing power. Four dollars and 25 cents an hour is no longer a living wage, but millions of Americans and their children are trying to live on it. I challenge you to raise their minimum wage.
In 1993, Congress cut the taxes of 15 million hard-pressed working families to make sure that no parents who work full-time would have to raise their children in poverty, and to encourage people to move from welfare to work. This expanded earned income tax credit is now worth about $1,800 a year to a family of four living on $20,000. The budget bill I vetoed would have reversed this achievement and raised taxes on nearly 8 million of these people. We should not do that.
I also agree that the people who are helped under this initiative are not all those in our country who are working hard to do a good job raising their children and at work. I agree that we need a tax credit for working families with children. That's one of the things most of us in this Chamber, I hope, can agree on. I know it is strongly supported by the Republican majority. And it should be part of any final budget agreement.
I want to challenge every business that can possibly afford it to provide pensions for your employees. And I challenge Congress to pass a proposal recommended by the White House Conference on Small Business that would make it easier for small businesses and farmers to establish their own pension plans. That is something we should all agree on.
We should also protect existing pension plans. Two years ago, with bipartisan support that was almost unanimous on both sides of the aisle, we moved to protect the pensions of 8 million working people and to stabilize the pensions of 32 million more. Congress should not now let companies endanger those workers's pension funds. I know the proposal to liberalize the ability of employers to take money out of pension funds for other purposes would raise money for the treasury. But I believe it is false economy. I vetoed that proposal last year, and I would have to do so again.
Finally, if our working families are going to succeed in the new economy, they must be able to buy health insurance policies that they do not lose when they change jobs or when someone in their family gets sick. Over the past two years, over one million Americans in working families have lost their health insurance. We have to do more to make health care available to every American. And Congress should start by passing the bipartisan bill sponsored by Senator Kennedy and Senator Kassebaum that would require insurance companies to stop dropping people when they switch jobs, and stop denying coverage for preexisting conditions. Let's all do that.
And even as we enact savings in these programs, we must have a common commitment to preserve the basic protections of Medicare and Medicaid -- not just to the poor, but to people in working families, including children, people with disabilities, people with AIDS, and senior citizens in nursing homes.
In the past three years, we've saved $15 billion just by fighting health care fraud and abuse. We have all agreed to save much more. We have all agreed to stabilize the Medicare Trust Fund. But we must not abandon our fundamental obligations to the people who need Medicare and Medicaid. America cannot become stronger if they become weaker.
The G.I. Bill for workers, tax relief for education and child rearing, pension availability and protection, access to health care, preservation of Medicare and Medicaid -- these things, along with the Family and Medical Leave Act passed in 1993 -- these things will help responsible, hard-working American families to make the most of their own lives.
But employers and employees must do their part, as well, as they are doing in so many of our finest companies -- working together, putting the long-term prosperity ahead of the short-term gain. As workers increase their hours and their productivity, employers should make sure they get the skills they need and share the benefits of the good years, as well as the burdens of the bad ones. When companies and workers work as a team they do better, and so does America.
Our fourth great challenge is to take our streets back from crime and gangs and drugs. At last we have begun to find a way to reduce crime, forming community partnerships with local police forces to catch criminals and prevent crime. This strategy, called community policing, is clearly working. Violent crime is coming down all across America. In New York City murders are down 25 percent; in St. Louis, 18 percent; in Seattle, 32 percent. But we still have a long way to go before our streets are safe and our people are free from fear.
The Crime Bill of 1994 is critical to the success of community policing. It provides funds for 100,000 new police in communities of all sizes. We're already a third of the way there. And I challenge the Congress to finish the job. Let us stick with a strategy that's working and keep the crime rate coming down.
Community policing also requires bonds of trust between citizens and police. I ask all Americans to respect and support our law enforcement officers. And to our police, I say, our children need you as role models and heroes. Don't let them down.
The Brady Bill has already stopped 44,000 people with criminal records from buying guns. The assault weapons ban is keeping 19 kinds of assault weapons out of the hands of violent gangs. I challenge the Congress to keep those laws on the books.
Our next step in the fight against crime is to take on gangs the way we once took on the mob. I'm directing the FBI and other investigative agencies to target gangs that involve juveniles in violent crime, and to seek authority to prosecute as adults teenagers who maim and kill like adults.
And I challenge local housing authorities and tenant associations: Criminal gang members and drug dealers are destroying the lives of decent tenants. From now on, the rule for residents who commit crime and peddle drugs should be one strike and you're out.
I challenge every state to match federal policy to assure that serious violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of their sentence.
More police and punishment are important, but they're not enough. We have got to keep more of our young people out of trouble, with prevention strategies not dictated by Washington, but developed in communities. I challenge all of our communities, all of our adults, to give our children futures to say yes to. And I challenge Congress not to abandon the Crime Bill's support of these grass-roots prevention efforts.
Finally, to reduce crime and violence we have to reduce the drug problem. The challenge begins in our homes, with parents talking to their children openly and firmly. It embraces our churches and synagogues, our youth groups and our schools.
I challenge Congress not to cut our support for drug-free schools. People like the D.A.R.E. officers are making a real impression on grade schoolchildren that will give them the strength to say no when the time comes.
Meanwhile, we continue our efforts to cut the flow of drugs into America. For the last two years, one man in particular has been on the front lines of that effort. Tonight I am nominating him -- a hero of the Persian Gulf War and the Commander in Chief of the United States Military Southern Command -- General Barry McCaffrey, as America's new Drug Czar.
General McCaffrey has earned three Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars fighting for this country. Tonight I ask that he lead our nation's battle against drugs at home and abroad. To succeed, he needs a force far larger than he has ever commanded before. He needs all of us. Every one of us has a role to play on this team.
Thank you, General McCaffrey, for agreeing to serve your country one more time.
Our fifth challenge: to leave our environment safe and clean for the next generation. Because of a generation of bipartisan effort we do have cleaner water and air, lead levels in children's blood has been cut by 70 percent, toxic emissions from factories cut in half. Lake Erie was dead, and now it's a thriving resource. But 10 million children under 12 still live within four miles of a toxic waste dump. A third of us breathe air that endangers our health. And in too many communities, the water is not safe to drink. We still have much to do.
Yet Congress has voted to cut environmental enforcement by 25 percent. That means more toxic chemicals in our water, more smog in our air, more pesticides in our food. Lobbyists for polluters have been allowed to write their own loopholes into bills to weaken laws that protect the health and safety of our children. Some say that the taxpayer should pick up the tab for toxic waste and let polluters who can afford to fix it off the hook. I challenge Congress to reexamine those policies and to reverse them.
This issue has not been a partisan issue. The most significant environmental gains in the last 30 years were made under a Democratic Congress and President Richard Nixon. We can work together. We have to believe some basic things. Do you believe we can expand the economy without hurting the environment? I do. Do you believe we can create more jobs over the long run by cleaning the environment up? I know we can. That should be our commitment.
We must challenge businesses and communities to take more initiative in protecting the environment, and we have to make it easier for them to do it. To businesses this administration is saying: If you can find a cheaper, more efficient way than government regulations require to meet tough pollution standards, do it -- as long as you do it right. To communities we say: We must strengthen community right-to-know laws requiring polluters to disclose their emissions, but you have to use the information to work with business to cut pollution. People do have a right to know that their air and their water are safe.
Our sixth challenge is to maintain America's leadership in the fight for freedom and peace throughout the world. Because of American leadership, more people than ever before live free and at peace. And Americans have known 50 years of prosperity and security.
We owe thanks especially to our veterans of World War II. I would like to say to Senator Bob Dole and to all others in this Chamber who fought in World War II, and to all others on both sides of the aisle who have fought bravely in all our conflicts since: I salute your service, and so do the American people.
All over the world, even after the Cold War, people still look to us and trust us to help them seek the blessings of peace and freedom. But as the Cold War fades into memory, voices of isolation say America should retreat from its responsibilities. I say they are wrong.
The threats we face today as Americans respect no nation's borders. Think of them: terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, organized crime, drug trafficking, ethnic and religious hatred, aggression by rogue states, environmental degradation. If we fail to address these threats today, we will suffer the consequences in all our tomorrows.
Of course, we can't be everywhere. Of course, we can't do everything. But where our interests and our values are at stake, and where we can make a difference, America must lead. We must not be isolationist.
We must not be the world's policeman. But we can and should be the world's very best peacemaker. By keeping our military strong, by using diplomacy where we can and force where we must, by working with others to share the risk and the cost of our efforts, America is making a difference for people here and around the world. For the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age, there is not a single Russian missile pointed at America's children.
North Korea has now frozen its dangerous nuclear weapons program. In Haiti, the dictators are gone, democracy has a new day, the flow of desperate refugees to our shores has subsided. Through tougher trade deals for America -- over 80 of them -- we have opened markets abroad, and now exports are at an all-time high, growing faster than imports and creating good American jobs.
We stood with those taking risks for peace: In Northern Ireland, where Catholic and Protestant children now tell their parents, violence must never return. In the Middle East, where Arabs and Jews who once seemed destined to fight forever now share knowledge and resources, and even dreams.
And we stood up for peace in Bosnia. Remember the skeletal prisoners, the mass graves, the campaign to rape and torture, the endless lines of refugees, the threat of a spreading war. All these threats, all these horrors have now begun to give way to the promise of peace. Now, our troops and a strong NATO, together with our new partners from Central Europe and elsewhere, are helping that peace to take hold.
As all of you know, I was just there with a bipartisan congressional group, and I was so proud not only of what our troops were doing, but of the pride they evidenced in what they were doing. They knew what America's mission in this world is, and they were proud to be carrying it out.
Through these efforts, we have enhanced the security of the American people. But make no mistake about it:important challenges remain.
The START II Treaty with Russia will cut our nuclear stockpiles by another 25 percent. I urge the Senate to ratify it -- now. We must end the race to create new nuclear weapons by signing a truly comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty -- this year.
As we remember what happened in the Japanese subway, we can outlaw poison gas forever if the Senate ratifies the Chemical Weapons Convention -- this year. We can intensify the fight against terrorists and organized criminals at home and abroad if Congress passes the anti-terrorism legislation I proposed after the Oklahoma City bombing -- now. We can help more people move from hatred to hope all across the world in our own interest if Congress gives us the means to remain the world's leader for peace.
My fellow Americans, the six challenges I have just discussed are for all of us. Our seventh challenge is really America's challenge to those of us in this hallowed hall tonight: to reinvent our government and make our democracy work for them.
Last year this Congress applied to itself the laws it applies to everyone else. This Congress banned gifts and meals from lobbyists. This Congress forced lobbyists to disclose who pays them and what legislation they are trying to pass or kill. This Congress did that, and I applaud you for it.
Now I challenge Congress to go further -- to curb special interest influence in politics by passing the first truly bipartisan campaign reform bill in a generation. You, Republicans and Democrats alike, can show the American people that we can limit spending and open the airwaves to all candidates.
I also appeal to Congress to pass the line-item veto you promised the American people.
Our administration is working hard to give the American people a government that works better and costs less. Thanks to the work of Vice President Gore, we are eliminating 16,000 pages of unnecessary rules and regulations, shifting more decision-making out of Washington, back to states and local communities.
As we move into the era of balanced budgets and smaller government, we must work in new ways to enable people to make the most of their own lives. We are helping America's communities, not with more bureaucracy, but with more opportunities. Through our successful Empowerment Zones and Community Development Banks, we are helping people to find jobs, to start businesses. And with tax incentives for companies that clean up abandoned industrial property, we can bring jobs back to places that desperately, desperately need them.
But there are some areas that the federal government should not leave and should address and address strongly. One of these areas is the problem of illegal immigration. After years of neglect, this administration has taken a strong stand to stiffen the protection of our borders. We are increasing border controls by 50 percent. We are increasing inspections to prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants. And tonight, I announce I will sign an executive order to deny federal contracts to businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
Let me be very clear about this: We are still a nation of immigrants; we should be proud of it. We should honor every legal immigrant here, working hard to become a new citizen. But we are also a nation of laws.
I want to say a special word now to those who work for our federal government. Today our federal government is 200,000 employees smaller than it was the day I took office as President.
Our federal government today is the smallest it has been in 30 years, and it's getting smaller every day. Most of our fellow Americans probably don't know that. And there is a good reason: The remaining federal work force is composed of Americans who are now working harder and working smarter than ever before, to make sure the quality of our services does not decline.
I'd like to give you one example. His name is Richard Dean. He is a 49 year-old Vietnam veteran who's worked for the Social Security Administration for 22 years now. Last year he was hard at work in the Federal Building in Oklahoma City when the blast killed 169 people and brought the rubble down all around him. He reentered that building four times. He saved the lives of three women. He's here with us this evening, and I want to recognize Richard and applaud both his public service and his extraordinary personal heroism.
But Richard Dean's story doesn't end there. This last November, he was forced out of his office when the government shut down. And the second time the government shut down he continued helping Social Security recipients, but he was working without pay.
On behalf of Richard Dean and his family, and all the other people who are out there working every day doing a good job for the American people, I challenge all of you in this Chamber: Never, ever shut the federal government down again.
On behalf of all Americans, especially those who need their Social Security payments at the beginning of March, I also challenge the Congress to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States -- to honor the obligations of this great nation as we have for 220 years; to rise above partisanship and pass a straightforward extension of the debt limit and show people America keeps its word.
I know that this evening I have asked a lot of Congress, and even more from America. But I am confident: When Americans work together in their homes, their schools, their churches, their synagogues, their civic groups, their workplace, they can meet any challenge.
I say again, the era of big government is over. But we can't go back to the era of fending for yourself. We have to go forward to the era of working together as a community, as a team, as one America, with all of us reaching across these lines that divide us -- the division, the discrimination, the rancor -- we have to reach across it to find common ground. We have got to work together if we want America to work.
I want you to meet two more people tonight who do just that. Lucius Wright is a teacher in the Jackson, Mississippi, public school system. A Vietnam veteran, he has created groups to help inner-city children turn away from gangs and build futures they can believe in. Sergeant Jennifer Rodgers is a police officer in Oklahoma City. Like Richard Dean, she helped to pull her fellow citizens out of the rubble and deal with that awful tragedy. She reminds us that in their response to that atrocity the people of Oklahoma City lifted all of us with their basic sense of decency and community.
Lucius Wright and Jennifer Rodgers are special Americans. And I have the honor to announce tonight that they are the very first of several thousand Americans who will be chosen to carry the Olympic torch on its long journey from Los Angeles to the centennial of the modern Olympics in Atlanta this summer -- not because they are star athletes, but because they are star citizens, community heroes meeting America's challenges. They are our real champions.
Now, each of us must hold high the torch of citizenship in our own lives. None of us can finish the race alone. We can only achieve our destiny together -- one hand, one generation, one American connecting to another.
There have always been things we could do together -- dreams we could make real -- which we could never have done on our own. We Americans have forged our identity, our very union, from every point of view and every point on the planet, every different opinion. But we must be bound together by a faith more powerful than any doctrine that divides us -- by our belief in progress, our love of liberty, and our relentless search for common ground.
America has always sought and always risen to every challenge. Who would say that, having come so far together, we will not go forward from here? Who would say that this age of possibility is not for all Americans?
Our country is and always has been a great and good nation. But the best is yet to come, if we all do our part.
Thank you, God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Thank you.
Official Statements
1996 NATIONAL SECURITY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY
The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy
Excerpts from: "Meeting The Challenge of Global Threats"
The President's 1995 National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement recognizes that a broad class of global threats evident in the post-Cold War world affect our nation's security. The United States is not isolated from the effects of disease, disasters, or misery elsewhere in the world. In the modem world, diseases readily cross borders, and environmental degradation can have global consequences that threaten the populations of all nations. Great human suffering due to natural disasters or to other environmental, economic, or social and political factors may lead not only to large numbers of refugees crossing international borders but also to instability that increases the likelihood of ethnic and regional civil conflict. Understood in these terms, the security of the United States therefore requires engagement with the developing world and with countries in transition to democracy, to take steps to prevent deadly conflict, to encourage economic development that can be sustained for growing po
Outbreaks of new or reemerging infectious diseases may endanger the health of U.S. citizens even if the root causes of the problem lie in distant parts of the world.... The rapidly growing human population, widespread pollution, and the deterioration of other environmental factors that contribute to the maintenance of good health, as well as the lack of dependable supplies of clean drinking water for fully a fifth of the world's people, contribute to the acceleration and spread of such diseases.
Natural disasters, the burden of which falls disproportionately on the poor, pose an especially dramatic threat to sustainable development. The costs of natural disasters are high and have been escalating. For example, domestic natural disasters ... now cost the United States more than $1 billion each week. Internationally, the impacts can be greater still ... [The resulting losses] represent enormous setbacks to a nation's or region's economic and human development.
Whereas natural disasters threaten human life and sustainable development in a catastrophic manner, global threats such as climate change, ozone depletion, and ocean pollution may take years or even decades to become apparent and build toward crisis. Yet each of these poses challenges to the health and long-term well-being of both U.S. citizens and people throughout the world.
The loss of biodiversity is an especially urgent threat, the consequences of which are irreversible. The permanent loss of species means we will no longer have these organisms as sources of medicines, oils, fibers, food, chemicals, and other commodities of importance to both industrial and developing societies.
The explosive growth of the world's population is of primary importance and exacerbates many of the dilemmas already discussed. In some developing countries, even the most impressive gains in total economic output can be offset by rapid population growth. Population pressures already contribute to violent disorder and mass dislocations in poor societies. Internally displaced persons-who might become refugees pose a long-term threat to the integrity of their own and other nations as well as to global stability.
As the world's population grows to exceed 8 billion people by 2025, most of this increase will occur in the cities of developing countries. Worldwide, urban population is expected to increase from 1 billion people in 1985 to 4 billion in 2025. Increases in income, greater urbanization (which leads to a shift in diet from roots, tubers, and lower quality grains to higher quality cereals, livestock, and vegetables), and overall population growth could mean that the demand for food in 2025 will be more than double that of current levels of production.
Individually or collectively, threats such as these can increase the likelihood of destabilization of countries in the developing world. Regional or civil conflicts, hastened or exacerbated by environmental stress, could involve the United States in costly and hazardous military interventions, peacekeeping, or humanitarian operations. As is the case in Haiti, severe environmental degradation and resource depletion may make economic recovery much more difficult, thereby prolonging dependence on aid and impeding a nation's recovery from social or political chaos and progress toward democracy and prosperity.
Research in the natural and social sciences helps us to understand the origins, characteristics, and consequences of global problems. Finding solutions to these problems, and elucidating the complex chains of cause and effect through which they may be linked, requires a coordinated effort by natural and social scientists, engineers, and policymakers. U.S. leadership in science and technology is therefore an important element of our national security.
In some cases, research and monitoring programs offer the only substantial warning to government officials and to the public of an emerging problem. For example, through remote sensing, we can have warning of famine and continue to accumulate a record of the state and evolution of the basic components of our biosphere. Such observations and measurements, coupled with the development of predictive models, are necessary tools for policymaking in the post-Cold War security environment.
Transforming scientific breakthroughs into new technologies can have a profound impact on development... One challenge is to use technology [to advance] productivity without compromising long-term natural resource viability. For example, technology helped bring about the Green Revolution, which resulted in increased agricultural productivity, worldwide. But at the same time, poorly designed irrigation systems led to soil degradation in some areas. In the decades ahead, technology will be required to feed and provide energy for a growing world population while minimizing impact on the integrity of soil, water, air, forests, and other natural resources. In addition, insights from the social sciences can provide the basis for redesigning research and resource management institutions to achieve the efficient use of resources with minimal disruption to the environment. A major parallel challenge to science and technology will be to make contraception more affordable and effective.
The Administration's strategy for meeting the challenges described above rests on three pillars: preventive diplomacy, promoting sustainable development, and responding to global threats. Preventive diplomacy endeavors to resolve problems, reduce tensions, and defuse conflicts before they become crises. The promotion of sustainable development seeks to ensure that development occurs in a manner that can be maintained for the long term, thereby avoiding environmental, resource, or other degradation that fosters poverty and instability. Finally, there is a class of global threats that may take years or decades to become apparent or to build toward crisis but which may directly threaten the well-being of U.S. citizens as well as people around the globe. Responding to these threats will require decisive domestic action as well as international cooperation....
For a complete version of the 1996 National Security Science and Technology document, contact: The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Old Executive Office Building, Washington, DC 20500; Or visit the Internet Home Page.
From the founding of the Sierra Club in 1892 to the first Earth Day in 1970, Stanford faculty and alumni have led efforts to preserve our country's natural resources for future generations. Your centers for Conservation Biology and Global Ecosystem Function have done pioneering work. Let me also say that I am personally grateful. for the continuing work of Coach Montgomery and Coach Willingham to keep the California Bear population under control.
With strong leadership from President Clinton and Vice President Gore, our Administration has recognized from the beginning that our ability to advance our global interests is inextricably linked to how we manage the Earth's natural resources. That is why we are determined to put environmental issues where they belong: in the mainstream of American foreign policy. I appreciate and value this opportunity to outline our far-reaching agenda to integrate fully environmental objectives into our diplomacy, and to set forth our priorities for the future.
The environment has a profound impact on our national interests in two ways: First, environmental forces transcend borders and oceans to threaten directly the health, prosperity and jobs of American citizens. Second, addressing natural resource issues is frequently critical to achieving political and economic stability, and to pursuing our strategic goals around the world.
The United States is providing the leadership to promote global peace and prosperity. We must also lead in safeguarding the global environment on which that prosperity and peace ultimately depend.
In 1946, when I came to Stanford as a law student, the connection between the environment and foreign policy was not so readily apparent. At-home, Americans were entering a period of unprecedented prosperity fueled by seemingly infinite resources. Abroad, we were beginning to focus on the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. And I was trying to master the intricacies of contracts, torts, and something called remedies, taught by Stanford's version of John Houseman. I was also trying to measure up to the high standards set by a new young Dean, Carl Spaeth, who had just come to Stanford from a very promising career at the State Department, and who first stimulated my interest in the work in which I am now engaged full time.
But since 1946, population growth, economic progress and technological breakthroughs have combined to fundamentally reshape our world. It took more than 10,000 generations to reach a world population of just over two billion. In just my lifetime a period that may seem like an eternity to many of the students in the audience the world's population has nearly tripled to more than five-and-a-half billion.
These changes are putting staggering pressures on global resources. From 1960 to 1990, the world's forests shrank by an amount equivalent to one-half the land area of the United States. Countless species of animals and plants are being wiped out, including many with potential value for agriculture and medicine. Pollution of our air and water endangers our health and our future.
In carrying out America's foreign policy, we will of course use our diplomacy backed by strong military forces to meet traditional and continuing threats to our security, as well as to meet new threats such as terrorism, weapons proliferation, drug trafficking and international crime. But we must also contend with the vast new danger posed to our national interests by damage to the environment and resulting global and regional instability.
As the flagship institution of American foreign policy, the State Department must spearhead a government-wide effort to meet these environmental challenges. Together with other government agencies, we are pursuing our environmental priorities globally, regionally, bilaterally, and in partnership with business and non-governmental organizations. Each of these four dimensions is essential to the success of our overall strategy.
First, our approach to these problems must be global because pollution respects no boundaries, and the growing demand for finite resources in any part of the world inevitably puts pressure on the resources in all others.
Across the United States, Americans suffer the consequences of damage to the environment far beyond our borders. Greenhouse gases released around the globe by power plants, automobiles and burning forests affect our health and our climate, potentially causing many billions of dollars in damage from rising sea levels and changing storm patterns. Dangerous chemicals such as PCBs and DDT that are banned here but still used elsewhere travel long distances through the air and water. Over-fishing of the world's oceans has put thousands of Americans out of work. A foreign policy that failed to address such problems would be ignoring the needs of the American people.
Each nation must take steps on its own to combat these environmental threats, but we will not succeed until we can effectively fight them together. That realization inspired the path-breaking efforts of the United Nations at the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment 25 years ago, and at the historic Rio Summit on Environment and Development four years ago. There, the international community forged a new global commitment to "preserve, protect and restore ... the Earth's ecosystem" and to promote economic development in ways that also preserve our natural resources.
Since Rio, the United States has intensified our global efforts. We led the way to an agreement to phase out the remaining substances that damage the ozone layer, to ban the ocean dumping of low-level radioactive waste, and to achieve a new consensus in Cairo on stabilizing global population growth.
We are working to reform and strengthen the UN's key environmental and sustainable development programs. We have joined forces with the World Bank to incorporate sound environmental policies in lending programs, and to fund projects through the Global Environment Facility that directly benefit our health and prosperity. And we are striving through the new World Trade Organization to reconcile the complex tensions between promoting trade and protecting the environment-and to ensure that neither comes at the expense of the other.
This year, we will begin negotiating agreements with the potential to make 1997 the most important year for the global environment since the Rio Summit. We will seek agreement on further cuts in greenhouse gases to minimize the effects of climate change. We will help lead an international process to address the problems caused by toxic chemicals that can seep into our land and water, poisoning them for generations. We will develop a strategy for the sustainable management of the world's forests-a resource that every great civilization has discovered is "indispensable for carrying on life," as the Roman historian Pliny once wrote. We will work with Congress to ratify the Biodiversity Convention, which holds benefits for American agriculture and business. We will also seek ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty which safeguards our access to ocean resources. We will provide the leadership needed to ensure that this June's UN Summit in Istanbul effectively confronts the pressing problems associated wit
Finally, by the end of 1997, the State Department will host a conference on strategies to improve our compliance with international environmental agreements to ensure that those agreements yield lasting results, not just promises.
This is a daunting global agenda. Achieving these goals will take time and perseverance. But I often remember Don Kennedy's advice to graduates to set a "standard higher than you can comfortably reach."
The second element of our strategy-the regional element-is to confront pollution and the scarcity of resources in key areas where they dramatically increase tensions within and among nations. Nowhere is this more evident than in the parched valleys of the Middle East, where the struggle for water has a direct impact on security and stability. In my many trips to the region, I have seen how rapid population growth and pollution can raise the stakes in water disputes as ancient as the Old Testament. As Shimon Peres once remarked to me, "The Jordan River has more history in it than water." We are helping the parties in the Middle East peace process to manage the region's water resources-to turn a source of conflict into a force for peace.
There can be no doubt that building stable market democracies in the former Soviet Union and Central Europe will reinforce our own security. However, for these new nations to succeed, we must help them overcome the poisonous factories, soot-filled skies and ruined rivers that are one of the bitter legacies of communism. The experience of this region demonstrates that governments that abuse their citizens too often have a similar contempt for the environment.
Three weeks ago in Kiev, I walked through the wards of a children's hospital that treats the victims of Chernobyl. I saw first-hand the terrible damage that this 10-year-old catastrophe still inflicts on there region's people. We are helping Ukraine to ensure that there will be no more Chernobyls. In Central Asia, we are helping nations recover from Soviet irrigation practices that turned much of the Aral Sea into an ocean of sand. Our Regional Environment Center in Budapest supports the civic groups in Central Europe that are essential to a healthy democracy and to a healthy environment.
The United States also has an enormous stake in consolidating democratic institutions and open markets in our own hemisphere. To deepen the remarkable transformation that is taking place across Latin America and the Caribbean, we are advancing the agenda for sustainable development that our 34 democracies adopted at the Miami Summit of the Americas. To help democracy succeed, for example, we must ease the pressures of deforestation and rapid population growth that I have seen at work in the bare hills and crowded city streets of Haiti. To sustain our prosperity, we must work to preserve the rich diversity of life that I saw in the Amazon rainforest. To help heal the wounds of old conflicts, we must reverse the environmental damage that has narrowed economic opportunities and fueled illegal immigration from El Salvador. And to help combat drug trafficking and crime, we are encouraging sustainable agriculture as an alternative to the slash-and-burn cultivation of opium poppies and coca from Guatemala to C
In Africa, we are pursuing environmental efforts designed to save tens of thousands of lives, prevent armed conflict, and avert the need for costly international intervention. Our Greater Horn of Africa initiative, for example, addresses the root causes of environmental problems that can turn droughts into famines, and famines into civil wars. We must not forget the hard lessons of Rwanda, where depleted resources and swollen populations exacerbated the political and economic pressures that exploded into one of this decade's greatest tragedies. We also have a national interest in helping the nations of the region address the AIDS crisis, which is decimating a whole generation of young Africans and wasting the economic resources that African nations so desperately need to build stable governments and a brighter economic future.
To intensify our regional environmental efforts, we will establish Environmental Hubs in our embassies in key countries. These will address pressing regional natural resource issues, advance sustainable development goals and help U.S. businesses to sell their leading-edge environmental technology.
The third element of our strategy is to work bilaterally with key partners around the world-beginning, of course, with our next-door neighbors. Whether it is fishing on the Georges Bank or in the Gulf of Mexico, or clean drinking water from the Great Lakes or the Rio Grande, we cannot separate our environmental interests from those of Canada or Mexico.
We are extending our century-old cooperation with Canada on behalf of clean water and flood control in the Great Lakes region. We are improving conservation in our adjoining national park lands. Through the U.S.-Canada Joint Commission, we are protecting human health and natural habitats. And with all our Arctic neighbors, we are establishing a partnership to protect that fragile region.
Our joint efforts with Mexico have grown in importance since NAFTA took effect just over two years ago. Under the NAFTA side agreements on the environment, we have set up new institutions to help communities on both sides of the border safeguard the natural resources they share. Later this spring, we will launch an innovative program that will enable business and government leaders from Texas, New Mexico, and Ciudad Juarez to reduce some of the region's worst air pollution. When our two nations cabinets meet in Mexico City next month, I will emphasize the importance of Mexico continuing to strengthen its environmental standards.
Through our Common Agenda with Japan, the world's two largest economies are pooling their resources and expertise to stabilize population growth, to eradicate polio, to fight AIDS and to develop new "green" technology.
Our New Transatlantic Agenda with the European Union will spur global efforts on such issues as climate change and toxic chemicals. Together, we are already advancing our environmental goals in Central Europe and the New Independent States.
Russia and China are both confronting major environmental problems that will have a profound effect on their future-and on ours.
In Russia, the fate of democracy may depend on its ability to offer the Russian people better living standards and to reverse a shocking decline in life expectancy. From Murmansk to Vladivostok, poorly stored nuclear waste poses a threat to human life for centuries to come. Economic reforms will not meet their potential if one-sixth of the Russian land mass remains so polluted that it is unfit even for industrial use, and if Russian children are handicapped by the poisons they breathe and drink.
We are cooperating with Russia to meet these challenges. Ten days from now, President Clinton Will join President Yeltsin and other leaders at a Nuclear Safety Summit in Moscow which will promote the safe operation of nuclear reactors and the appropriate storage of nuclear materials. Vice President Gore and Prime Minister Chemomyrdin are spearheading joint initiatives to preserve the Arctic environment, reduce greenhouse gases and promote the management of key natural resources. We are even taking the satellite imagery once used to spot missiles and tanks and using it to help clean up military bases and track ocean pollution.
As we discussed this morning at your Institute for International Studies, the environmental challenges that China faces are truly sobering. With 22 percent of the world's population, China has only seven percent of its fresh water and cropland, three percent of its forests and two percent of its oil. The combination of China's rapid economic growth and surging population is compounding the enormous environmental pressures it already faces. That is one of the many reasons why our policy of engagement with China encompasses the environment. Later this month, Vice President Gore will launch an initiative that will expand U.S.-China cooperation on sustainable development, including elements such as energy policy and agriculture.
In our other bilateral relationships, we have created partnerships that strengthen our ties while moving beyond the outdated thinking that once predicted an inevitable struggle between North and South. Under the Common Agenda for the Environment we signed last year with India, for example, we are cooperating on a broad range of shared interests from investing in environmental technologies to controlling pesticides and toxic chemicals. During my trip to Brazil last month, we strengthened a similar Common Agenda with agreements on cooperation in space that will widen our knowledge about climate change and improve management of forest resources.
The fourth and final element of our strategy reinforces these diplomatic approaches by building partnerships with private businesses and non-governmental organizations.
American businesses know that a healthy global environment is essential to our prosperity. Increasingly, they recognize that pitting economic growth against environmental protection is what President Clinton has called "a false choice." Both are necessary, and both are closely linked.
Protecting the environment also opens new business opportunities. We are committed to helping U.S. companies expand their already commanding share of a $400 billion market for environmental technologies. This effort was one of many championed by my late colleague and friend, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. His last mission to Africa helped an American firm win a contract that will protect fisheries and fresh water supplies for 30 million people in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. On my recent visit to El Salvador, I met with U.S. firms, non-governmental organizations and their Central American partners who are pioneering the use of solar and wind power stations.
Non-governmental organizations working with USAID have played a crucial role in advancing our environmental objectives overseas. For many years, for example, the Sierra Club has been deeply engaged in international population efforts and it made an important contribution to the Cairo Conference. As part of these joint efforts, the World Wildlife Fund is helping to conserve biodiversity in more than 40 countries, the World Resources Institute is confronting deforestation in Africa, and the Nature Conservancy is protecting wildlife preserves across Latin America - Through the State Department's new "Partnership for Environment and Foreign Policy," we will bring together environmental organizations, business leaders and foreign policy specialists to enhance our cooperation in meeting environmental challenges.
It is the responsibility of the State Department to lead in ensuring the success of each one of the four elements of the strategy that I have discussed today global, regional, bilateral and partnerships with business and NGOs. Working closely with the President and the Vice President, I have instructed our bureaus and our embassies to improve the way we use our diplomacy to advance our environmental objectives.
We will raise these issues on every occasion where our influence may be useful. We will bolster our ability to blend diplomacy and science, and to negotiate global agreements that protect our health and well-being. We will reinforce the role of the Under Secretary for Global Affairs which was created at the beginning of our Administration to address transnational issues. We will strengthen our efforts with USAID to promote sustainable development through effective environment and family planning assistance. And we will reinforce the environmental partnerships that we have formed with the EPA, and the departments of Defense, Energy, Commerce, Interior and Agriculture.
In addition, I am announcing today that starting on Earth Day 1997, the Department will issue an annual report on Global Environmental Challenges. This report will be an essential tool of our environmental diplomacy, bringing together an assessment of global environmental trends, international policy developments and U.S. priorities for the coming year.
I will continue to work with the Congress to ensure the success of our environmental efforts. The current Congress has slashed critical funding for needed environmental programs at home and abroad. We will press Congress to provide the necessary resources to get the job done.
Our strength as a nation has always been to harness our democracy to meet new threats to our security and prosperity. Our creed as a people has always been to make tomorrow better for ourselves and for our children. Drawing on the same ideals and interests that have led Americans from Teddy Roosevelt to Ed Muskie to put a priority on preserving our land, our skies and our waters at home, we must meet the challenge of making global environmental issues a vital part of our foreign policy. For the sake of future generations, we must succeed.
Below are excerpts from recent official statements and public documents in which environmental issues are cited in a security context. The Wilson Center encourages readers to inform the Report of other related public statements; please send a note to the address listed on the inside cover, or E-mail us at csheehan@sivm.si.edu.
Excerpts from: 1996 U.S. National Security Strategy of Engagement and
Enlargement
The White House, January 1996
[Editor's Note: The bold-faced text reflects significant changes or additions to the February 1995 version.]
Protecting our nation's security--our people, our territory and our way of life--is my Administration's foremost mission and constitutional duty. America's security imperatives, however, have fundamentally changed. The central security challenge of the past half century--the threat of communist expansion--is gone. The dangers we face today are more diverse ... large-scale environmental degradation, exacerbated by rapid population growth, threatens to undermine political stability in many countries and regions....
The strategy also recognized that a number of transnational problems which once seemed quite distant, like environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, rapid population growth and refugee flows, now pose threats to our prosperity and have security implications for both present and long-term American policy .... (p.1)
...In October 1994, President Clinton transmitted the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification. This was the culmination of years of negotiations to ensure an equitable balance between the rights of coastal states to control activities in adjacent, offshore areas to protect their economic, security, and environmental interests and the rights of maritime states to free and unimpeded navigation and overflight of the oceans of the world. This included an acceptable regime to administer the mineral resources of the deep seabed, thereby protecting U.S. interests.... (p.6)
...Through NAFTA's environmental and labor side agreements, we are working actively to protect the rights of workers and to reduce air and water pollution that crosses national boundaries. (p.7)
The President developed a Climate Change Action Plan to help reduce greenhouse emissions at home and launched the U.S. Initiative on Joint Implementation to help reduce emissions abroad. The United States also takes a leading role at the international level in phasing out ozone-depleting substances. In June 1993, the United States signed the Biodiversity Treaty and one year later, the Desertification Convention. (p.7)
With strong U.S. leadership, the United Nations successfully concluded negotiations on a multilateral agreement designed to reverse the global trend of declining fish stocks. The agreement complements the UN Law of the Sea Convention, giving direction to countries for implementing their obligation under the Convention to cooperate in conserving and managing straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. (p.7)
The Administration has asserted world leadership on population issues. We played a key role during the Cairo Conference on Population and Development in developing a consensus Program of Action, including increased availability of voluntary family planning and reproductive health services, sustainable economic development, strengthening of family ties, the empowerment of women including enhanced educational opportunities and a reduction in infant and child mortality through immunizations and other programs. (p.8)
At the Summit of the Americas, the 34 democratic nations of the hemisphere agreed to a detailed plan of cooperative action in such diverse fields as health, education, science and technology, counter narcotics, counterterrorism, environmental protection, information infrastructure and the strengthening and safeguarding of democratic institutions, in addition to mutual prosperity and sustainable development. The Summit ushered in a new era of hemispheric cooperation that would not have been possible without U.S. leadership and commitment. In the time since the Summit, progress on strengthening democratic institutions, thwarting international criminals and terrorists and preserving natural resources have helped improve the lives of the hemisphere's residents.... (p.8)
... Our engagement must be selective, focusing on the challenges that are most important to our own interests and focusing our resources where we can make the most difference .... Those interests are ultimately defined by our security requirements. Such requirements start with our physical defense and economic well-being. They also include environmental security as well as the security of our values achieved through expansion of the community of democratic nations .... (p.11)
...We also face security risks that are not solely military in nature. An emerging class of transnational environmental and natural resource issues, and rapid population growth and refugee flows, are increasingly affecting international stability and consequently will present new challenges to U.S. strategy.... (p.12)
...U.S. military forces and assets are frequently called upon to provide assistance to victims of floods, storms, drought and other humanitarian disasters. Both at home and abroad, U.S. forces provide emergency food, shelter, medical care and security to those in need.... (p.17)
...Finally, to enhance the study and support of worldwide environmental, humanitarian and disaster relief activities, technical intelligence assets especially imagery-must be directed to a greater degree toward collection of data on these subjects.... (p.25)
The more clearly we understand the complex interrelationships between the different parts of our world's environment, the better we can understand the regional and even global consequences of local changes to the environment. Increasing competition for the dwindling reserves of uncontaminated air, arable land, fisheries and other food sources and water, once considered "free" goods, is already a very real risk to regional stability around the world. The range of environmental risks serious enough to jeopardize international stability extends to massive population flight from manmade or natural catastrophes, such as Chernobyl or the East African drought, and to large-scale ecosystem damage caused by industrial pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, ozone depletion, desertification, ocean pollution and, ultimately, climate change. Strategies dealing with environmental issues of this magnitude will require partnerships between governments and nongovemmental organizations, cooperation between nations
The decisions we make today regarding military force structures typically influence our ability to respond to threats 20 to 30 years in the future. Similarly, our current decisions regarding the environment and natural resources will affect the magnitude of their security risks over at least a comparable period of time, if not longer. The measure of our difficulties in the future will be settled by the steps we take in the present.
As a priority initiative, the U.S. successfully led efforts at the Cairo Conference to develop a consensus Program of Action to address the continuous climb in global population, including increased availability of family planning and reproductive health services, sustainable economic development, the empowerment of women to include enhanced educational opportunities and a reduction in infant and child mortality. Rapid population growth in the developing world and unsustainable consumption patterns in industrialized nations are the root of both present and potentially even greater forms of environmental degradation and resource depletion. A conservative estimate of the globe's population projects 8.5 billion people on the planet by the year 2025. Even when making the most generous allowances for advances in science and technology, one cannot help but conclude that population growth and environmental pressures will feed into immense social unrest and make the world substantially more vulnerable to serious
...These facts show the need for continued and extended reliance on energy efficiency and conservation and development of alternative energy sources. Conservation measures notwithstanding, the United States has a vital interest in unrestricted access to this critical resource. (p.30)
Broad-based economic development not only improves the prospects for democratic development in developing countries but also expands the demands for U.S. exports. Economic growth abroad can alleviate pressure on the global environment, reduce the attraction of illegal narcotics trade and improve the health and economic productivity of global populations.
The environmental consequences of ill-designed economic growth are clear. Environmental damage will ultimately block economic growth. Rapid urbanization is outstripping the ability of nations to provide jobs, education and other services to new citizens. The continuing poverty of a quarter of the world's people leads to hunger, malnutrition, economic migration and political unrest. Widespread illiteracy and lack of technical skills hinder employment opportunities and drive entire populations to support themselves on increasingly fragile and damaged resource bases. New diseases, such as AIDS, and other epidemics which can be spread through environmental degradation, threaten to overwhelm the health facilities of developing countries, disrupt societies and stop economic growth. Developing countries must address these realities with national sustainable development policies that offer viable alternatives. U.S. leadership is of the essence to facilitate that process. If such alternatives are not develope
Domestically, the United States is working hard to halt local and cross-border environmental degradation. In addition, the United States is fostering environmental technology that targets pollution prevention, control and cleanup. Companies that invest in energy efficiency, clean manufacturing and environmental services today will create the high-quality, high-wage jobs of tomorrow. By providing access to these types of technologies, our exports can also provide the means for other nations to achieve environmentally sustainable economic growth. At the same time, we are taking ambitious steps at home to better manage our natural resources and reduce energy and other consumption, decrease waste generation and increase our recycling efforts.
Internationally, the Administration's foreign assistance program focuses on four key elements of sustainable development: broad-based economic growth; the environment; population and health; and democracy. We will continue to advocate environmentally sound private investment and responsible approaches by international lenders. As mentioned above, the Multilateral Development Banks (MDB s) are now placing increased emphasis upon sustainable development in their funding decisions, to include a commitment to perform environmental assessments on projects for both internal and public scrutiny. In particular, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) established in 1994 provides a source of financial assistance to the developing world for climate change, biodiversity and oceans initiatives that will benefit all the world's citizens, including Americans.
United States is taking specific steps in all of these areas:
In June 1993, the United States signed the Convention on Biological Diversity, which aims to protect and utilize the world's genetic inheritance. The Interior Department created a National Biological Service to help protect species and to help the agricultural and biotechnical industries identify new sources of food, fiber and medications.
New policies are being implemented to ensure the sustainable management of U.S. forests by the year 2000, as pledged internationally. In addition, U.S. bilateral forest assistance programs are being expanded, and the United States is promoting sustainable management of tropical forests.
In the wake of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the United States has undertaken initiatives to reduce land-based sources of marine pollution, maintain populations of marine species at healthy and productive levels and protect endangered marine mammals and coral reefs.
The United States has focused technical assistance and encouraged nongovernmental environmental groups to provide expertise to the new independent states of the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern European nations that have suffered the most acute environmental crises. The Agency for International Development, the Environmental Protection Agency and other U.S. agencies are engaged in technical cooperation with many countries around the world to advance these goals. The United States has also been working bilaterally with a number of developing countries to promote their sustainable development and to work jointly on global environmental issues.
The Administration is leading a renewed global effort to address population problems and promote international consensus for stabilizing world population growth. Our comprehensive approach stresses family planning and reproductive health care, material and child health, education and improving the status of women. The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo, endorsed these approaches as important strategies in achieving our global population goals. At the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing, the United States promoted women's and children's-international rights.
With regard to the United Nations, the G-7 leaders at the Halifax Summit in 1995 endorsed an ambitious effort to modernize the organization's economic and social functions through better coordination, consolidation of related agencies, rethinking agency mandates and creating an effective management culture in a smaller and more focused Secretariat. Following President Clinton's call for a UN reform commission, the UN General Assembly established the High Level Working Group on Strengthening the UN System in September 1995
In April 1993, President Clinton pledged that the United States would reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000, in accordance with the Framework Convention on Climate Change. In March 1995, we and other parties to the Convention agreed to negotiate steps to be taken beyond the year 2000. We are resolved to deal forcefully with this threat to our planet while preserving U.S. economic competitiveness.
The United States and other countries have agreed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out use of the major ozone-depleting substances. In 1995, we also agreed with other nations to decrease use of additional ozone-depleting chemicals. (p.30-32)
In both the Middle East and South Asia, the pressure of expanding populations on natural resources is enormous. Growing desertification in the Middle East has strained relations over arable land. Pollution of the coastal areas in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba has degraded fish catches and hindered development. Water shortages stemming from overuse, contaminated water aquifers and riparian disputes threaten regional relations. In South Asia, high population densities and rampant pollution have exacted a tremendous toll on forests, biodiversity and the local environment. (p.43)
...In particular, we will seek to identify and address the root causes of conflicts and disasters before they erupt. (p.43)
Our humanitarian interventions, along with the international community, will address the grave circumstances in several nations on the continent. USAID's new 'Greater Horn of Africa' Initiative is building a foundation for food security and crisis prevention in the Greater Horn of Africa. This initiative has now moved beyond relief to support reconstruction and sustainable development. In Somalia, our forces broke through the chaos that prevented the introduction of relief supplies. U.S. forces prevented the death of hundreds of thousands of Somalis and then turned over the mission to UN peacekeepers from over a score of nations. In Rwanda, Sudan, Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia, we have taken an active role in providing humanitarian relief to those displaced by violence. (p.44)
We are also working with international financial institutions, regional organizations, private volunteer and nongovernmental organizations and governments throughout Africa to address the urgent issues of population growth, spreading disease (including AIDS), environmental decline, enhancing the role of women in development, eliminating support for terrorism, demobilization of bloated militaries, relieving burdensome debt and expanding trade and investment ties to the countries of Africa. The United States is working closely with other donors to implement wide ranging management and policy reforms at the African Development Bank (AfDB). The AfDB plays a key role in promoting sustainable development and poverty alleviation. (p.44)
The Administration is working with Japan to address common challenges to sustainable economic development through the Framework's Common Agenda for Cooperation in Global Perspective. Partnerships have been strengthened in the environment, human health and advanced technology development, and new initiatives were launched this year that address education, food security, counter-terrorism, natural disaster mitigation, combating emerging infectious diseases and nation-building. (p.29)
1996 NATIONAL SECURITY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY
1996 National Security Science and Technology Strategy
The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy
Excerpts from: 'Meeting The Challenge of Global Threats"
The President's 1995 National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement recognizes that a broad class of global threats evident in the post-Cold War world affect our nation's security. The United States is not isolated from the effects of disease, disasters, or misery elsewhere in the world. In the modern world, diseases readily cross borders, and environmental degradation can have global consequences that threaten the populations of all nations. Great human suffering due to natural disasters or to other environmental, economic, or social and political factors may lead not only to large numbers of refugees crossing international borders but also to instability that increases the likelihood of ethnic and regional civil conflict. Understood in these terms, the security of the United States therefore requires engagement with the developing world and with countries in transition to democracy, to take steps to prevent deadly conflict, to encourage economic development that can be sustained for growing p
Outbreaks of new or reemerging infectious diseases may endanger the health of U.S. citizens even if the root causes of the problem lie in distant parts of the world.... The rapidly growing human population, widespread pollution, and the deterioration of other environmental factors that contribute to the maintenance of good health, as well as the lack of dependable supplies of clean drinking water for fully a fifth of the world's people, contribute to the acceleration and spread of such diseases.
Natural disasters, the burden of which falls disproportionately on the poor, pose an especially dramatic threat to sustainable development. The costs of natural disasters are high and have been escalating. For example, domestic natural disasters ... now cost the United States more than $1 billion each week. Internationally, the impacts can be greater still ... [The resulting losses] represent enormous setbacks to a nation's or region's economic and human development.
Whereas natural disasters threaten human life and sustainable development in a catastrophic manner, global threats such as climate change, ozone depletion, and ocean pollution may take years or even decades to become apparent and build toward crisis. Yet each of these poses challenges to the health and long-term well-being of both U.S. citizens and people throughout the world.
The loss of biodiversity is an especially urgent threat, the consequences of which are irreversible. The permanent loss of species means we will no longer have these organisms as sources of medicines, oils, fibers, food, chemicals, and other commodities of importance to both industrial and developing societies.
The explosive growth of the world's population is of primary importance and exacerbates many of the dilemmas already discussed. In some developing countries, even the most impressive gains in total economic output can be offset by rapid population growth. Population pressures already contribute to violent disorder and mass dislocations in poor societies. Internally displaced persons-who might become refugees pose a long-term threat to the integrity of their own and other nations as well as to global stability.
As the world's population grows to exceed 8 billion people by 2025, most of this increase will occur in the cities of developing countries. Worldwide, urban population is expected to increase from 1 billion people in 1985 to 4 billion in 2025. Increases in income, greater urbanization (which leads to a shift in diet from roots, tubers, and lower quality grains to higher quality cereals, livestock, and vegetables), and overall population growth could mean that the demand for food in 2025 will be more than double that of current levels of production.
Individually or collectively, threats such as these can increase the likelihood of destabilization of countries in the developing world. Regional or civil conflicts, hastened or exacerbated by environmental stress, could involve the United States in costly and hazardous military interventions, peacekeeping, or humanitarian operations. As is the case in Haiti, severe environmental degradation and resource depletion may make economic recovery much more difficult, thereby prolonging dependence on aid and impeding a nation's recovery from social or political chaos and progress toward democracy and prosperity.
Findings
Environmental conditions around the world should be assessed along with poltical, economic and military actors in terms of potential threat to U.S. national security interests.
Environmental security is multilateral, multidimensional and multi-disciplinary.
-No one agency in the United States can protect U.S. public interests
-No one country can protect the world environment; however, U.S. leadership is essential on an international scale
The defense community has the capability and organizational capacity to respond to and mitigate the worst consequences of environmental catastrophes or environmentally caused threats to national security. To some extent, it lacks the training and resources to do so.
There is important, relevant environmental security work underway throughout the Intelligence Community in response to existing national security requirements.
The U.S. Government, in partnership with counterparts in other countries and the private sector, has the ability to a apply environmental scientific and technological practices and procedures to address environmental trends and to change both practice and paradigms abroad and within the U.S.
A consensus is developing among participants in the national security process that the environment should be considered a key element in the national security arena.
A national strategy, involving appropriate U.S. government agencies, is needed to prioritize international environmental security issues in order to enhance U.S. national security.
Recommendations
Address the following issues in complete, justifiable and understandable terms:
Why is protecting the environment important to national security?
-Protect U.S. health and safety
-Limit pressure on military resources
-Enhance economic security
Identify, characterize, assess and understand threats and associated risks? Specific themes:
-Global, regional, national, environmental issues
-Environmental phenomena
-Acute or chronic health effects
Identify, understand and communicate relationships between Environmental Security and:
-Militaty missions
-Roles and missions of all agencies
-International institutions
-Civil society
-Foreign policy
Facilitate cost-effective measures at early stages to avoid extensive international assistance or military intervention.
Adopt and implement a clear, concise U.S. environmental security policy that:
-Answers questions of why environmental security is important to national security.
-Identifies and focuses agencies' capabilities into a coherent, integrated approach
-Creates a framework for a U.S. government policy making process to identify threats, assess risks, and prioritize resources
-Persuade, through diplomatic and other means, other countries and international organizations to pursue environmental security goals consistent with our own.
Reach all interested constituencies to engage them in a dialogue on environmental security issues.
The Intelligence Community has the information-gathering infrastructure; the ability to perform integrated analysis on relationships between the environment, political stability and economic conditions; and the means to communicate with policy makers in a timely manner. To some extent, it lacks the directive to do so systematically or with defined priorities.
The environment is an important part of the Intelligence Community agenda. Today I would like to explain what we mean by the term 'environmental intelligence,' why the Intelligence Community is involved in this work, and why our involvement is important for citizens of the United States and the world. I also want to demonstrate that environmental intelligence is not a new or expensive area of endeavor for the Intelligence Community.
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The Intelligence Community's job is to ensure that our senior policymakers and military commanders have objective information that will allow them to make better decisions. Through our collection and analytic effort, we compile intelligence reports that give our country's leadership insight into how events in all parts of the world will unfold and how these events will affect our national security.
Environmental trends, both natural and man-made, are among the underlying forces that affect a nation's economy, its social stability, its behavior in world markets, and its attitude toward neighbors.
I emphasize that environment is one factor. It would be foolish, for example, to attribute conflicts in Somalia, Ethiopia, or Haiti to environmental causes alone. It would be foolhardy, however, not to take into consideration that the land in each of these states is exploited in a manner that can no longer support growing populations.
Environmental degradation, encroaching deserts, erosion, and overfarming destroy vast tracts of arable land. This forces people from their homes and creates tensions between ethnic and political groups as competition for scarce resources increases. There is an essential connection between environmental degradation, population growth, and poverty that regional analysts must take into account.
National reconnaissance systems that track the movement of tanks through the desert, can, at the same time, track the movement of the desert itself, see the sand closing in on formerly productive fields or hillsides laid bare by deforestation and erosion. Satellite systems allow us to quickly assess the magnitude and severity of damage. Adding this environmental dimension to traditional political, economic, and military analysis enhances our ability to alert policymakers to potential instability, conflict, or human disaster and to identify situations which may draw in American involvement.
Some events have already dictated that environmental issues be included in our intelligence agenda. When Moscow initially issued misleading information about the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, US leaders turned to the Intelligence Community to assess the damage and its impact on the former Soviet Union and neighboring countries.
During the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein used ecological destruction as a weapon, policymakers and the military called on the Intelligence Community to track the movement of smoke from burning oilfields and the flow of oil released into the gulf. They asked whether damage to Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear complex posed a danger to troops and local population.
In each of these cases, our answer to these questions was not and could not be, "the environment is not an intelligence issue." Our answers were classic intelligence: analysis based on our data from collection systems and open sources. We were able to assess the magnitude of the Chernobyl accident; we were able to tell US troops how to avoid lethal hydrogen sulfide from oil fires; and we were able to tell military planners that damage to the reactor was not a threat.
I would like to emphasize that the environment is not a new issue for the Intelligence Community. For years we have devoted resources to understanding environmental issues. Much of the work that now falls under the environmental label used to be done under other names--geography, resource issues, or research.
For example, we have long used satellite imagery to estimate crop size in North Korea and elsewhere. This allowed us to forecast shortages that might lead to instability and to determine the amount of agricultural products a nation would need to import--information valuable to US Department of Agriculture and to America's farmers. We have also tracked world availability of natural resources, such as oil, gas, and minerals.
We have for many years provided the military with information on terrain and local resources. As our forces embark on military, peacekeeping, and humanitarian operations in remote and unfamiliar territory, they will need even better information on environmental factors that could affect their health and safety and their ability to conduct operations.
Diplomacy will be ever more concerned with the global debate over environmental issues. As Secretary of State Christopher said in April, "our ability to advance our global interests is inextricably linked to how we manage the Earth's natural resources." He emphasized that we must put environment "in the mainstream of American foreign policy."
Intelligence has long supported diplomacy in this area, particularly in regard to key international environmental treaties and agreements. Here I would draw an analogy to the role of intelligence in negotiating the arms control treaties. Such treaties could not have been signed and ratified without intelligence to monitor compliance.
Likewise, the Intelligence Community monitors compliance with environmental treaties, such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Stratospheric Ozone Layer and the London Convention that regulates the dumping at sea of radioactive and other wastes. Further, intelligence support should begin with the negotiation process, so that US diplomats have the benefit of the best available information in framing effective and enforceable treaties in the future.
Environmental intelligence will also be a part of our support to economic policymakers. They need to know, for example, whether or not foreign competitors are gaining a competitive advantage over American business by ignoring environmental regulations. Intelligence can provide valuable information.
In short, the demand on the Intelligence Community for information on environmental issues will grow. As the world population expands and resources such as clean water and arable land become more scarce, it will become increasingly likely that activities of one country will have an environmental impact that goes beyond its borders. US policymakers will need warning on issues that are likely to affect US interests and regional stability.
Maintaining a capability for environmental intelligence will allow us to answer important questions that are likely to come from our consumers in the future. For example, China's rapidly growing population and booming economy will translate into a tremendous increase in demand for the world's natural resources, including oil and food. What impact will this have on world markets? As in the past, we must be prepared to answer such questions.
We should also be willing to provide data from our collection systems to help experts answer less traditional questions, for example: what impact will increased burning of fossil fuel have on the global environment?
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As I have mentioned, the Intelligence Community has unique assets, including satellites, sensors, and remote sensing expertise that can contribute a wealth of information on the environment to the scientific community. We also have mechanisms in place to share that information with outside experts. This effort will add significantly to our nation's capability to anticipate environmental crises.
In 1991, then-Senator Gore urged the Intelligence Community to create a task force to explore ways that intelligence assets could be tapped to support environmental research. That initiative led to a partnership between the Intelligence and scientific communities that has proven to be extraordinarily productive for both parties.
The Environmental Task Force found that data collected by the Intelligence Community from satellites and other means can fill critical information gaps for the environmental science community. Furthermore, these data can be handed over for study without revealing information about sources and methods.
For example, imagery from the earliest intelligence satellites--which were launched long before commercial systems--can show scientists how desert boundaries, vegetation, and polar ice have changed over time. These historical images, which have now been declassified, provide valuable indicators of regional and global climate change.
Some of the scientists who participated in the Environmental Task force now make up a group called MEDEA. MEDEA works with the Intelligence Community to establish what we call the "Global Fiducials Program." Under this initiative, during the next decade we will periodically image selected sites of environmental significance. This will give scientists an ongoing record of changes in the earth that will improve their understanding of environmental processes. More importantly, it will greatly enhance their ability to provide strategic warning of potentially catastrophic threats to the health and welfare of our citizens.
At the same time, we do not see the Intelligence Community becoming a center of environmental science expertise or directly sponsoring research in that area. In this case, our job is to acquire the data and allow the scientific community to use them. Their work, quite properly, is sponsored by others, such as the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration and academic institutions. We will continue to work with environmental experts to assure that their knowledge is brought to bear on what data we collect or retrieve from our considerable archives.
Our interaction with MEDEA is not only valuable for the environmental community, it also has had direct benefits for the Intelligence Community. MEDEA has worked closely with our analysts to develop techniques that have enhanced our ability to collect and interpret data from our collection systems.
Combining Intelligence Community data and expertise with knowledge from the scientific community can produce a better intelligence product for policymakers. Scientists from MEDEA worked with our analysts to respond to requests for information on environmental issues and problems--such as a series of oil spills in the Komi region of Russia. The Komi oil spill is just one example of how intelligence satellites and sensors can provide valuable information quickly after a natural or man-made disaster. In this case we could tell that large amounts of oil were not getting into the Arctic rivers.
In the United States, the Intelligence Community provides support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other civil agencies when there is a natural disaster. Using data from a variety of sources, within hours after a disaster strikes we can assess and report the nature and scope of the damage -- conditions of roads, airports and hospitals; and the status of potential secondary threats such as dams and nuclear facilities. Here I would like to make two points:
To give you a recent example of how well this system works, just a few weeks ago (June 5), the US Forest Service requested our help in tracking the wildfires raging in Alaska. In this instance, they did not have enough planes to adequately chart the extent of the fires. Within 24 hours of the initial request, we delivered a map depicting the fire perimeter, smoldering fires, and the most intense blazes. This information was more comprehensive and detailed than data collected from overflights by civil aircraft and it was also available much more quickly than would have otherwise been possible.
We can also use our capabilities to provide warning before a disaster strikes. And we do share this information with foreign governments. For example, when a volcano on the Caribbean Island of Montserrat awakened in 1995, we monitored significant changes and alerted U.S. and British West Indies aid and military authorities so that they could prepare for a possible evacuation of the island's residents. Recently we noted a change within the volcano crater--a fissure had opened up, indicating that the risk of an eruption had increased dramatically. We quickly sent out a warning that allowed authorities on Montserrat to evacuate 4,000 people to a less dangerous area of the island.
These activities lie outside our traditional intelligence mission, but we believe it is important to provide aid when the capabilities would not otherwise be available. This effort costs us very little, and yields tremendous benefits to relief agencies, disaster victims, and potential victims whose lives could be saved by a timely warning.
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Vice President Gore has been a leader in advocating the use of intelligence information to improve environmental knowledge on an international level, for example to better monitor oil spills and chemical waste streams through international water ways.
The US-Russian Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation--the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission--has established a productive exchange of information between the US and Russia.
This exchange has brought us unique and valuable data from Russia's intelligence programs. For example, the Russians have collected extensive data on the Arctic Ocean. This information is critical to our understanding of oceanographic and atmospheric processes, which are, in turn, critical to our ability to predict global climate change. Together with Russia, we have produced a CD-ROM atlas of the Arctic Ocean. It contains more than two million individual observations collected from 1948 to 1993 by Russian drifting stations, ice breakers, and airborne expeditions, as well as observations from US buoys. This once-restricted data will now be available on the Internet through the World Wide Web and will more than double the scientific holdings of oceanographic data available to US scientists.
The Arctic data are not only critical to scientific studies of climate change. They can also help us chart the movement of pollutants. The great rivers of Russia flow north into the Arctic. With them, they carry a heavy burden of waste from Russian industry, including chemicals, heavy metals, and organics, as well as radionuclides from Russia's defense programs. For example, 3 million curies of radioactive waste from Chelyabinsk , dumped into the Techa River years ago, have migrated to the Arctic Ocean, over 1,500 kilometers from the plant. Russian oceanographic data can help them and us to determine where radioactive materials and pollutants will travel once they reach the Arctic and whether they will affect US and Canadian waters.
Early this year, Russia and the United States exchanged declassified imagery-derived diagrams of environmental damage over a 25-year period at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and Yeysk Airbase in southwestern Russia. This ongoing exchange will help both countries clean up their toxic and radioactive sites. The techniques used to create these maps could help us identify potential sources of contamination in the future. Such information-sharing has proven a low-cost and highly effective way to build good will and strengthen international relationships. We should seek new opportunities to share information with other countries.
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I would like to make one more key point about our work on environmental issues--the costs are small and the potential benefits enormous. The resources allocated to environmental intelligence are modest, perhaps one tenth of a percent of the intelligence budget for collection and analysis. We are using intelligence capabilities that are already in place. This important work requires no new capital investments.
Nor does environmental intelligence require us to divert collection systems from our priority targets or get involved in areas where we do not belong. The imaging of sites under the Global Fiducials program, for example, can be done during non-peak hours of satellite use. It will not interfere with collection against our highest priority targets, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, drug trafficking, and the activities of rogue states.
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In sum, the environment will continue to have an important place on the US intelligence agenda.
I think it would be short-sighted for us to ignore environmental issues as we seek to understand and forecast developments in the post-Cold War world and identify threats to our national welfare. Just as Secretary Christopher promised "to put environmental issues in the mainstream of American Foreign policy," I intend to make sure that Environmental Intelligence remains in the mainstream of US intelligence activities. Even in times of declining budgets we will support policymakers and the military as they address these important environmental issues.
Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP)
October 1994
Initiated by Senator Sam Nunn, former Senator Al Gore, and others, SERDP was established on November 5, 1990 through Public Law 101-510 (10 United States Code 2901-2904), to
"harness some of the resources of the defense establishment ... to confront the massive environmental problems facing our nation and the world today." (Sam Nunn: Senate Floor Speech, June 28, 1990)
At the time, the U.S. defense posture was adjusting to new defense requirements of the post-Cold War era, and consequently, the nation's research and development infrastructure could begin to focus on the numerous environmental challenges from the past and present. The Clinton Administration supports SERDP as part of the Federal Government's ongoing efforts to develop environmental technology and create the world's most advanced systems to:
SERDP is a multi-agency program funded through the DoD. As such, it responds to environmental requirements of the DoD and those that the DoD shares with the DOE, the EPA, and many other Government agencies, including:
The Program seeks to identify, develop, demonstrate, and transition technology from six thrust areas:
The first four of these are synonymous with DoD's Environmental Quality Program; the final two were mandated as additional focus areas to capitalize on unique defense technologies as well as the extensive defense data collection and analysis capability.
Graphic: SERDP Structure [provided in source document]
SERDP is managed by a Council of nine members -- the Executive Director (non-voting), 4 representatives from DoD, 3 from DOE, and 1 from EPA -- with a senior representative from DoD and DOE alternating annually as the Council Chair. Dr. Anita Jones (Director, Defense Research & Engineering) is the Chair for FY95.
The Executive Director manages the day-to-day aspects of the Program. Dr. John Harrison was appointed on June 24, 1994 as the new Executive Director of SERDP. Dr. Harrison, who succeeds Dr. Robert Oswald (Director of R&D, US Army Corps of Engineers), received his B.S., M.S., and Ph. D degrees in Civil Engineering with graduate specialization in Environmental Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. Dr. Harrison was previously the Director of the Environmental Laboratory at the US Army Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, MS, where he directed an internationally scoped environmental R&D program. He has also served on the faculties of Virginia Polytechnic and State University and Mississippi State University.
To assist the Executive Director and the Council, SERDP relies on its Executive Working Group (EWG) and its Technology Thrust Area Working Groups (TTAWGs, one for each thrust area). The current SERDP Council and EWG members are listed below. SERDP also solicits the advice of a Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which is mandated by law to review all proposals requesting $1M or more for any one year. In practice, the SAB has reviewed SERDP proposals requesting in excess of $900K.
Graphic: SERDP Council and Executive Working Group [provided in source document]
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Recognizing the problems associated with conventional processes for deionizing aqueous streams, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have been investigating new alternatives, and they appear to have produced a breakthrough. In FY93, SERDP funded a project to develop a new technology that will deionize aqueous wastes while producing far less secondary wastes than available techniques. This new pollution prevention technology is called Capacitive Deionization (CDI); the work is being performed by Dr. Joseph Farmer of LLNL. Dr. Farmer and his team have successfully demonstrated their system on a research scale. If fully developed, this technology could be used for numerous applications, such as:
The CDI system operates by pumping ionized water through a porous electrode, flow-through electrochemical cell that acts as a capacitor. This cell consists of numerous titanium electrode pairs that are coated with a carbon aerogel composite that was initially developed under the Strategic Defense Initiative. These electrodes, aligned in a single stack or a series of stacks, are connected in parallel and have exceptionally high specific surface area (600 - 900 m2/gm; in the CDI process, the greater the surface area, the more ions that can be removed). By polarizing the cell with up to 1.2V of electricity (greater voltages approach the electrolysis point of water), ions are electrostatically removed from the water and are held in electric double layers formed at the surfaces of the electrodes. As a result, the water leaving the cell is purified. Continuous operation of the CDI system is limited only by saturation of the electrode stack, at which point the system must be purged of the captured ions in order to Conventional processes for removing salts from water -- i.e. evaporation, reverse osmosis, electrodialysis, and ion exchange -- all have inherent limits or problems, including:
The new capacitive deionization system, which essentially removes salts from water, requires no chemicals, membranes, acids or bases, or salt solutions, and is orders-of-magnitude more energy efficient than conventional processes that function by removing water from the salt. Regeneration of the CDI system requires only small inputs of electricity, and there appears to be no drop in performance after several months of cycling.
On May 20, 1994, Dr. Farmer filed a patent application on the whole CDI process. In the near term, Dr. Farmer and his research team plan to enhance the ion-removing capacity of the electrode stacks in order to treat more concentrated electrolytes, and they hope to demonstrate the system on surrogate wastes that will simulate field mixtures. Dr. Farmer is currently constructing a pilot-scale system that will allow continuous operation with no interruption during regeneration. Further information on this innovative technology development may be obtained by calling Dr. Joseph Farmer, LLNL, at (510) 423-6574.
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SERDP funded 144 projects in FY91/92, 143 projects in FY93, and 132 projects in FY94. Many of these have made particularly significant contributions.
Examples include:
SERDP has funded numerous other high impact research and development efforts, many of which will be the mentioned in future issues of this newsletter.
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The first annual SERDP In Progress Reviews (IPRs) were held in June-July 1994. The IPRs reviewed projects funded in FY93 and some funded in FY91 and FY92. At the August 19 SERDP Council meeting, Dr. Marvin Moss, the SERDP Scientific Advisory Board Chair, reported that
"these reviews were not only worthwhile, but also necessary for both a vigorous and an improved Program."
The long-range schedule of SERDP events calls for the next IPRs to occur in April 1995 to review FY94 projects, as well as those continuing FY93 efforts. Minutes of these most recent meetings are available upon request from the SERDP Support Office.
The FY94 Annual Report and Five-Year Strategic Investment Plan has been sent to the SERDP Council for final coordination and will be available for distribution shortly. Copies will be sent to the Program principals and to all Federal laboratories Public Affairs Offices; additional copies are available upon request from Labat-Anderson Incorporated at the SERDP Support Office.
The FY95/96 Strategic Guidance was approved by the SERDP Council on August 19. This document:
It is available through the SERDP Executive Working Group members, or upon request from the SERDP Support Office.
The FY95/96 Program Development Guidance has recently been updated. This Guidance provides a schedule that calls for the TTAWGs to evaluate and optimize their thrust packages between now and December 1 at which point the TTAWGs and the EWG will determine the need for additional new start proposals. Currently, distribution of FY95 funds is planned for May 1995 with FY96 funds distribution planned for November 1995. This schedule will enable the Program to match the budget cycle in FY96. An accelerated option has now been added to the schedule to allow the early release (in March rather than May) of up to 50% of FY95 funds to the highest priority projects in each Thrust Area. This accelerated schedule, which requires the TTAWGs to evaluate and optimize their current thrust packages and to submit those packages to the Executive Director no later than October 21, does not replace the original schedule, but complements it. An SAB meeting in December will review appropriate FY95 continuing projects pursuant to the The first annual SERDP Symposium is scheduled for April 12-14, 1995 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C. While still in the planning stages, it is anticipated that 6-12 projects in each Thrust Area will be the focus of each of the scheduled six Thrust Area sessions. Numerous other projects will contribute to a poster exhibit session. Additional information will be published as arrangements become firm.
Index
* Introduction
* Objectives
* Current Projects
Public Law 101-510 established the Strategic Environmental Research Program in Fiscal Year 1990. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the National Supercomputing Center for Energy and the Environment (NSCEE) signed a three-year cooperative agreement in September 1992 to provide supercomputing support to the SERDP.
"The Purposes of the (SERDP) program are as follows:
I . To Address environmental matters of concern to the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy through support for basic and applied research and development of technologies that can enhance the capabilities of the departments to meet their environmental obligations.
2. To identify research, technologies, and other information developed by the Department of Energy for national defense purposes that would be useful to governmental and private organizations involved in the development of energy technologies and of technologies to address environmental restoration, waste minimization, hazardous waste substitution, and other environmental concerns, and to share such research, technologies, and other information with such governmental and private organizations.
3. To finish other governmental organizations and private organizations with data, enhanced data collection capabilities, and enhanced analytical capabilities for use by such organizations in the conduct of environmental research, including research concerning global environmental change.
4. To identify technologies developed by the private sector that are useful for Department of Defense and Department of Energy defense activities concerning environmental restoration, hazardous and solid waste minimization and prevention, hazardous material substitution, and provide for the use of such technologies in the conduct of such activities."
The objectives of this program are to:
* Provide a numerical laboratory for SERDP related research projects.
* Support advancement of modelling capability and understanding of climate change and predict potential human impacts on climate for the future.
* Development of the State of the Art Interactive Land Model for Greenhouse
Projections
* Model Assessment of the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect, Phase 2
* A Proposal to Examine Mountain Wave Generation over Complex Terrain
* Modeling Mesoscale Convective Systems over a Mei-Yu Front
* Modeling Regional Scale Climate Change
* Numerical Simulation of Round Turbulent Jets
* Effect of Land Use Patterns on Regional Climate
* Sensitivity of Monsoon Rainfall Predictions to Cumulus Parameterization
Schemes: Implications for Climate Modeling
* Supercomputer Support for Ocean/Atmospheric Modeling
* Modeling Turbulent Flow Around Buildings Using the Finite Element Method
with an Algebraic Stress Model
* Comparative Energetics Analysis of Climate Models with High and Low
Resolutions
* Regional Climate Modeling with Satellite Derived Initialization and
Validation
* Physical Processes Important for Understanding the Hydrologic Cyclone
* International Variability of Arctic Sea Ice
* Support modelling experiments to quantify uncertainties associated with
predicting caused by human impacts on the environment.
PILOT STUDY
"ENVIRONMENT AND SECURITY IN AN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT"
TERMS OF REFERENCE
I. BACKGR0UND
1. The Round Table on Environmental Security, which occurred on the occasion of NATO/CCMS Plenary Meeting in Washington D.C. on November 14, 1995, highlighted the importance of the relationship between environment and security. There was a general understanding during the Round Table that man-made environmental degradation, resource depletion and natural disasters may have direct implications for the security of the international community. The Round Table addressed the importance of comprehensive threat assessment, risk analysis and requirements prioritization.
2. Large scale environmental changes, like climate change, ozone depletion, floods and persistent drought, may result in regional or global disruptions of stability and security. In many parts of the world, unsustainable use of natural resources, uneven population distribution and competing economic priorities lead to deforestation, soil erosion and desertification. Such environmental hazards may induce mass migration and provoke conflicts over increasingly scarce renewable resources. With no well established conflict management mechanisms, localized environmental problems may escalate into conflicts of concern to NATO. For NATO countries the security dimension is clear. This applies also for other countries, especially those directly experiencing the hazards in question. A complete definition of security would include these components.
II. PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE PILOT STUDY
3. The purpose of this pi.lot study is to analyze the relationship between envirorimental change and security in an international, regional and global level. Sustainable development and a precautionary approach should be stressed as guiding principles for measures in the field of environment and security.
4. The main goal of the pilot study should be to elaborate conclusions and recommendations to enhance environmental aspects in security deliberations, and to include security considerations in national and international environmental policies, and instruments. These conclusions and recommendations will be designed to provide a basis for senior level decision-making. The pilot study will develop methodologies and approaches for analysis and prioritization of environmentaly induced security risks. It should also elaborate new priorities in national and international policy-making including institutional arrangements. The pilot study should be conducted with a view to designing appropriate preventive measures and strategies. Another goal is to enhance the capacity to analyze the evolving interaction between environment and security.
III. PLAN OF WORK
5. The first step in 1996 should be to gather and analyze the existing information on the relationship between environment and security with special consideration to research on peace and conflict. This should include an evaluation of recent conflicts caused entirely or partially by environmental factors, resulting security impacts, and methods of resolution. On the basis of these analyses, the study should assess the risks to security from environmental degradation, factors that transform environmental problems into security issues, and preventative mechanisms and institutional arrangements. The pilot study should develop a list of major regional environmental and security priorities, and identify how those priorities interact with other NATO objectives. This could lead to a spectrum of recommended actions in the second half of 1997. These activities will form the basis for the final report. The final report will be draftet for consideration by the 1998 Autumn Plenary Meeting of NATO/CCMS.
IV. SCBEDULE OF WORK
6. The pilot study will hoid its first meeting in the first half of 1996. In addition to exchanging information and performing research, participants will hold at least four other meetings:
Second half of 1996:
to summarize, exchange and analize existing expertise, including
classification of recent environmental conflicts, their resulting
security impacts, and methods resolution; First half of
1997: to assess and prioritize environmentally-induced risks
to security; Second half of 1997: to elaborate and define a
spectrum of possible actions, mechanism and institutiona
arrangements to prevent or resolve environmental and security
problems; First half of 1998: to develop conclusions and
recommendations for the final report.
7. The first pilot
study meeting would be hosted by Germany. Other copilot and
participating countries are expected to host the other meetings.
V. PILOT STUDY DIRECTORS
14. The study will be co-chaired by Germany and the United States with the following pilot study directors.
Mr. Kurt M. LIETZMANN
Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
P.O.Box 120629
D-53048 Bonn
Federal Republic of Germany
Tel: 49-228-305-2330
Fax: 49-228-305.3337 or 3338
......................305.3524
Mr. Gary VEST
Principal Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense
(Environmental Security)
DUSD (ES)
3400 Defense Pentagon
Washington D.C. 20301-3400
U. S. A.
Tel: 1-703-697.1013
Fax: 1-703-693.7011
MEMORANDUM BETWEEN The Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, hereinafter "the Parties"; Guided by the Declaration on Cooperation between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, signed in Vancouver on 4 April 1993 by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin; Guided by the Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation on Defense and Military Relations Between the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on 8 September 1993; Attaching great importance to the protection and improvement of environmental quality; Emphasizing the potential of military forces to help solve environmental problems; Desiring to establish closer and longer-term cooperation between the Armed Forces in areas connected with the protection of the environment; Affirm their readiness to broaden cooperation in the area of environmental protection, together with conservation agencies of the two countries, in accordance with the laws of each Party. The Parties may carry out cooperation in the following major areas: The exchange of information above the organization of environmental protection activities; The exchange of information on the methods. means, and technologies for protecting and improving the environment, which are used during daily troop activities and to mitigate the environmental consequences of accidents or emergencies at military facilities; The exchange of information about ecologically sound handling of household, industrial, hazardous and radioactive waste; The exchange of information about the environmental aspects of destruction and disposal of weapons and military hardware; The exchange of information about the clean up of former military sites; The exchange of information about the management of natural and cultural resources under the control of military establishments. Cooperation may be initiated in the above-mentioned areas subject to conclusion of the appropriate implementing agreements that provide for the following specific forms of cooperation: Conducting conferences and seminars; Publishing reports and articles on ecological problems; Exchanging delegations and specialists; Executing joint scientific research; Training specialists in courses on environmental protection issues at military schools; Participating jointly in planning and implementing environmental measures, carried out in the process of daily troop activities and in emergency situations; Other mutually agreed-on forms. Done at Moscow on June, 1995, in duplicate in the English and Russian languages, both texts being equally authentic. FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
AND THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
ON COOPERATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ISSUES
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: ////SIGNED//// FOR THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: ////SIGNED////
No. 430-96
(703)697-5131 (media)
(703)697-3189 (copies)
(703)697-5737(public/industry)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 16, 1996
Acting on President Clinton's belief that a strong international environmental program is crucial to U.S. security, economic and health interest, the Department of Defense , the Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently launched a cooperative effort on environmental security.
Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary and EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner, on July 3, 1996, signed a memorandum of understanding calling for partnerships between these agencies, other governments and industry to jointly address critical environment concerns. The MOU calls for a focused integration of government authorities, expertise and resources on environmental priorities, and also establishes a framework for cooperation in several areas.
The initial emphasis will be on programs to enhance environmental cooperation between the United States and foreign partners, including the Baltic States, Russia, Eastern Europe, other states of the former Soviet Union and Asia-Pacific nations. Methods of cooperation will include information exchange, research and development, technology demonstration and transfer, regulatory reform, emergency response training and environmental management. The MOU will also enhance overseas commercial opportunities for U.S. industry in response to environmental concerns.
Environmental security cooperation is part of Secretary's Perry's strategy of preventive defense, and is important to U.S. foreign policy because of the Link between environmental risks or threats, both regional and global, and political and economic instabilities that can affect U.S. economic and security interests. Cooperative activities under the MOU will address the environmental consequences of both military and civilian Cold War defense activities, enhance other nations' abilities to identify and manage environmental threats, and strengthen ties with developing and democratizing nations. By such action, the U.S. hopes these efforts will not only have a positive affect on the environment, but also promote international peace and security.
A recent directive by Secretary of State Warren Christopher helped push international environmental security to the forefront of the U.S. foreign policy agenda by emphasizing that "addressing natural resource issues is "critical to achieving political and economic stability and to pursuing our strategic goals around the world."
All three agency heads have strongly supported this new area of concern and cooperation. In announcing the MOU, Secretary Perry, said, Here is enormous benefit to having a strong working relationship among DOD, DOE, and EPA." "Collaboration among these agencies demonstrates to other governments how the civilian and military sides of government can work together and how our different objectives can be compatibly met."
He added that "by sharing what we have learned with other militaries and civilian environmental authorities, we can invest in the kind of defense activities that help to create conditions for a lasting peace. A healthy environment is a seminal part of the picture , as environmental protection supports quality of life and economic growth all over the world."
Secretary O'Leary added: "Attracting private investment from both U.S. and foreign partners will be important not only in cleaning up hazards but in establishing a framework for the use of cleaner, more energy efficient technologies in the future.
"Clean energy and environmentally friendly technologies are among the keys to ensuring a safer, more secure future. By pooling resources we can make a greater contribution to environmental quality, economic growth and sustainable development," O'Leary said.
"This agreement recognizes that protection of public health and the environment have become an important part of our national security," said EPA Administrator Browner. Environmental protection and economic growth go hand in hand, and both are essential to U.S. long-range interests."
A copy of the MOU is available from the contacts listed above.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense (the Parties),
Recognizing that America's national interests are inextricably linked with the quality of the earth's environment, and that threats to environmental quality affect broad national economic and security interests, as well as the health and well-being of individual citizens;
Recognizing that environmental security, including considerations of energy production, supply and use, is an integral component of United States national security policy and that strong environmental security contributes to sustainable development;
Recognizing that environmental degradation can have global consequences that threaten the environment, health and safety in the United States;
Recognizing the central role of science and technology in promoting sustainable development and in responding to global threats to environmental security;
Recognizing the need to overcome the environmental legacy of the Cold War in order to promote prosperity and stability;
Recognizing that the Secretary of State has primary responsibility for the conduct of United States foreign policy;
Recognizing that each of the Parties has a different experience, expertise, and perspective and that their collaboration can uniquely assist in addressing international problems of importance for environmental security and can serve as a model for other countries;
Recognizing that each of the Parties has an important role to play in demonstrating and promoting approaches and technologies that achieve safe and effective environmental management in defense-related activities in the United States and abroad;
Recognizing that the Parties have established cooperation with the private and public sectors as a basis for jointly addressing sustainable development and environmental security; and
Believing that enhanced cooperation on international environmental protection issues that is consistent with United States foreign policy and national security objectives is of mutual benefit,
Have agreed as follows:
I. Purpose
1. The purpose of this Memorandum is to establish a framework for cooperation among the Parties to strengthen coordination of efforts to enhance the environmental security of the United States, recognizing the linkage of environmental and national security matters.
The Parties do not intend this Memorandum to create binding legal obligations.
II. Scope
1. The Parties shall develop and conduct cooperative activities relating to the international aspects of environmental security, consistent with United States foreign policy and their individual mission responsibilities, utilizing their legal authorities and facilities appropriate to specific tasks directed at achieving mutually agreed upon goals.
2. Cooperative activities under this Memorandum may be conducted in areas contributing to improved environmental security, where such cooperation contributes to the efficiency, productivity, and overall success of the activity. Such activities include: information exchange, research and development, monitoring, risk assessment, technology demonstration and transfer, training, emergency response, pollution prevention and remediation, technical cooperation, and other activities concerned with radioactive and non-radioactive contamination and other adverse environmental impacts on terrestrial areas, the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, the biosphere (including human health) and the global climate system; defense or defense (strategic) industrial activities, energy production, supply and use, and related waste management; or other such matters as the Parties may agree upon, according to criteria to be mutually developed by the Parties.
3. The forms of cooperation under this Memorandum may consist of the following: participation in joint projects addressing the activities cited in paragraph 2 above, including sharing of technical expertise; cooperative work to institute and enhance environmental management systems related to defense activities; information management and exchange; participation in relevant symposia, conferences and seminars; development of joint scientific and policy publications; provision of equipment and associated materials to foreign entities through the appropriate instrument, consistent with United States law; temporary assignments of personnel from one Party to another; and such other forms of cooperation as the Parties may agree upon.
4. Each Party may use the services of and enter into agreements with appropriate institutions, such as universities and governmental and non-governmental organizations, to develop and conduct activities under this Memorandum, consistent with applicable law. Where required by law, applicable regulations or procedures, such agreements shall be subject to consultation with and the concurrence of the Department of State.
III. Funding
1. Unless otherwise agreed, each Party shall provide the resources for its participation in activities under this Memorandum. The ability of each Party to carry out activities under the Memorandum shall be subject to the availability of appropriated funds, personnel, and other resources.
2. The details of any interagency transfer of funds will be set forth in specific interagency agreements. This Memorandum shall not be used to obligate or commit funds or as the basis for the transfer of funds between or among the Parties.
IV. Management
1. Activities undertaken under this Memorandum will be consistent with applicable authorities and, where required, in consultation with and/or concurrence of the Department of State.
2. Each Party shall designate in writing a Program Coordinator and a Deputy to manage activities under this Memorandum. Each Party may designate a replacement Program Coordinator or Deputy at any time upon written notice to the other Parties. The Program Coordinators shall meet at least semi-annually, and at other occasions as deemed necessary and at the request of any Party, to discuss and evaluate the progress of activities under the Memorandum or to review other matters concerning the Memorandum, such as future policy and programmatic direction.
3. The Parties may enter into agreements under this Memorandum to undertake specific activities. Each agreement will specify: the scope of the activity; expected project period; responsibilities of the implementing agencies, including those related to funding and personnel assignments; anticipated results; reporting procedures, if appropriate; and any other relevant matters.
3. Each Party shall make available to the other Parties all technical information obtained through the implementation of this Memorandum and such information will be made available to third parties, except that nothing in this Memorandum shall be construed to require a Party to make available or allow access to information:
(a) the disclosure of which would impede law enforcement; or
(b) that is protected from disclosure by U.S. law governing
business or proprietary information, personal privacy, the
confidentiality of internal government decision making
processes, or protection of national security.
4. In the event that any activity undertaken by the Parties to implement the purposes of this Memorandum involves access to and sharing or transfer of technology subject to patents or other intellectual property rights, such access and sharing or transfer will be provided on terms which recognize and are consistent with the adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights.
V. Effective Date, Renewal, Amendment, Withdrawal and Termination
1. This Memorandum shall become effective upon signature by all Parties and shall remain in effect for a period of five years. Unless one of the Parties notifies the other Parties in writing of its intent to terminate this Memorandum ninety days prior to its expiration, the Memorandum shall be automatically renewed for an additional five-year period. Thereafter, it may be renewed for successive five-year periods by written agreement of the Parties.
2. This Memorandum may be amended at any time by written agreement of the Parties, including to add new parties. Any Party may withdraw from this Memorandum after consultation with the other Parties. The Memorandum may be terminated at any time after consultations among the Parties. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, any Party's withdrawal from, or the termination of, this Memorandum shall not affect the validity or duration of activities undertaken pursuant to the Memorandum that have been initiated prior to, but not completed at the time of, such withdrawal or termination.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned have signed this Memorandum of Understanding.
DONE this 3rd day of July, 1996.
FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
////SIGNED////
_____________________
Carol M. Browner
Administrator
FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
////SIGNED////
_____________________
Hazel R. O'Leary
Secretary
FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
////SIGNED////
_____________________
William J. Perry
Secretary