Climate change and national defense

Abstract

Climate change, as one of the greatest challenges facing the contemporary society, continues to attract the attention of both political and scientific community for a rather long time. The variability of climate change consequences, as well as their effects on the environment and humanity, are on the agenda of most international conferences, and discussions on possible strategies for reducing their impact have been held both at national and international levels. However, most of these discussions are restricted mainly to the effects of climate change caused in the environment and, in this framework, to the effects that such changes might have on people's lives in terms of availability of basic supplies and resources. It had been rather long before the consideration of the impact of climate change exceeded the scope of environmental study, and in recent years the awareness of the impacts of climate change on the organization and functioning of national defense, especially in developed countries, has significantly increased. The changed nature of threats poses high standards before systems of defense in terms of capacities and capabilities for providing an effective response. The fact that climate change is affecting different segments of human civilization, which ultimately has an impact on the fulfillment of the mission of defense, necessarily imposes the need to put more efforts in addressing this issue in the future. Therefore, this paper aims, by considering some of the dominant climate change tendencies, to explore their impact on the functioning of the defense in the changing environmental conditions.

Klimatske promene, kao jedan od najvećih izazova sa kojim se suočava savremeno društvo, već duže vreme ne prestaju da zaokupljaju pažnju, kako političke, tako i naučne javnosti. Varijabilnost posledica klimatskih promena, kao i njihovi efekti na životnu sredinu i čovečanstvo, nalaze se na agendi većine međunarodnih skupova, a diskusije o mogućim strategijama za redukciju njihovog uticaja vode se, kako na nacionalnom, tako i na međunarodnom nivou. Ipak, većina ovakvih diskusija ograničavala se pretežno na efekte koje klimatske promene izazivaju u životnoj sredini i, u okviru toga, na efekte koje takve promene mogu imati na život ljudi u smislu dostupnosti osnovnih namirnica i resursa. Prošlo je dosta vremena dok razmatranje posledica klimatskih promena nije izašlo iz okvira studija zaštite životne sredine, a u poslednjih nekoliko godina posebno je evidentan porast svesti o uticaju klimatskih promena na organizovanje i funkcionisanje nacionalne odbrane, posebno u razvijenim zemljama. Promenjena priroda pretnji postavlja pred sistem odbrane visoke standarde u pogledu kapaciteta i sposobnosti za efikasan odgovor na njih, a činjenica da klimatske promene pogađaju različite segmente ljudske civilizacije, što u krajnjoj liniji ima uticaja na ispunjavanje misije odbrane, nužno nameće potrebu da se ovoj problematici ubuduće posveti više pažnje. Zato, ovaj rad ima za cilj da, razmatranjem nekih od dominantnih trendova u kretanju klimatskih promena, analizira njihov uticaj na funkcionisanje odbrane u promenjenim ambijentalnim uslovima.