ic region would be similar in size to California, and
would provide an enormous economic opportunity
and access to significant strategic resources for the
United States.
The Arctic is a largely ungoverned space and dis-
pute exists on the international stage regarding own-
ership and responsibility for the region. That is to say,
Canada regards much of the area as within its terri-
torial waters while other nations, the United States
included, regard the area as international waters. Ad-
ditional challenges in the Arctic include the risks of
terrorist activity in the vast ungoverned space, as well
as the environmental disaster associated with an oil
spill or the complications of a major search and rescue
operation in the Arctic.
Recommendations and Conclusion
Climate change presents a variety of high prob-
ability/high consequence scenarios that are already
affecting and will increasingly affect U.S. national
security. General Paul Kern, former Commanding
General of the U.S. Army Materiel Command, is on
record as stating that the threat of climate change “...
demands a military problem solving-like approach”
(Kern 2007). The U.S. military and its senior leader-
ship would be negligent to ignore, yet prudent to plan
for these scenarios now. While much uncertainly still
exists as to the specifics of climate change – how rap-
idly it will happen, where it will strike, how devastat-
ing the effects will be—military leaders “cannot wait
for certainty,” and must plan based on current predic-
tions (CNA 2007, 7).
Six broad categories of recommendations, modeled
closely around the Navy’s Climate Change Roadmap
framework, but modified to reflect a whole of gov-