Pentagon report weighs the climate change threat

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

Rising global temperatures pose pressing challenges for the Defense Department and a new climate planning cell is needed to better monitor climate threats, according to a major new study by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board.

“Climate change acts as a ‘threat multiplier,’ amplifying existing vulnerabilities, enhancing regional instability, and generally fostering conditions conducive to conflict,” the report states.

Such international stresses could affect how the Pentagon maintains deterrence and prepares for potential conflict, the report said.

The 132-page report, “Climate Change and Global Security,” includes a warning that its scientific findings must be tempered by “specific critical gaps” in data and understanding of climate change. The report is also devoid of the assertion of President Biden and other senior administration officials that climate change poses an “existential” threat to life on Earth.

Global average temperatures increased since the 1860s by 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit, and world average sea levels have risen by 8 to 9 inches since 1880, the report said.

Impacts of climate change are expected to include mass migration and the use by adversaries such as China of such critical supplies as water and minerals.

For example, the report singles out Beijing for curbing the flow of water south from Tibet through the Mekong River, threatening water supplies and fishing for 300 million people in Southeast Asia.

China also has designs on controlling access to the world’s polar regions, where melting ice has opened sea routes for shipping.

“Expanded security collaboration amongst U.S. adversaries in the polar region, notably the signing of an Arctic region security agreement between China and Russia in April 2023, has introduced a series of potential risks exacerbated by a warming, more accessible Arctic,” the report said.

In the Indo-Pacific, climate change presents “profound geopolitical stability and domain challenges” that significantly affect U.S. military readiness and operations and those of America’s allies and partners, the report said.

“The Indo-Pacific region poses operational challenges due to its strategic significance and vulnerability to climate-induced disasters like typhoons and sea-level rise,” the report said, warning again about China’s growing influence.

For the Indo-Pacific Command, the report said climate change is creating challenges through sea-level rise, high wind weather patterns and more intense typhoons. The main challenge will be the potential for increased humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations by the military in the region.

Florida is described in the report as a readiness vulnerability for the military. The state hosts 20 military bases and three combatant commands — Central Command, Special Operations Command and Southern Command.

“It is one of the regions most at risk from extreme weather events most likely precipitated by climate change combined with subsidence,” the report said. “Eight of Florida’s bases are ranked among the most vulnerable in the country, including Air Force bases such as Eglin, Hurlburt Field, Homestead, MacDill and Tyndall, Patrick Space Force Base, Naval Air Station Key West, and the Blount Island Marine Corps Support Facility.”

Even bases in northeastern Florida, including Jacksonville Naval Air Station, Mayport Naval Station and the Marine Corps Support Facility at Blount Island, are threatened by rising sea levels, flooding, hurricanes and extreme heat.

Central Florida also hosts critical national security sites such as Patrick Space Force Base, NASA, the Navy’s Air Warfare Center’s Ordnance Test Unit and the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center complex that could be flooded, hit with heat waves or swamped by rising seas. The weather could “significantly disrupt military readiness and operations,” the report said.

The board said that 2023 saw the highest worldwide sea surface temperatures ever recorded, which could mean more frequent and intense extreme weather.

Increased temperatures also increase the risk of disease outbreaks including vector-borne afflictions such as malaria, dengue fever and Lyme disease.

Melting permafrost will also provide a threat vector for long-frozen viruses and bacteria.

The report concludes that the Pentagon is working hard through multiple means to “to anticipate, prepare and adapt to a climate-changed future and ensure our readiness to respond to new challenges and threats as they emerge.”

“Our national security depends on it,” the report said.

Iran boosts talk of nuclear arms, DNI says

The Iranian government is speaking more openly about developing nuclear weapons, according to a report by the Office of Director of National Intelligence.

The three-page July 15 report on Iran’s nuclear and missile activity was required under the fiscal 2023 defense authorization law in both secret and public formats.

“There has been a notable increase this year in Iranian public statements about nuclear weapons, suggesting the topic is becoming less taboo,” the public version of the report said.

Tehran announced in 2020 it is no longer constrained by the limits of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the questionable nuclear deal with Iran the Trump administration repudiated in 2018. Now, Iran has “expanded its nuclear program” while cutting back on monitoring under the International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring, the report said.

Iran has also “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so,” the report said.

The activities in the past year include “modulated” production and inventory of 60% enriched uranium — a step toward the 90% enrichment needed for a nuclear weapon.

“Iran continues to increase the size of its uranium stockpile, increase its enrichment capacity, and develop, manufacture, and operate advanced centrifuges,” the report said. “Tehran has the infrastructure and experience to quickly produce weapons-grade uranium, at multiple facilities, if it chooses to do so.”

The report also said intelligence suggests Iran is considering the installation of more advanced centrifuges, a step that will further increase its enriched uranium stockpile or produce weapons-grade uranium as a response to more international sanctions, attacks or censure of its nuclear program.

The Iranian military inventory of ballistic missiles continues to be the largest in the region. Missile accuracy, lethality and reliability area also being improved.

“Iran probably is incorporating lessons learned from its missile and unmanned aerial vehicle attack against Israel in April,” the report said.

As for a potential nuclear delivery vehicle, the Iranians are working on the Simorgh space launcher, a system that will likely shorten the time needed to produce an intercontinental ballistic missile if the regime decides to build one, because the systems use similar technologies.

Army intel analyst guilty in China spy case

An Army intelligence analyst this week pleaded guilty to providing sensitive defense information to China, including internal details on the military lessons learned from the Ukraine war that could apply to a war over Taiwan.

Korbein Schultz, the Army intelligence analyst, was arrested at Fort Campbell on the Tennessee-Kentucky line in March. The arrest came shortly after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he conspired to disclose national defense information, export technical defense data without a license and bribery of a public official.

On Tuesday, Schultz pleaded guilty to the charges, the Justice Department said.

Schultz “abused his access to restricted government systems to sell sensitive military information to a person he knew to be a foreign national,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

The plea agreement in the case states that Schultz gave China technical data related to defense articles in violation of the Arms Export Control Act between June 2022 and March 2024.

Schultz was an enlisted soldier who held some of the highest security clearances and gave information, including classified data, to a Hong Kong-based Chinese government official, identified only as “Conspirator A” in exchange for money.

Dozens of sensitive military documents were sold, including secrets related to missile defenses and mobile artillery systems, the agreement said.

The Chinese agent in return made 14 payments to Schultz totaling $42,000. Schultz also sought to recruit another soldier who had greater access to secrets as a “sub-source,” the agreement said.

The documents included details on “the lessons learned by the United States Army from the Ukraine/Russia war that it would apply in a defense of Taiwan,” the agreement said.

Other compromised information included details on deployment of Army units to Eastern Europe to support NATO operations, Air Force tactics and technical details regarding the F-22 fighter and HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter, an upgraded version of the Blackhawk.

An Air Force manual was also supplied to the Chinese relating to the operation of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Schultz also sold documents on Chinese military tactics and preparedness and the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force. China also obtained details on High Mobility Artillery Rocket System and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile defense system, as well as a document on military satellites.

“The defendant knew that his conduct was wrong and illegal and took multiple steps to conceal it from the U.S. Army and the U.S. government,” the agreement stated.

The case is among what FBI Director Christopher Wray has said are more than 2,000 China-related intelligence-gathering cases investigation by the FBI.

Schultz faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison. Sentencing is set for Jan. 23 in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee.

• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.