The effects of war on the environment range from the obvious swaths of scorched earth to more insidious aftermaths that take decades to manifest, such as agent orange. Currently there is debate if the still slow but increasingly faster changes of global climates are a threat to national security such as instability of already at risk governments, that spill over their borders into other countries with a variety of effects such as forced migrations. Moreover are there military solutions to these problems, either at our border to block an ever increasing rise, or to provide support to organizations that can address the causes at the source. One area noted that affects the national security infrastructure are to Alaska's military radar. Another area that now has possibilities of using the environment as a weapon are the year round fire season in the Pacific Northwest which fortunately did not exist in WWII.
The health of the force is another area of debate. Specifically, what is needed and how much. This is complicated with the increasing likelihood of encountering emerging infectious disease, that as yet have no prophylactic and/or cure. Currently focus is on biological and chemical weapons that are manmade, but the far larger threat are those from the global microbiome that not only outnumber people by thousands to one, but have been practicing biological and chemical warfare for billions of years longer.
Neither war or nature are concern if a nation is prepared for their evolution as a threat. There are current Hot Zones that could spill over into larger regional and global threats:
- The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues to grow, assisted in part by human conflicts including attacks on treatment centers.
- The cascading collapse of Venezuela continues to grow with a government unwilling to accept outside humanitarian aid , believing with some justification that it is part of an intent to cause regime change.
- Yemen is likely to remain a conflict with health and environmental consequences, that can be ignored by other nations. The affects will remain within its borders, or at least as much as one can have borders in a region that doesn’t have natural barriers
- North Korea is in a constant health crisis and famine. Difficult however to ignore as it has Weapons of Mass Destruction. There is an irony though that the heavily military border of the DPRK is an unintentional wildlife sanctuary.
- Another perpetual conflict area is the Durand Line, the watershed of the Kashmir region that is divided between the antagonistic countries of Pakistan and India, both of who not only have the obvious threat of nukes, but the less obvious one that Polio continues to thrive in Pakistan. Like other conflict areas containment, control and eradication of disease is hampered by human beliefs and actions . Indian has only been declared Polio free relatively recently, so polio reappearing in that country in likely to be blamed on intentional acts by Pakistan.
- Then there is the continuing war in Syria and is use of chemical weapons, supported by effective disinformation by its Russian ally,
And on the near horizon are new risks and threat with the possibility to a dual use technologies of Gain of Function, and CRISPR, with a new journal. Global Biosecurity that addresses these threats.
#(190303-Polemic). References
1. Environment, -2. Health, 3. Operations in Hot Zones, 3.1. Congo, 3.2. Venezuela, 3.3. Yemen, 3.4. North Korea, 3.5. Afghanistan-Pakistan Border, 4. Bio/ Chem Weapons, 4.1. Gain of Function, 4.2. Fire Environmental Warfare, 5. New CBRN Journal
Other topics: Attacks on Medical, Humanitarian Crisis, Perfect Storm, Cholera, Ebola, Syria, Humor 190303-Polemic-3.4, PyroCbs, Polio
-1. Environment: Retired General, Climate Change is an Accelerate to Instability, 190224-Polemic-1. How Climate Change Is Affecting Alaska's Military Radar Stations, As Snow Falls and Melts, Climate Change on Radar, Military’s Remote Alaska Radars Face a New Threat: Climate Change. Climate Change Threatens National Security Says Pentagon 2014, 180617-4‡.
-2. Health: Actions Needed to Determine the Required Size and Readiness of Operational Medical and Dental Forces. A New Layer of Medical Preparedness to Combat Emerging Infectious Disease, part of MedInt is informing the command of potential disease health threats. WOTR War on a Thumb Drive: How Sigact Data Could Transform Care for Veterans.
-3. Operations in Hot Zones:
-3.1. DRC: Attackers Torch Ebola Treatment Center in Congo, Patients Evacuated, suspect this is not just because of local beliefs but more similar to attacks on polio workers in Pakistan, a way for those against the current government to win concessions by holding a population hostage, -3.5↓.MSF Ebola Treatment Center in Butembo Attacked. North Kivu: Ebola Centre Inoperative after Violent Attack. Congo Ebola Center Set on Fire after Armed Attack. Congo: 4 Ebola Patients Missing after 2nd Clinic Attack. Ebola Medical Center Attacked in Congo for 2nd Time in Week. Butembo: Gunmen Attack Ebola Treatment Center and KillGuard. Arsonists Attack Ebola Clinics in DRC as Climate of Distrust Grows. Congo Ebola Center Set on Fire after Armed Attack. Arsonists Attacked 2 Facilities Treating Ebola Patients in Congo. That’s a Major Setback. MSF Pulls Staff from DRC Ebola Hot Spot after Attacks, After Attacks, MSF Suspends Ebola Treatment in Epicenter of Congo Outbreak, Why Doctors Without Borders Is Suspending Work in the Ebola Epicenter in Congo, Ebola Response Teams Scrambling to Care for Patients after Attacks Set Back Efforts. Police Officer Killed in Attack on Ebola Treatment Center in Butembo, Butembo: Two Ebola Sites Burned in the Space of Four Days – Complicity or Negligence. A wild speculation: If Ebola expands into non rebel areas the effectiveness of response may improve dramatically. Currently there may be subtle incitements to make attacks. This would justify allowing the disease to be a bioweapon by proxy against the rebels. <ADDED 190303-180513-1.1>9.
-3.2. Venezuela: The Battle at the Venezuelan Border$. Attacked and Powerless, Venezuela Soldiers Choose Desertion. Maduro Accuses US of Fabricating Crisis to Start War in South America. US Hits Venezuela Officials with Sanctions for Blocking Aid. Mike Pence Criticizes Venezuela’s Use of Torture, Starvation on non Homosexual Citizens, U.S. Aid to Venezuela Just Lit Stick of Dynamite Painted to Look like Carrot. <ADDED 190303-181209-4>4.
-3.3. Yemen: We Must Stop Turning a Blind Eye to the World's Health Crises. When the World Health Organization declared lengthy humanitarian crises to be a top health threat, perhaps they had Yemen in mind. It wasn't one individual bomb landing in Yemen that infected hundreds of thousands of people with cholera. Diseases don't often provide a single snapshot of impact like that. Instead, it was a long series of bombings that wrecked the water treatment plants, the power grids that provided the plants with electricity, and the healthcare facilities that should have been available to control the cholera epidemic. Today, more than two years after the outbreak started, its end is nowhere in sight. Unlike fast disasters, ones in the biosphere are a slow accumulation of many adverse small events that are not dangerous in and of themselves, but over time the confluence eventually culminates in a disease epidemic, pest swarm, habitat collapse and other threats to what sustains life. People have a tendency to make this perfect storm -2- -3- worse. AP Investigation: Food Aid Stolen as Yemen Starves, UN Threatens to Slash Yemen Food Aid over Theft by Rebels. In Yemen, World's Worst Cholera Outbreak Traced to Eastern Africa. 190224-VCP-Yemen.
-3.4. North Korea: North Korea’s Silent Health Crisis, and a peace declaration won’t fix it, 190224-Polemic-3.4. Just as the India-Pakistan conflict is more of a risk due to nukes -2- -3- (which are bad for people, health and environment), North Korea’s Other Weapons of Mass Destruction can make famine (of the general population), disease outbreak, collapse of government there more cause of concern. What Happened in Hanoi. | As a sidebar, North Korea has been an Intelligence Enigma for decades, so How Civilian Firms Fact Check North Korea’s Denuclearization Efforts, and other information about that country. | Trump, Kim Meet In Hanoi Summit. Kim Jong-Un Panics after Returning to North Korea to Find Country’s Populace Has Escaped, 190224-Polemic-3.2A. | There are also ironic paradoxes of How Wildlife Is Thriving in the Korean Peninsula's Demilitarised Zone, How Peace Between the Koreas Could Threaten These Endangered Cranes.
-A. Last weeks announcement of food shortages due to sanctions followed the familiar pattern of soft power humanitarian aid sympathies, and hard power nuclear weapons, was likely to set the stage to having a failed summit -2- between the US and North Korea.
-3.5. Durand Line: Polio Spreads in Afghanistan and Pakistan Due to Unchecked Borders. Disease endemic and outbreak area do not respect international borders. This region is one of the few places in the world where wild polio persists, in part because of Threats, Attacks Hurt Pakistan's Polio Vaccination Push. Officials Say Pakistan on Track to Eradicate Polio in 2019 despite Taliban attacks and superstition that has spurred many parents in the region bordering Afghanistan to refuse to vaccinate their children against the crippling disease. This has been a annual announcement, along with annual Afghan Clerics in Talks with Isis to Break Polio Vaccine Myths followed by Pakistani Jihadi Logic: Polio Vaccination Campaign is actually a Jewish Conspiracy to Sterililze Muslim Children, Pakistan Raises its Guard after 2 Polio Vaccinators Are Gunned Down. In Vaccines we Trust. The Effects of Anti Vaccine Propaganda on Immunization: Evidence from Pakistan. What will be interesting is if polio reappears in the Indian Kashmir, 190224-Polemic-3.3.
-4. From the Crimean War to the end of World War Two. Chemists' Dirty Secrets, Episode 1, Episode 2. The role chemists have played in the development of chemical weapons. Chemical Weapons Watchdog Says Chlorine Was Used in Douma Syria, 190224-Polemic-4, 190217-Polemic-3.4. UN Acclaims European Support for Implementation of Biological Weapons Conventions.
-A. Gain of Function: Studies of Deadly Flu Virus, Once Banned, Are Set to Resume, one of the concerns is that this is dual use research to create a bio weapon <ADDED 190303 -181111-VCP-II-USA>. Germ Line Genome Editing and the Emerging Struggle for Supremacy in the Chemical, Biological and Radiological (CBR) Balance of Power. Waxing CBRNE, Waning Humanity. <ADDED 190310>4.
-B. Fire Environmental Warfare: “It Eats Everything” – The New Breed of Wildfire That’s Impossible to Predict, these pyroCbs -2- -3- -4- -6- have been known in the US for a long time as megafires, ones that create their own weather (firestorms) and cover even larger geographic areas with smoke that is a health hazard; Researchers Uncover Just How Damaging Fires and Logging Are to Forest Soil. Fortunately during WWII the conditions of the US West Coast were not the same as today, Balloon Bombs – How Japan Killed Americans at Home in WWII. Currently a thermal nuclear weapon could cause conflagrations that would dwarf the largest forest fires yet experienced. Nukes in fact would be unnecessary. Mass attacks of fire (napalm) drones, missiles, and suicide arsonists, would be just as effective, and cheaper. <ADDED 190303-190217-7>5.
-5. New journal. Global Biosecurity is a quarterly peer reviewed, open access electronic journal for cross disciplinary research of ...., pandemics, biosecurity and bioterrorism .... risk analysis, intelligence, strategic foresight, ...., defense, ethics and first responder preparedness. 190303-8.
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