Climate, Disaster, and Non-Traditional Security Challenges

Lesson Overview

Not every threat to a small state comes from an adversary. Some of the gravest pressures it will face are not the work of any hostile actor at all: the flood, the storm, the pandemic, the slow grind of a changing climate, the failure of a harvest or a supply. These are the non-traditional security challenges, the dangers to a state's security and its people's safety that arise not from an enemy's design but from nature, accident, and the conditions of the age, and they are, for a small state and above all for a humanitarian one, among the most likely and consequential challenges of all. The earlier lessons read the environment for adversaries and the threats they pose; this lesson reads it for the non-traditional challenges that no adversary authors but that a small state must nonetheless face. It matters because, for the Royal Kaharagian Army, these are not a lesser concern than hostile threats but very often the main event: the Army's likeliest and most frequent serious task is the disaster and the emergency, not the battle, and a strategic-environment course that read only for adversaries would miss the challenges this Army most exists to meet. This lesson teaches that reading: what non-traditional security challenges are and why they matter to a small state, the particular weight of climate and disaster, and how a small state, and this Army within it, meets them. As with the rest of the course, the treatment is analytical and oriented to resilience and lawful, humane response.

The lesson takes non-traditional security challenges in three parts. First, what they are and why they matter: that not all threats come from adversaries, that non-traditional challenges (climate, disaster, pandemic, environmental and resource pressures) arise from nature and the conditions of the age rather than from hostile design, and that for a small and humanitarian state they are among the most likely and consequential challenges of all. Second, climate and disaster as security challenges: why a changing climate and the disasters it worsens are genuine security concerns for a small state, threatening its people, infrastructure, and stability, and why they are this Army's most frequent serious task. Third, meeting non-traditional challenges, and how they interact with the rest of the environment: the resilience and response a small state brings to bear, the way non-traditional challenges compound and interact with the adversary threats of the earlier lessons, and the Army's humanitarian role within the whole-of-society response. Throughout, the lesson holds that non-traditional security challenges are real and, for this Army, central; that they are met by the same comprehensive, whole-of-society resilience the course has taught; and that for a humanitarian home-defence force the disaster and the emergency are not a distraction from its purpose but very near the heart of it.

By the end you will be able to explain what non-traditional security challenges are and why not all threats come from adversaries; explain why climate and disaster are genuine security challenges for a small state, and why they are this Army's most frequent serious task; explain how non-traditional challenges interact with and compound adversary threats; describe how a small state, and the Army within it, meets non-traditional challenges through resilience and response; and explain why, for a humanitarian force, these challenges are central rather than peripheral.

Key Terms

• Non-traditional security challenges: dangers to a state's security and its people's safety that arise not from a hostile actor's design but from nature, accident, and the conditions of the age, such as climate, disaster, and pandemic.
• Traditional versus non-traditional threats: the distinction between threats authored by an adversary (the subject of the earlier lessons) and challenges that no adversary authors but that a state must still face.
• Climate change as a security challenge: the way a changing climate threatens a state's people, infrastructure, resources, and stability, making it a genuine security concern and not only an environmental one.
• Natural disaster: a flood, storm, fire, or other natural event that threatens a population's safety and a state's functioning, the most frequent serious challenge this Army faces.
• Pandemic and health security: the threat to a population and a state from disease on a large scale, a non-traditional challenge that can strain or overwhelm a small state.
• Resource and environmental pressure: the strain from failing harvests, water shortage, environmental degradation, and the like, which can threaten stability without any hostile actor.
• Compounding and interaction: the way non-traditional challenges interact with and worsen each other and the adversary threats of the course, a disaster opening the door to coercion, a crisis straining cohesion.
• The humanitarian role: the Army's central part in meeting non-traditional challenges, the relief and emergency response that is its most frequent serious work.
• Whole-of-society response: the meeting of non-traditional challenges by the resilience of the whole society, the comprehensive security the course has taught, within which the Army is one contributor.
• Central, not peripheral: the recognition that, for a small humanitarian force, non-traditional challenges are not a lesser concern than hostile threats but very often the main event.

What non-traditional security challenges are, and why they matter

The lesson begins by widening the idea of a threat. The earlier lessons read the operating environment chiefly for adversaries: who might coerce, attack, subvert, or pressure the small state, and how. That reading is necessary, but it is not the whole of what threatens a state, because not all the gravest dangers come from a hostile actor. Some arise from nature, accident, and the conditions of the age: the flood and the storm, the pandemic, the changing climate, the failed harvest, the degraded environment, the strained resource. These are non-traditional security challenges, dangers to a state's security and its people's safety that no adversary authors but that the state must nonetheless face, and they are as real a part of the operating environment as any adversary. An officer who read the environment only for enemies would miss them, and miss, for this Army, much of what it most exists to meet.

These challenges matter especially to a small state, and most of all to a humanitarian one, for several reasons. A small state has little margin: a disaster, a pandemic, or a climate shock that a great power could absorb may strain or overwhelm a small state's limited resources, as the critical-dependency lesson showed a small state's thin infrastructure and narrow means leave it exposed. A non-traditional challenge can threaten the small state's very functioning, its people's safety, its infrastructure, its stability, and even its cohesion, without any enemy lifting a hand. And for the Royal Kaharagian Army the point is sharper still: these challenges are not a lesser concern than hostile threats but very often the main event. This Army is a small, lightly armed, humanitarian home-defence force, and its likeliest and most frequent serious task is not the battle but the disaster and the emergency, the flood, the storm, the relief operation, the support to a stricken population, as the whole humanitarian and emergency-preparedness teaching of the College makes plain. A strategic-environment course that read only for adversaries would therefore miss the very challenges this Army most exists to meet, treating its central work as a side issue. So non-traditional security challenges, the dangers that arise from nature and the conditions of the age rather than from hostile design, are a real and central part of the operating environment, especially for a small and humanitarian state, and the officer reads the environment for them as carefully as for any adversary. For this Army, they are not peripheral to its purpose; they are very near the heart of it.

   WHAT NON-TRADITIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES ARE + WHY THEY MATTER

   not all gravest dangers come from an ADVERSARY. some arise from
   NATURE, ACCIDENT, the CONDITIONS OF THE AGE:
     flood · storm · pandemic · changing CLIMATE · failed harvest ·
     degraded environment · strained resource
   = NON-TRADITIONAL security challenges (no adversary authors them, but
     the state must still face them) -- as real as any adversary.
   an officer who read only for ENEMIES would miss them.

   why they matter, esp. to a SMALL + HUMANITARIAN state:
     little MARGIN -- a shock a great power absorbs can overwhelm a small
        state's limited resources + thin infrastructure (L05)
     can threaten functioning, people, infrastructure, stability,
        cohesion -- with NO enemy lifting a hand
     for the RKA: NOT a lesser concern -- the MAIN EVENT. its likeliest,
        most frequent serious task is the DISASTER + EMERGENCY, not the battle

   -> read the environment for these as carefully as for any adversary.
      for this Army they are CENTRAL, not peripheral.

Climate and disaster as security challenges

Among the non-traditional challenges, climate and disaster deserve particular weight, both because they are the most consequential for a small state and because they are this Army's most frequent serious work. Climate change is a genuine security challenge, not only an environmental concern, and an officer should understand why. A changing climate threatens a state's people and stability in concrete ways: it worsens the frequency and severity of the natural disasters that strike a population, the floods, storms, fires, and extremes; it strains the resources a population depends on, water, food, and the conditions of livelihood; it can damage infrastructure and displace people; and over time it can stress the stability and cohesion of a state put under repeated pressure. These are security concerns because they threaten the safety of the people, the functioning of the state, and the stability on which everything else rests, which is what security ultimately protects. A small state, with little margin to absorb such shocks, is especially exposed, and a coastal or low-lying small state may be exposed in particular ways. So climate change enters the operating environment not as a distant environmental matter but as a driver of the concrete challenges, above all disasters, that a small state must face, and the officer reads it as such.

Natural disasters are the sharp end of this, and they are the Royal Kaharagian Army's most frequent serious task. A flood, a storm, a fire, or another disaster threatens a population's safety directly and can overwhelm a small state's ordinary services, which is precisely when the Army is called, in aid of the civil authority, to help a stricken population, as the aid-to-the-civil-power and emergency-preparedness teaching sets out. For this Army, the disaster is not a hypothetical contingency but the likeliest serious operation it will conduct: its humanitarian, home-defence character means that responding to disasters and emergencies, at home and perhaps abroad, is much of its real work. This is why the College devotes whole courses to caring for those in need, emergency preparedness, and field health: because the disaster is central to what this Army does. The strategic-environment officer must therefore treat disaster and the climate that worsens it as a first-order feature of the operating environment, not a footnote to the adversary threats, because for this Army it is the challenge most likely to call on it. Pandemic and large-scale health emergencies belong here too, as a non-traditional challenge that can strain or overwhelm a small state and call on the whole-of-society response, and so do the resource and environmental pressures, the water shortages, the failed harvests, the environmental degradation, that can threaten stability without any hostile actor. An officer reading the environment of a small state, and especially of this humanitarian one, gives these non-traditional challenges, climate and disaster foremost, the weight their likelihood and consequence deserve, alongside and often above the adversary threats the earlier lessons taught.

   CLIMATE + DISASTER AS SECURITY CHALLENGES

   CLIMATE CHANGE = a genuine security challenge (not only environmental):
     worsens the frequency + severity of natural DISASTERS
     strains RESOURCES (water, food, livelihood)
     damages infrastructure; can DISPLACE people
     over time stresses STABILITY + COHESION
   -> a security concern because it threatens PEOPLE, the state's
      FUNCTIONING, and STABILITY. a small (esp. coastal/low-lying) state
      with little margin is especially exposed.

   NATURAL DISASTER = the sharp end + the RKA's MOST FREQUENT serious task:
     threatens a population directly; overwhelms a small state's services
     -> the Army is called in aid of the civil power (the LIKELIEST
        serious operation it will conduct)
   PANDEMIC / health emergencies + RESOURCE/ENVIRONMENTAL pressures
     belong here too -- strain a small state without any hostile actor.

   -> read climate + disaster as FIRST-ORDER features, not a footnote.

Meeting non-traditional challenges, and how they interact

Reading the environment for non-traditional challenges is only useful if it leads to meeting them, and the lesson closes with how a small state, and the Army within it, does so, and with the crucial point that these challenges do not sit apart from the rest of the environment but interact with it. A small state meets non-traditional challenges by the same comprehensive, whole-of-society resilience the course has taught for security generally. The resilience that hardens a state against hybrid coercion, the redundancy in critical systems, the preparedness of the population, the depth of the whole society, also blunts the blow of a disaster, a pandemic, or a climate shock, because a resilient society is one that can withstand and recover from a shock whatever its source. So the comprehensive security of Lesson 06 and the emergency preparedness the College teaches are the state's answer to non-traditional challenges as much as to adversaries: a prepared, resilient, whole-of-society state meets the flood and the pandemic as it meets coercion, by being hard to overwhelm and quick to recover. The Army's part in this is its humanitarian role, central rather than peripheral: it contributes to the whole-of-society response with the discipline, organisation, reach, and steady hands that a disciplined force brings to a disaster, in support of the civil authorities whose task the response primarily is, exactly as the aid-to-the-civil-power and emergency-preparedness courses set out. For this Army, meeting non-traditional challenges is not a lesser duty but among its truest expressions of purpose, the disciplined strength of a humanitarian force turned to the relief of its own people and others in their worst hour.

The crucial analytical point is that non-traditional challenges interact with and compound the adversary threats of the earlier lessons, so the officer must read the environment whole rather than treating natural and hostile threats as separate boxes. The systems thinking of Lesson 01 applies here: a non-traditional challenge can open the door to, or be exploited by, an adversary threat, and the two can compound. A disaster that strains a small state's resources and attention can leave it more exposed to coercion or subversion, as a hybrid adversary exploits the disruption and distraction; a pandemic can be accompanied by disinformation that turns the crisis to an adversary's advantage, the cognitive contest of Lesson 04 fought on the ground of a health emergency; a climate shock that stresses cohesion can be the very fracture a hostile actor aims to widen, as Lesson 02 warned that a small state's cohesion is both its foundation and the target of its adversaries. So non-traditional and adversary challenges are not separate worlds: they interact, compound, and sometimes combine, and an officer who read only one would misjudge the environment. The disciplined reading is to see the whole, the natural and the hostile challenges together, how each affects the other, and how a non-traditional shock may be the opening through which a traditional threat presses. This is the systems-thinking, read-the-whole discipline of the course applied to the full range of challenges a small state faces. For the Royal Kaharagian Army, the conclusion is plain and important: the non-traditional challenges, climate and disaster foremost, are central to its operating environment and its purpose, are met by the same comprehensive resilience and the Army's own humanitarian response, and must be read together with the adversary threats as parts of one environment, because the flood and the coercion, the pandemic and the disinformation, are not separate problems but interacting features of the single environment a small state must understand and withstand.

In Practice: Reading the Whole Environment of a Small State

An officer of the Royal Kaharagian Army reads the operating environment of the small coastal state the course studies, and the difference this lesson makes is that they read it whole, for non-traditional challenges as well as adversaries, rather than only for enemies. They give the adversary threats of the earlier lessons their due, the hybrid pressures, the information contest, the critical dependencies. But they do not stop there, because they understand that not all the gravest dangers come from a hostile actor, and that for this small, humanitarian state the non-traditional challenges are among the most likely and consequential of all. So they read the environment for climate and disaster: the floods and storms that a changing climate worsens and that threaten the state's exposed, low-lying districts; the strain such disasters place on a small state's thin services and resources; the pandemic and health emergencies that could overwhelm it; the resource and environmental pressures that could threaten stability. They recognise that, for this Army, the disaster is not a hypothetical but the likeliest serious operation it will conduct, the main event rather than a side issue.

The officer also reads how these challenges interact with the adversary threats, applying the systems thinking the course teaches rather than treating natural and hostile dangers as separate boxes. They see that a disaster could leave the state more exposed to coercion as its resources and attention are consumed; that a pandemic could be accompanied by disinformation turning the crisis to an adversary's advantage; that a climate shock stressing cohesion could be the very fracture a hostile actor aims to widen. So they read the flood and the coercion, the pandemic and the disinformation, as interacting features of one environment, not separate problems. And they understand how the state and the Army meet these challenges: by the same comprehensive, whole-of-society resilience that hardens the state against coercion, and by the Army's central humanitarian role in disaster and emergency response, in support of the civil authorities.

The value is an officer who reads the whole environment a small state faces, and so does not miss the challenges this Army most exists to meet. Because they read for non-traditional challenges as carefully as for adversaries, gave climate and disaster the weight their likelihood and consequence deserve, and saw how natural and hostile challenges interact, they produced an understanding that captures the real environment, in which the disaster is central and the flood and the coercion are parts of one whole. Another officer who read only for enemies would have produced a picture that missed the Army's most frequent serious task and treated its central humanitarian purpose as a footnote, misjudging the environment of a humanitarian state. This officer understood that non-traditional security challenges are real and, for this Army, central; that they are met by comprehensive resilience and the Army's humanitarian response; and that they must be read together with adversary threats as one environment, which is the whole of this lesson.

Check Your Understanding

1. Explain what non-traditional security challenges are and why "not all threats come from adversaries." Why do they matter especially to a small and humanitarian state, and why are they, for the Royal Kaharagian Army, "very often the main event" rather than a lesser concern?

2. Explain why climate change is a genuine security challenge and not only an environmental one, and why natural disasters are this Army's most frequent serious task. Why must the strategic-environment officer treat climate and disaster as first-order features of the operating environment?

3. Explain how a small state and the Army meet non-traditional challenges through comprehensive resilience and the Army's humanitarian role, and how non-traditional challenges interact with and compound the adversary threats of the earlier lessons. Why must the officer read the environment whole rather than treating natural and hostile threats as separate?

Reflection (write a short paragraph): This lesson argues that some of the gravest challenges a small state faces come not from any adversary but from nature and the conditions of the age, and that for a humanitarian home-defence force the disaster and the emergency are not a distraction from its purpose but very near the heart of it. Think about why a strategic-environment course focused on adversaries might overlook these challenges, and what would be missed by reading the environment only for enemies. Why does it matter that non-traditional and adversary challenges interact rather than sitting apart, and how would reading the whole environment, the flood and the coercion together, change your understanding of what this Army must be ready to meet?

Summary

• Not all the gravest threats to a small state come from an adversary; some arise from nature, accident, and the conditions of the age. These non-traditional security challenges, climate, disaster, pandemic, and resource and environmental pressures, are as real a part of the operating environment as any adversary, and an officer who read only for enemies would miss them.
• They matter especially to a small state, with little margin to absorb a shock, and most of all to this humanitarian Army, whose likeliest and most frequent serious task is the disaster and the emergency, not the battle. They are not a lesser concern than hostile threats but very often the main event, central to the Army's purpose rather than peripheral.
• Climate change is a genuine security challenge, not only an environmental one: it worsens natural disasters, strains resources, damages infrastructure, displaces people, and over time stresses stability and cohesion, threatening the people, the state's functioning, and stability, with a small (and coastal or low-lying) state especially exposed. Natural disasters are the sharp end and this Army's most frequent serious task; pandemics and resource pressures belong here too.
• Non-traditional challenges are met by the same comprehensive, whole-of-society resilience the course teaches for security generally, since a resilient society withstands and recovers from a shock whatever its source; the Army's part is its central humanitarian role, contributing disciplined relief and response in support of the civil authorities.
• Non-traditional challenges interact with and compound the adversary threats of the earlier lessons: a disaster can leave a state exposed to coercion, a pandemic can be exploited by disinformation, a climate shock can be the fracture a hostile actor widens. So the officer reads the environment whole, the natural and the hostile challenges together, applying the systems thinking of the course, rather than treating them as separate boxes.
• For the Royal Kaharagian Army, the non-traditional challenges, climate and disaster foremost, are central to its operating environment and its purpose, met by comprehensive resilience and its own humanitarian response, and read together with adversary threats as parts of one environment. This treatment is analytical and oriented to resilience and lawful, humane response.
• Cross-references: extends the environment-reading of Lesson 01 and the small-state exposure of Lesson 02 to non-adversary challenges; draws on the critical dependencies of Lesson 05 and the comprehensive, whole-of-society security of Lesson 06; interacts with the threat spectrum of Lesson 03 and the information contest of Lesson 04; is met through the Army's humanitarian work as taught in Caring for Those in Need (HCR 201), Aid to the Civil Power and Public Order (HCR 210), and Emergency Preparedness and Civil Resilience (HCR 220); and is built into the environment estimate of the capstone (Lesson 10).

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