 My name is Commander Andrea Cameron and welcome to this virtual conference about the national security significance of a changing climate. This year's theme is operationalizing climate security. First, let me direct you to the events page where the conference program has the agenda, biographies of all the participants and recommended resources. The link is in the chat. Thank you all for joining us today. This event is being recorded and will be available at the Naval War College YouTube page after the event. And last year, the Naval War College hosted our first climate security conference. It was a call to action meant to inspire thought about what the changing climate means for your country, your service, your career field, and each of you personally. Over the past year, the national security apparatus has rapidly mobilized like never before to examine the many ways climate change affects national security. So I'll start today with some of the accomplishments of the past year. In the fall, the DOD released the DOD climate adaptation plan and the DOD climate risk analysis. Those documents together outline the initial steps toward charting future DOD actions regarding climate and security. The DOD climate risk analysis focuses on climate hazards risks and security implications around the world. Next slide please. How can we incorporate these considerations into relevant strategy planning and processes. This map from the DCRA represents climate change hazards and their potential impacts to DOD missions. As you can see, the DOD views the world through geographic combat and commends regional lenses, which is largely inspired how we structured the conference today. Also in the DCRA is an initial mapping of how the DOD will integrate the security implications of climate change into key strategic documents, programs, education, and international partner engagements. As you see in this DCRFA figure, strategies like the national defense strategy, national military strategy, and combat and command theater strategies will all begin to incorporate climate. But this also includes planning, force management development and employment, and adjusting the budget and acquisition processes as well. The other vital document is the DOD climate adaptation plan. This provides a strategic framework for adapting to climate change and outlines five lines of efforts for current and future forced decisions. The DOD climate adaptation plan also identified an end state to ensure the DOD can operate under changing climate conditions, preserving operational capability, and enhancing the natural and manmade systems essential to the department success. I highly recommend both of these documents to anyone interested in the subject. As I continue framing up the conference today, you may notice that the title is operationalizing climate security. And I hope that many of you ask the key academic question of what is climate security. I teach two classes on the subject, and we wrestle with this question a lot. One place to look for an answer is how the US government defined climate security. The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act defined it as the effects of climate change on US national security and related infrastructure on political stability at national and subnational levels on the security of allies and partners and on ongoing or potential political violence and unrest. Again, you see that the climate risks on stability and infrastructure are core to how we are viewing climate security. But as an academic, I'm also open to how other governments, organizations, think tanks and scholars define climate security, as you will see represented in this chart. The definitions vary, especially since regions and countries around the world will be affected in different ways and to different degrees. So in my own thinking, I'm working on a consolidated list from some of the definitions of climate security. This includes understanding the effects on stability and how climate change is creating, accelerating, amplifying or compounding challenges. We've already seen the effects on our infrastructure and know the need to build resilience. For some countries, establishing sustainable energy alternatives and mitigation goals for their carbon footprint are key objectives. And many are worried about the climate related migration and its impacts on stability. Finally, the Department of Defense has a clear mandate to deter war and protect our country. And if we cannot deter war, how to fight and win if necessary. In this sense, we need to examine how climate will change the battlefield itself and affect our warfighting capabilities. We're not only tasked to do this today, but we need to start planning more for the future. Some of the things on this list we do well. Some we're just starting to talk about, and some still need some more attention. There will probably never be one single definition of climate security. But what we can do is take the incredible work accomplished over the last year, the DoD climate risk analysis and the DoD climate adaptation plan, and start talking about the next steps. In essence, how do we operationalize what we know about the changing climate and its effects on security. So today we take the next step after a year that has prioritized climate like never before. With the regional leadership for conducting joint military operations around the world, the combatant geographic commands are on the front lines of operationalizing climate security. While climate is mainstreamed across the DoD, this conference seeks to ask how the geographic combatant commands are integrating climate change into their mission, strategy, planning and operations. Each geographic combatant command has organized differently, as you will see. Another format of the event is that a J4 representative describes the climate risks to the area of responsibility, and the J5 representative discuss how this shapes future thinking on plans, exercises and operations. We will start with a keynote talk by Ms. Chris O'Brien from the Joint Staff J4, the office leading the Joint Staff's climate work. And then we're going to walk around the world based on time zone. Getting teams from the six geographic combatant commands together in one event. Immediately after the keynote is CENTCOM. The second panel today includes UCOM and AFRICOM. The third panel represents SOUTHCOM and NORTHCOM, and dialing in very early from Hawaii is INDOPECOM for the fourth and final event of the conference. The whole thing will conclude at 1300 Eastern time. We are so excited that you are joining us today for this initial exploration of how military operations around the world will transform because of climate change. Before we proceed, I have to thank Professor Peter Dombrovsky, the William B. Ruger Chair of National Security Economics and the Naval War College Foundation for sponsoring this conference today. It is through their generosity that this event and many more are both free and open to a broad audience. Now to start us off, I'd like to introduce the Naval War College's leader, warrior scholar, Rear Admiral Shoshana Chatfield. She was commissioned through NROTC and has a long career as a Navy helicopter pilot, with command tours ranging from the squadron to most recently at Joint Region Marianas. She was awarded the Navy's Political Military Scholarship and received a Master of Public Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She has earned a Doctorate in Education and Leadership Studies from the University of San Diego, and she's currently our president at the Naval War College. We welcome the opening remarks from Rear Admiral Chatfield. Good morning and welcome. I'm Rear Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, the 57th president of the United States Naval War College, and I am honored and excited to kick off this operationalizing climate security conference this morning. A special welcome to all of our distinguished guests, Ms. Christina O'Brien, Mr. Jeff Hughes, Rear Admiral Dan Cheever, Mr. Joseph Martin, and to all of our alumni, our academic partners, our faculty, and our students and other attendees, welcome. I'm grateful to all of you who have chosen to attend this conference and who have dedicated your time to addressing the important issues that we will discuss today. I would like to give a special thanks to Professor Peter Dombrowski, the William B. Ruger Chair of National Security Economics for sponsoring this conference, as well as to our events, audiovisual, public affairs, and graphics teams who always make these conferences a success. Thank you also to our event chair, Commander Andrea Cameron, for her committed work in this important Naval War College study and success in coordinating this conference. I'd also like to recognize that Commander Cameron's outstanding academic work in the field has resulted in her selection as a full bright scholar next year to continue her teaching and research in climate security. Welcome to you all to the National Security Significance of a Changing Climate Conference. This year's theme will focus on operationalizing climate security. Faculty members of the Naval War College Climate and Human Security Studies Group and students from our climate change and national security electives have been working to better understand climate concerns and those impacts on our national security. This conference brings together these researchers with representatives from geographic combatant commands and gives each geographic combatant command a chance to share their climate and environmental concerns and the factors that currently govern their planning. Our role at the Naval War College is to inform today's decision makers and educate tomorrow's leaders. Ultimately, that's what this conference is all about. In today's dynamic security environment, numerical and technological superiority are no longer enough. We need to outthink our adversaries. At the Naval War College, we expand the intellectual capacity of Naval Joint Interagency and International Leaders to achieve that cognitive advantage. Our objectives here in Newport and around the globe is to deliver excellence in education, research and outreach and to build enduring relationships with our alumni and our partners. The Naval War College is committed not only to conducting research and offering academic courses in the field of changing climates, but when appropriate we also want to be a leading voice within the DOD and among international militaries in working to improve our abilities to better understand these changes. Our graduates must be able to think critically and creatively apply military power no matter what the environment. Our students are given the education and foundation to anticipate and lead rapid adaptation to a changing environment. They must understand how to conduct joint operations and they must have a deep exposure to the strategic and operational levels of warfare. We are developing ethical leaders who can use the same knowledge and skills to help discern changes in any campaign to which they are assigned. We have assembled a great lineup of moderators and presenters for today's agenda. All of our moderators come from our own National Security Affairs Department, including Dr. Nanahol Singh, Dr. Christopher Faulkner and Dr. Hayat Alvi. And shortly, we will hear from the keynote speaker, Ms. Christina O'Brien, who is the Principal Deputy Director for the Joint Staff J-4, the Office on the Joint Staff Tasked with Developing Solutions to Climate Change. My challenge to all of you today is to be open to thinking outside your own area of specialty. Listen, think critically about these important topics and provide feedback to one another to make our discussions as meaningful as possible as we drive toward a better understanding of environmental changes. The discussions we have here today will form the foundations of tomorrow's DOD policy. So the work you are doing is very relevant and important to our national security. I have the utmost confidence that this group can make a meaningful impact on scholarship-surrounding climate change as well as helping to define the problem and possible solutions for policymakers of the future. Thank you all for joining us today and for donating your time and talents to this endeavor. Have a productive and successful discussion and I look forward to reading the results of your work. Thank you so much to Rear Admiral Chatfield for her opening remarks. Next, I would like to introduce our keynote speaker. Ms. Chris O'Brien was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in 2019 as the Principal Deputy Director for Logistics, Joint Staff and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. In this role, she supports the Director for Logistics J-4 in integrating logistics planning and execution support of global operations. Prior to her SES appointment, Ms. O'Brien supported the U.S. Department of Commerce, where she led the multi-organizational team to coordinate, integrate, test and deploy the remote Alaska operational delivery supporting the 2020 decennial census system of system architecture. Ms. O'Brien previously served in the U.S. Air Force as a Logistics Readiness Officer, commanding at the group and squadron levels and serving in multiple joint positions. Her military awards included Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star and Defense Meritorious Service Medal. Ms. O'Brien's academic credentials include a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Master of Science in Operations Management from the University of Arkansas, Master of Science in Logistics Management from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies from the Air War College. She's also certified as a Program Management Professional. As a key leader on the joint staff and climate, we are honored to have her with us today. Ms. O'Brien, thank you for joining us. Okay, thank you so much, Commander Cameron, for that introduction, and also congratulations to you on the Fulbright Scholar. That's so exciting. And to the team that's out there, you know, good morning, good afternoon. If Indopaycom and other partners from that part of the world are on, it's actually still a good night. And I understand that because after a couple years, on the Indopaycom staff, there were some very, very early mornings. So I just thank everyone for joining the conversation today. And I just want to say that this is really such a great opportunity to bring folks together to talk about the importance of climate and across the combatant commands, and then also to gain insights from academia, from interagency, from the international community, from our allies and partners, and then also from industry. And so really what an incredibly powerful engagement. So as we kind of think through this, I just wanted to share a few thoughts with the team today that kind of align with readiness and resources and mission demand and how those sort of go along with stability, operational planning, and then finally sort of capabilities development, and how some of those things may shift accordingly as we look at climate change. So first, as we think about stability and impacts on mission demand as planners and warfighters and the combatant commands, there's certainly a political challenge here and political impacts. An example of that would be through water insecurity. And if we look at an area like the Mekong River, where that basin is already an area of growing dispute due to a dam building, what kind of second and third order effects will that have on agriculture and fishing for other countries that rely on that water supply, particularly as we think about Cambodia and Vietnam. And then in the greater context of national security implications for Indo-Paycom or greater regions. I'll also highlight now, and I know you'll talk about this a lot today, is the Arctic. And as it becomes more accessible and there's increasing competition for that part of the world and within that part of the world, what kind of likelihood is there for miscalculation and what should we be thinking about from a planning and logistics perspective. In addition to political, when we think about stability, we can also sort of think about social challenges, right, and the vulnerable populations that are really bearing some of the brunts of climate change. And certainly areas that you're going to talk about today, but extreme events, health events, food insecurity, water insecurity, and even cultural identity as we look at rising oceans and the impact that that has on some of our, really the future of some of our island nations. And so what should we be thinking about in the context of those kinds of challenges in terms of national security. In addition, as instability grows potentially as a second third order effect of climate impacts that potentially opens the doors for malign actors to move in, which very much mission impacts as we think about operational planning. So what type of instability tied with malign actors, how should we be considering that in our planning. And then finally, as we think about stability and demands on missions, there's an economic piece here as well. Right now more than 20 countries rely on fossil fuels for greater than 50% of their total export revenues. So if the world starts to shift away from that kind of focus on fossil fuels, what does that mean for income in those nations as they continue to grow and try to meet international goals. The Middle East is particularly at risk when we think about this in terms of the projected decline in fossil fuels combined with intense impact of kind of increasing climate in those regions. So that can be a volatile combination. So I know that CENCOM is starting to think about that. And there are certainly, you know, second and third order impacts too, as we think about some of those malign actors. And then along with that is competition will continue to grow as we look at acquiring minerals and minerals that are kind of required in terms of renewable energy technology. So we are experiencing this right now. And if any of you have nickels, a nickel in your pocket, that five cent piece, right now it's probably worth more than five cents. Because Russia is a major supplier of nickel and nickel is a key ponient in lithium batteries. So the nickel market right now is extremely volatile to the point that it's actually been shut down a couple times. And as we look to the future, you know, what does that really mean in terms of, you know, nickel markets, but other markets as well. And then how does that impact us as we're thinking about planning and operations within our combatant commands and then broader national security perspective. So just to think about as we look at these challenges with stability, what about opportunities. And I want to highlight here that there's an extremely powerful opportunity between the fours and the fives. We have our logisticians and combined with our planners and policymakers, the combatant commands. There's an opportunity for capacity building and defense security cooperation and really kind of focused on climate resiliency and small projects. And some of these these countries and our partner nations can have big impacts. And just last week we had our worldwide logistic seminar, which brought in the service fours, the service logisticians as well as the combatant command senior logisticians talking about climate. And one of the recurring themes was security cooperation. And so this group that's on the line from the combatant commands today, you can have such an impact as we think about defense security cooperation and opportunities for small programs to make big impacts. So in addition to stability, I'm thinking about impacts to operational locations and operational planning. So we this kind of ties in with readiness and resources. We pretty obvious as we think about impacts of colder weather or warmer weather, black plays flag days extreme heat impacting combatant command exercises, other training impacts of wildfires which have been impacting throughout the world, not just in the US, but that impacts our potentially live fire operational training, as well as puts an impact on our resources in terms of manpower. Just over the last couple years, our National Guard and reserve forces have spent a much higher percentage of time supporting wildfires. And so what does that mean for the future as we think about planning and training and readiness. I'll also highlight that permafrost thawing in the architect and what are kind of the second and third order effects of that in terms of, you know, operational exercising, but also infrastructure and impacts on our infrastructure. And so what should we be thinking about in terms of resources and also what is being exposed because of permafrost melting. And I just, I learned about this last week, I found it a little frightening actually, but there was a outbreak of anthrax a few years ago in Russia, due to thawing permafrost, which then makes you start to think about what other undiscovered viruses may be kind of resting underneath that permafrost and what should we be thinking about. So a little different, but actually a reality as it has happened. I think we're all aware of the major impacts of something like Hurricane Michael, which occurred at Tyndall Air Force Base several years ago, almost $5 billion to rebuild that base. So there's a resource piece, but there's also a readiness piece, right, because when you have to evacuate the base. And then in this case, it was an F 22 training base. So those resources moved somewhere else and couldn't move back. So there was a second and third order impact of training that actually takes quite a while to catch up to. So, again, in terms of readiness and resourcing, kind of what sorts of things do we need to be thinking about in terms of future building and infrastructure. And then finally, as we think about operational locations and training, vector borne threats and increasing climate is basically has the is changing potentially where certain diseases and vector borne threats live. So having spent a lot of time in AFRICOM and the preparation we needed to be in terms of health protection before deploying forward. The lines of where say malaria is impacting that combat and commenced and others could be changing. So as we think about readiness and planning and training for our forces and our warfighters, how do we need to be considering that as well. So of course, there are opportunities that go along with these challenges, but I think very key here is where, how do we need to be considering this in our operational plans into our campaign plans, and into sort of our logistics plans because impacts of rising rivers, rising sea levels, mission impacts on ports and other access, what do we need to be thinking about. So I challenge the team as you continue to review and update operational plans and campaign plans, how do we need to be incorporating these impacts of climate into that. And then finally, you know, we looked at stability, looked a little bit at operations, there's also a capability piece to this. And climate does sort of change how we need to look at some of our future requirements and there are opportunities here in terms of mitigation and adapting and potentially reducing demand on some of our weapons systems, but then also building resiliency. And I think, you know, some great examples of that are micro grids on installations, such as Marine Corps Air Station Miramar is able to actually power all of their critical missions on base, including their flight line, including micro grid. And what that does is that gives you options right because they have that capability. And if we have that time of resiliency built in and other installations or forward operating locations, it provides us resiliency against climate but then against other potential actions as well. I'll also highlight electrical tactical vehicles, which as the Army is doing a lot of work on this now and it's still a few years out, but you think if you have those electrical vehicles in the field, it potentially reduces our demand for fuel. Which then is a demand reduction and kind of opens up your supply lines for something else so there are opportunities here for both resiliency and demand reduction, which are very important as we think about logistics challenges and operating in future environments. So in lots of different opportunities also as we look at existing platforms and how to build in better ways to save energy such as improving engine performance or improving jet engine blade coatings, which will increase cut kind of resistance and reduce fuel requirements. So small changes can make big impacts but that all building resiliency and reducing demand can have a big impact on readiness and our ability to actually operate in contested environments. And then finally, I just think partnerships right because we can't do this alone and I think that's what's so powerful about this forum because we've got the combatant command four and the combatant command five sharing their work, but then with this greater environment as well. And there's just a lot of work going on within the combatant commands. I'll highlight the Indo pay com Pacific environmental security partnership passive, which is a great opportunity for cross talk across partners within Indo pay com. Also, I'll highlight the Indo pay com center for excellence in disaster management and humanitarian assistance. I know that they will have a presentation later, but their resources and capabilities provide information across that AOR, but great opportunities to leverage across the other combatant commands too. And I know african recently had their climate summit, which brought together a number of different countries from their AOR. So there's just a lot of great opportunity for partnership here and collaboration and cooperation from each other. And that's really what this is all about. So just sort of in summary, again, great opportunity here to bring together the logistics and infrastructure communities with plans to really start incorporating all of these topics and as we think about climate impacts, stability, as we look at political, social and economic challenges, operations and how we really need to be thinking about how we can incorporate some of these challenges into our operational planning and our campaign planning as we look forward, and And how we can continue to look to the future requirements, capabilities in terms of mitigation and adaptation. And finally, again, just those great opportunities for security cooperation to build capacity and climate resiliency. So again, thank you so much for the opportunity to share some of these thoughts today. I just I'm so excited about the collaboration and and crosstalk that will happen today. And these are exactly the kind of events that will continue to move us forward to ensure that we are ready for what climate change change has for us in the future. So thank you again so much. And back over to you. Thank you, Miss O'Brien for your opening comments. Miss O'Brien, we would like to ask you a question you are on the DoD's climate change working group, specifically leading the climate work wargaming sub working group. Could you provide some insights for how climate can be increasingly incorporated into DoD wargaming? You bet. Thank you so much for that question. And this this is a brand new working group that some of the folks on the line may not have heard about yet, but you will soon. So the as part of that climate working group, we have stood up sort of a sub working group, as you mentioned, and just in the process of drafting the charter now to kind of highlight some of the areas that will be focused on. But the key point is going to be, you know, having a understanding kind of where we're at today, but also understanding impacts of climate for the future. So as an example, how do we look at the globally integrated wargame, and which happens 10 years from now, and incorporates potentially some of these changes that have been affected by climate such as increased rising waters at certain ports, where we may not have access as a result of climate implications, or, and this is, we just actually had a globally, we just had a fuel wargame, where they, they had incorporated two typhoons into the wargame in the Indo Pacific region, which basically has an impact on the operation. So it's a matter of actually building these challenges into these wargames and then thinking about how would we react. I'll highlight also that we just got some warfighter incentive funds for a wargame or tabletop exercise in Indo that will be looking at some of these challenges, and we'll also be having a Western Hemisphere TTX here hosted out of the Pentagon later this summer as well. So this is a way to kind of come up with a deliberate way ahead, looking at how we can incorporate these impacts of climate, and kind of learn from that in an innovative way in these TTXes and these wargames. So much more to follow to the team out there, because we'll be looking for your support as we stand up the working group. But a lot to learn from that. And I think we will continue to collaborate as a team. So thank you so much for that question. Ms. O'Brien, on behalf of the US Naval War College and all of the participants today, we'd like to thank you so much for giving our keynote speech. Thank you again for providing me the opportunity and again just congratulations to you and thank you so much for hosting this forum because I think it's just a great opportunity to bring everybody together and look forward to feedback and the great dialogue that should occur today from this across collaboration. So thank you again so much. And best as you move through the conference today. Thank you. But what a better way to start our event than by hearing from joint staff leadership. We truly appreciate your time and your comments as you kicked off the conference. As a reminder, all conference materials can be downloaded from the bottom of the Naval War College events page. In the conference program, you include the agenda and full biographies of all of our participants. The event is being recorded and will be available on the Naval War College YouTube page after the event. Now that we've heard from our keynote speaker, we will transition directly into our first panel today with central command. I will be the moderator for this panel. In fact, all the moderators today are my fellow colleagues in the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval War College. For today, we will only be introducing our panelists by their name and their current titles to provide them the maximum opportunity to present the biographies of all of our speakers is available in the conference program available on the events page. At any point now, as we enter into our first panel, you can enter questions by using the Q&A button on the screen. You may review the questions from other attendees as well and are encouraged to upvote a question of particular interest by clicking on the thumbs up icon. Questions will be sorted then by the upvotes and this will help us as the moderators to determine the questions with the greatest interest. From central command today, we have Mr. Mike Wilford, the environmental program manager from J4 and Colonel Arnone US Marine Corps, who is the division chief for strategy and policy division in the J5. They will be presenting together, Mr. Mike Wilford and Colonel Arnone welcome today and I will be sharing your slides. See slides. Good morning. This is Mike Wilford. I've been managing the environmental program here at Central Command for eight years of the past 14 years. Thank you, Mike. Can you turn your camera on? We'll continue with the presentation. Thank you. Well, I'll continue until the camera comes up. Mainly in my role, I focus on regulatory requirements from the Department of Defense for our installations outside the United States. But we will be advising from the J4 and will be advising and assisting J5 as needed for climate change issues. Next slide, please. So I'll cover the first two areas of our area of responsibility and some characteristics of our AOR and then transition to Colonel Arnone who will speak to the strategic importance of SYNCCOM and climate change and engagement challenges. Next slide, please. So US SYNCCOM area of responsibility spans more than five and a half million square miles and is populated by over 500 million people from 23 ethnic groups speaking 19 languages. With hundreds of dialects and confessing multiple religions which transect excuse me transect national borders. The demographics in the AOR create opportunities for tension and rivalry. The geography of the region consists of the intersection of three continents and globally vital commercial sea lanes, flight corridors, pipelines and overlam routes. The 21 nations of the AOR have various forms of governance ranging across the political spectrum. Including emerging democracies, hereditary monarchies, autocracies and Islamic theocratic regimes. The central region is among the least secure and stable places in the world. There are adversarial relationships among neighboring states, widespread ethnic and sectarian struggles, malign influence and destabilizing activities, cyber based threats. And a growing arsenal of sophisticated conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction, all combined to pose significant risk to US vital national interest, as well as those of our trusted partners and allies. A little bit about Sinkcom itself, US Sinkcom was activated in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan toward the last stages of the Cold War. It was a successor to a rapid deployment joint task force created by President Carter in order to project power in Africa and the Middle East following the Iran hostage crisis. It has the smallest area of the geographical command and commands. And what we lack in size, we compensate for strategic importance which we'll cover here in a few minutes. Three key locations I want to mention is Bab Al-Mandeb. You'll see that on the map on the slides. Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz. Next slide please. Some characteristics of our AOR. We have 568 million people, three major religions, 19 languages, 23 ethnic groups. It stretches from northeastern Africa, specifically Egypt, across the Middle East to former Soviet Central Asia and Pakistan, and comprises of the vast desert southeast of Europe, south of Russia, and west of China and India. It sits astride the crossroads of the former Byzantine, Turkish, and Persian empires, and has two thirds of the world's proven petroleum reserves and nearly half of the natural gas reserves. Islam is a predominant religion, religious, political, and cultural force in the region. Sunni and Shia, the two primary sects of Islam, have similar beliefs but significantly different theological and legal interpretations of the Qur'an. All of these issues give rise to religious, ethnic, and tribal tensions. A large proportion of the population in our AOR is young. Over 40% of population in 18 of 21 countries are between the ages of 15 and 29. This youth bulge is a fertile breeding ground for extremism. A problem that is exacerbated by the underlying conditions of inadequate economic development and unemployment, insufficient basic services, and poor governance. And on that, I will turn that over to the rest of the briefing over to Colonel Arnaud. Okay, hey, thanks, Mike. I appreciate that. Once again, I'm Colonel Mike Arnaud, the director for the Div Chief for Strategy and Policy here at Sankam. So we should be on slide five. What is at stake? Since World War II, we've recognized the Middle East as key terrain and we're not alone in that recognition. This is due in large part to the proven energy reserves and the fact that three of the five maritime choke points are located in this AO, as Mike alluded to. Over 51% of the world's petroleum and 46% of the natural gas reserves and considerable global commerce to verse these three strategic choke points. As I mentioned before, we've got the Suez, the Baba HaMandeb, and then of course the Straits are Hamoos. The loss of control of any of these three choke points would see control of the economic lifeblood that flows through these Straits and potentially destabilize world economies. While we only get about 19% of our energy requirements from this region, our allies and partners are dependent on it. I'll walk you around the slide here. So for the first one, Japan imports about 89% of their requirements from the Middle East. South Korea pulls about 64% and our European allies and partners, they get about 33% of the requirements for their use from the Middle East. Interestingly enough, China actually pulls about 47% of their energy requirements from the Middle East as well. Relationships are exceptionally important in the region. Gulf partners buy relationships more than capability through FMS, foreign military sales. It should be noted regional partners may seek security assurances from our strategic competitors to hedge against the perception of U.S. abandonment. Any reduction in posture forces footprints and agreements must be done with the understanding it will be exceptionally difficult to reestablish if needed during time of crisis. Regarding some of the problems within the region, the Middle East has become the nexus for U.S. competition with China and Russia, and four of the five NDS challenges manifest themselves in this AO. Iran remains the primary threat to Middle East stability, has the largest missile force in the AO. Proxies conduct covert, plausible, deniable operations throughout the region to threaten our partners, and Iran's long-term strategic objective is to expel the United States from this theater. The conditions in the region that created ISIS, refugees, IDPs, and famine still exist. Currently, high-priority VEOs are conducting major operations throughout the AO. With the AO, there are proven WMD users, and VEOs desire to acquire and employ these weapons of mass destruction. As stated previously, we are not the only ones who have identified this region as key terrain. The green lines on the slide represents China's Belt Road Initiative, which touches every country in this AO with the exception of Israel. The flags represent Chinese and Russian investment throughout the region to expand their influence. China has signed a 25-year energy-based comprehensive joint cooperation plan with Iran. Additionally, they've made investments in the Suez Canal, UAE's free trade zone, and Khalif Port Military Facility in UAE. Finally, Russia continues its activities in Syria and holds considerable influence throughout the Central Asian states. Bottom line, competition is alive and well here in Sencombe. Slide, please. Okay, now we should be on slide six climate challenges. A stable and secure Middle East is in the strategic interest of the United States. To achieve that enduring objective, Sencombe identifies the greatest challenges to our interests are instability, state aggression, and weapons of mass destruction. Conditions exacerbating these challenges are conflict, spillover violence, mass refugee movement, and opportunistic terrorist groups. As we develop plans to address these challenges, we understand the physical environment and resource and security will inform strategic, operational, and tactical considerations. Our planning efforts strive to address the fragility and instability exacerbated by environmental threat multipliers such as competition for water, natural resource degradation, climate impact, infectious disease outbreak, and conflict that are all often exploited by malign actors. In Egypt, tensions are rising as Ethiopia is alleged to be filling its nearly completed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam or GERD upstream from Cairo. Ethiopia began construction on the GERD in April of 2011 to address their acute electricity shortages, becoming Africa's largest dam and a geopolitical flash point for downstream countries. Egypt is insistent that Ethiopia guarantee Cairo adequate water access in times of drought and that binding arbitration be used to settle disputes. Egyptian authorities have declared that failure to reach an agreement with Ethiopia over water sharing during droughts poses a life or death threat to Egypt. Even under current conditions without the GERD, Egypt is currently a water poor country and by 2025 hydrologists will define Egypt's water level as absolute scarcity. African Union talks between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt have stalled and Ethiopia has hardened their stance on the GERD. The result is a conflict that is becoming more likely as Egypt continues to harvest over 90% of its freshwater needs from the Nile. Water from the Hindu Kush Himalayas Mountains provide 2 billion people a vital regional lifeline that supports agriculture, produces energy for the region and sustains the rich culture of the inhabitants of this area. There has been a 25% reduction in the ice caps since 1970 and it is projected two thirds of the remaining glaciers will disappear by the end of the century. We often think about conflict between India and Pakistan in the context of Kashmir and see that simply as a territorial dispute. However, the freshwater supplied by the Hindu Kush runs from Kashmir and are harvested by both nations. The Hindu Kush represents a region that is essential for the water supply for Pakistan and India. As the supply of water is reduced due to glacial melt internal and external stressors can be anticipated that may increase the likelihood of conflict. In Yemen, damaged farming irrigation systems and infrastructure has failed to capture and utilize rainfall needed to continue profitable farming. The lack of potable and reclaimed water coupled with farming of water intensive caught by malign actors makes food insecurity a major factor to the current instability and conflict within Yemen. Over 117 million people in the U.S. CENTCOM AOR face food insecurity, extreme insecurity or acute insecurity due to the lack of irritable land for crops, water scarcity, poor crop management, poverty and conflict. Arab countries import most of their food with several countries in the region importing all of their wheat requirements. Saudi Arabia leases irritable land in other countries to grow the crops they need, adding additional strain on the natural resources of the host nation. Syria and Iraq grain production has fallen in recent years due to conflict, poor management and water shortages. Syria's production of grain dropped 20% since 2001. Iraq dropped 25% and Jordan has dropped 80%. Jordan now imports 90% of their grain they need. And conflict in the region has added stressors to Jordanian food resources by adding right around 480,000 refugees that require food. Conflict in U.S. CENTCOM AOR cannot only affect the energy security of countries in the Middle East, but the consumers of the energy resources imported from this region. Many countries in the Middle East have rich supplies of energy and the majority of the countries in the AOR are capable of providing electricity to nearly 100% of the population. However, approximately 86 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen are without electricity due to conflict, dilapidated or damaged grid systems and mismanagement of resources. Conflict that disrupts the flow of crude could exacerbate this issue and possibly affect countries that are currently capable of providing their populations with adequate supply of energy. Infectious disease outbreaks such as COVID-19 have generated some of the greatest response disruptions for U.S. CENTCOM. While examples such as COVID-19 represent the current state, long-standing medical crisis such as cholera, malaria, H1N1 presents opportunities for medical partnerships and development. Partner nations with poor healthcare infrastructure and inadequate outbreak response capacity will require more robust responses from U.S. CENTCOM to mitigate partner nation instability and vulnerability to malign actors. VEOs in Levant, Central Asia and the Gulf take advantage of food, water and employment insecurity by providing economic opportunities, financing infrastructure and providing social services to percent public legitimacy. Communities unable to depend upon farming, fishing and livestock production often turn to illicit methods for survival. Slide please. Okay, we should be on slide seven, engagement and challenges. It is incumbent as planners to understand our current and future environment and the drivers of instability. As those drivers are identified, we need to ensure we use all tools at our disposal to address the inevitable disruptive results of those drivers. We must work with our interagency partners as we develop our theater strategies, leveraging their understanding of the environment and their developmental expertise. We must maintain our position as the partner of choice to enable access, basing an overflight to address crises and counter the influence of malign actors. We need to leverage our access to build partner nation capacity to address security threats. Exercises are a prime venue to factor in environmental considerations such as water scarcity and the requirement to operate densely populated urban centers that are a result of mass migration. We should explore opportunities to host multilateral engagements that bring countries throughout the region together to discuss response options for natural and manmade disasters. As outlined, the Middle East will continue to be a vital importance for the United States and the global community. We must ensure our strategy accounts for environmental changes that will continue to drive instability. And with that, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Andrea, back to you. Thank you so much to Mr. Wilford and Colonel Arnon for taking us off today. What a fantastic presentation about the drivers of instability that are climate related within CENTCOM. You answered throughout the presentation some of the questions in the chat, so I'm going to select one that I don't think you touched on very much. As you conduct bilateral mil-to-mil talks in your AOR, what is your assessment of the level of concern of a changing climate by the countries themselves in the AOR? That's a great question. I'll be honest with you. I have not seen any discussions about specifically climate change, but certainly the results and the results of climate change and the manifestation of those results of instability. And water scarcity and the like. I think that has been woven throughout all of the engagements. But as far as specific discussions on climate change, not so much, but certainly as they discuss the various challenges throughout the region, there's linkages. There's direct linkages. I don't know if that answers your question or not. I hope I touched on it. That's a good question. Thank you. We have another question that's kind of more future oriented. A lot of your assessment was very in the present or near term. So if you were to run the clock ahead about 10 years, where do you see some of these trends going, where stresses are the greatest concern to you? Okay. Another good question. Actually, we were discussing this yesterday, last night to be more specific. Looking out 10 years from now, one area I didn't really talk about was Central Asia. And I think there's obviously quite a few stressors as a result of climate change that revolve around water scarcity and really water availability in the short term. But it inevitably has become water scarcity. And I think there's opportunities out there for the United States and SENTCOM to be more specific to engage those partners to address those challenges. And I think there's opportunity. I think that opportunity will only grow in 10 years or so. Does that answer your question? Thanks. We have another more specific one about what SENTCOM has done for risk analysis of climate change and how that might affect stability. The question asked specifically about say water in Pakistan or high heat in the Arabian Peninsula. And what might the strategic and operational impacts might be from that? Well, I'll touch on Pakistan first. Pakistan, they face quite a few internal and external stressors as we move forward. It's a growing population. They are going to experience water challenges as noted before due to the Hindu Kush and the ice cap reduction. I think as strategists and planners that's incumbent upon us, when we see something like that, we need to address that in our strategies that will eventually feed our campaign plans and then obviously affect posture planning. As far as high heat and how we're accounting for that, I'll be honest with you, quite frankly, we have not. We start looking out 10 years and we had that discussion like I alluded to yesterday. We were solely taking a look at the Central Asian states and Pakistan. However, it must be accounted for. And the question that, you know, as you sit there and you peel this one back a little bit with the increasing temperatures within the GCC and the requirement to operate there. Inevitably, you know, water becomes an important element and how we get that water to the force to sustain the force will be vitally important. So that will obviously be added into the calculation when we look at developing that strategy that will feed those campaign plans and then ultimately affect other planning efforts as we move forward. Excellent. We have a question about, it looks like CENTCOM very clear understanding of the AOR and the risks involved. What other tools might you need or information that would be useful to tackle these risks? And the conversation, as I have this is usually about more intelligence or more scientific information. So what are the tools or information that you think would be better enhanced for your future planning and operations? Okay, I will speak from my perspective only as a div chief for strategy and policy and taking a look at developing the theater strategy. One of the resources that is available that sometimes, at least from a planner's perspective, I have not leveraged adequately enough and being here at CENTCOM, having the opportunity to do it again. And I want to get better at leveraging the resource of the interagency. A lot of times when we develop strategies and we look out and we're developing that strategy, you know, we're looking five to seven years out. We somewhat get into our closed circle and we view the problem set to a military lens only. Well, it's incumbent upon us to bring in the interagency, interact with USAID state. And bring their expertise on board. A lot of times some of the challenges that we're facing, the military instrument is not the best way to address it. But if we can set the conditions that enable interagency action to address some of those drivers of instability or results of instability, then inevitably it'll facilitate the achievement of our objectives and the advancement of U.S. interest. Thank you. Thanks. We have a question looking for a little bit more specificity from the team. They're looking at, you know, they understand that you've incorporated climate as a stressor. You presented that very well. But are you looking at perhaps how to incorporate climate into campaign plans or partnership plans or your integrated priority lists. Yeah, we did identify one major problem. Sorry, this microphone for the one problem that we have in the AOR is we haven't conducted any studies on what, what the climate models, what kind of effects those will have in our AOR. So the one problem we did identify we need to resolve by getting studies conducted on impacts to climate change in specific locations in our AOR. Thank you so much for your candor and your honest response. We have a question about potential solutions and opportunities. One about being water scarcity. And we know that there's a rapid advancement in desalination technology across the region. How do you think that will impact the security environment? I really don't know. I have no idea about the desalination, but as I strike those, if there is, I'm sorry, I had to turn on my mic. If there is a conflict in the region and those security or those desalination plants are targeted, well, that's a very serious problem for the local population. It goes from water scarcity to maybe no little to no water at all. So that could be a real issue. Yeah, and if I could dovetail into Mike's comments that you're absolutely right, the water desalination plants are important. As we work with our allies and partners to develop planning, inevitably those facilities will become key terrain or critical assets for our partners and allies, and that has to be accounted for into our planning. So yeah, it's a good question. Over. Thank you. The next question probably gets more into non-state actors a little bit. You discussed the tensions and amplifications of the tensions between nations within nations, and that included both competition for water, food insecurity and extreme heat. How do these pressures influence decisions by VEOs or other malign actors in the region? I think they see it as opportunity. So when they see scarcity and internal stressors through water scarcity, unemployment, things of that nature, they try to provide an alternative. And there's opportunity to exert their influence, their malign influence that runs counter to stability throughout the region. So as we see these stressors come about through some of the things that I talked about, it's important that we address them to ensure that we don't provide VEOs that opportunity to exert their influence. But yeah, I think they absolutely see it as an opportunity. They see it as a place that they can exploit. Over. Similarly aligned, but going back to state actors, one of the questions is about the key tenets of the China's Belt and Road Initiative, which is to develop infrastructure which could in theory address some of the climate related issues such as water scarcity. How can CENTCOM and the U.S. more broadly position itself so that Middle Eastern countries don't become reliant on China and still look to the U.S. as a potential partner? That's a good question. So when we talk about China and the Belt, the Road One Belt Initiative and Chinese influence and U.S. influence in the Middle East, you've got to almost back the discussion up to interest, right? So as far as, you know, do our interests and Chinese interests converge or diverge within CENTCOM, I would say that, you know, obviously with a lot of their predatory lending activity and the like, much of our interests diverge. And when those interests do diverge, I think it's important for us to highlight that to our allies and partners and provide an alternative to whatever China is offering to maintain our access and placement within the region to support U.S. interest. Thanks. Our next question, you gave a very broad overview with a lot of different climate challenges and one of our questions is kind of asking you to rank order them. Or what do you see as the most important or top three concerns? Your classic senior officer question, what is the climate issues that might keep you up at night? Okay. Not keeping me up at night, but when we start looking at some of the climate challenges or the results of climate challenges, it has to be water scarcity. And we say water scarcity, but a lot of times it's the availability of water, right? So we talked about the GERG. All right. Now, the interesting thing is we have the Nile River. It's not an issue of scarcity. It's availability for Egypt and jeopardizing that availability in times of scarcity. A lot of issues in the Central Asian states right now revolve around availability rather than scarcity. So, and conflict, state on state conflict has occurred in the Central Asian states partly due to water availability, less scarcity. However, as time moves on, as already addressed, that availability will turn into scarcity. And I think inevitably that will be a driver of conflict, whether that's conflict internally within a state just because of the increase in increased stressors or state on state for that limited availability, that limited resource because of scarcity. Over. Thanks. We have kind of a related question, because you've talked a lot about water availability and earlier you mentioned the vulnerability of the desalination plants. A lot of times people think of that as more an opportunity, but I thought Meister Wolford had a really good point about the corresponding vulnerability, the more dependent that the water resources are on that. So we have a question about kind of reframing water in particular, which you mentioned as the key priority. Water as a weapon. For example, you mentioned the GERD or will India shut off flow from freshwater to Pakistan in response to other actions, or, you know, anywhere across the region impacts of upstream nations on downstream water resources. What do you think about reframing water as a weapon. Yeah, I think that's that's very wise. It's and you already alluded to it. It's happened. We saw that you mentioned Pakistan. So that that that already happened as a result of the attacks in India. I'm sorry in Kashmir that killed I believe 40 Indian police officers in response New Delhi actually limited the amount of water going into Pakistan. So we've already seen that and I and I do believe it will be as we move forward it will be used as a way to influence the behavior of other nations over. Our final question is how has or how should the impacts of climate change and responses be incorporated into future security cooperation planning its income. This is our final question. I think there's opportunity there. And why I say that I think it needs to obviously be incorporated in our theater security cooperation plans, because it's one thing that we can we can use to bring multiple actors throughout the region multiple countries to the table to discuss. So, you know, and I mentioned it, but you can get multilateral events to discuss the response to a natural or man made disaster together to improve relations. A lot easier than focusing on a specific threat, a nation threat a nation state actor. So the result would be, you know, improving relationships. And ultimately, quite frankly, increasing their ability to respond to those natural disasters or the results of climate change that that create instability. So, you know, as we move forward, I think it's it would be key to to to incorporate that into our theater security cooperation planning over. What a perfect answer to conclude the panel. I'd like to thank Mr. Mike Wilford and Carmel are known for leading this panel today on behalf of sent come. It was a fantastic way to start the event a wonderful presentation and a lot of exceptional questions and thank you for taking the time to give your candid honest feedback about what we're doing and where there's vulnerabilities and opportunities. Once again, I'd like to thank Miss O'Brien as our keynote speaker this morning. And at this point, we're going to take a 10 minute break and we'll return at 950 with our next panel with teams from you come and after calm. Thank you all for joining us today.