The Missing Link: Regionalism as a First Step Toward Globalizing U.S. Environmental Security Policy

In: Politics & policy: a publication of the Policy Studies Organization, Band 35, Heft 4, S. 702-715

Abstract

Especially since September 11, 2001, national security has been a high policy priority for the United States. Unfortunately, this has come at the detriment of other policies and relationships with foreign nations, including its fellow North American neighbors, Canada, and Mexico. What the current US. administration has overlooked in its reprioritization of policy goals is the close relationship between security and environmental protection. This article discusses the need to more closely incorporate environmental and/or ecological security into a traditional notion of national security and it highlights the specific link between traditional conceptions of security and global climate change. The study additionally debates the question of US. participation in a North American environmental security agenda, namely one that coordinates efforts to address global warming. Adapted from the source document.