It is high time that we reintroduce the issue of global population growth to the US national security strategy

Many people do not realize that issues of runaway population growth once were active considerations in US national security policymaking and strategy design.  It is high time that these issues be reintroduced to US national security strategy deliberations, particularly as we widen our aperture to issues such as climate change.

This is why I recently published this article, entitled “Re-envisioning the US National Security Strategy in the face of runaway population growth” in Small Wards Journal.  While more and more national security professionals are thinking seriously about how to address the existential threat of climate change in to our national security strategy, others are grappling with the role of unsustainable population growth in driving climate change, while still others are grappling with the role of runaway population growth in driving instability, insecurity and large scale human suffering.  These issues swirl together in complex ways that are hard to comprehend.  Yet, we must make sense of this complex dynamic and find ways to deploy all instruments of National power to combat them before it is too late.

It is time to bring discussions of runaway population growth back in to  the formulation of the US National security strategy, just as it was a half a century ago.  Indeed, failing to do so would be a breach of our duty to our fellow citizens, our nation and our planet.SIONING THE US NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY IN THE FACE OF RUNAWAY POPULATION GROWTH