Environmental threats and America: divergent interests and National Security in the United States Federal Government

This paper addresses the issue of environmental security and the United States, in the context of how the environment may affect national security concerns of that country. It raises the questions of how the environment may relate to more traditional security issues in the U.S., and whether the current administration of the federal government has provided a clear vision of the environment as a threat. To this end, this paper first covers basic approaches to environmental security, as a form of theoretical basis for understanding and contrasting later approaches. It then goes on to an overview of national security considerations in the U.S. in the past, including ideas which remain fairly constant throughout any security issue, and what allows them to be considered as such. There are then analyses of the four major perspectives on environmental security in the U.S. government, and how those approaches attempt to balance jurisdictional concerns with the past policies and basic approaches mentioned earlier. These must be understood in regards to their original question, of whether these visions are sound and coherent enough to qualify as issues of national security in the U.S., and why conflict on the issue might exist.