Author Biography
Ibrahim Al-Marashi is Associate Professor of Middle East history at California State University San Marcos and visiting professor at the IE University School of Global and Public Affairs in Madrid, Spain. He is co-author of Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (Routledge, 2008), The Modern History of Iraq (Routledge 2017), and A Concise History of the Middle East (Routledge, 2018).
Amar Causevic is working at the Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere Programme at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on examining interactions between financial markets and the biosphere. Amar also conducts research observing a nexus between climate change and security.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.13.4.1804
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic emerged as a global security risk, and national security institutions scrambled to manage a threat, not emanating from states or non-state actors, but from the environment. The pandemic serves as an empirical case to explore “anthropogenic strategic security,” or how security doctrines can anticipate and mitigate natural disasters, resulting from humanity’s exploitation of ecology and environment. This qualitative study addresses the question as to whether the NATO possesses the imaginative and institutional capacity to manage environmental risks resulting from climate change. By employing constructivist theory, this article argues that the Alliance needs to adopt holistic norms and approaches towards security. By expanding its identity and mission, it should adopt policies that task its constituent parts to serve as a de-facto “Climate Alliance Treaty Organization,” particularly in the MENA region, which is extremely vulnerable to environmental risks. A review of past NATO statements, meetings, and institutions provide the key findings, demonstrating that the Alliance’s past experience in aiding non-members, such as in the Balkans and South and Central Asia, has endowed the Alliance with the infrastructure, experience, and mechanisms for strategic partnerships with MENA nations on climate mitigation strategies.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors only and do not reflect official views of any institution.
Recommended Citation
Al-Marashi, Ibrahim and Causevic, Amar. "NATO and Collective Environmental Security in the MENA: From the Cold War to Covid-19." Journal of Strategic Security 13, no. 4 (2020)
: 28-44.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.13.4.1804
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol13/iss4/3
