Fortress America Is Now Our Main Climate Policy
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Environment
/ March 13, 2026
Fortress America Is Now Our Main Climate Policy
The US spends trillions not to prevent climate catastrophe but to protect the country from climate refugees and resource conflicts.
Sarah Lazare
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A dark smoke cloud engulfs destroyed vehicles following a US-Israeli airstrike on the Shahran oil refinery in northwestern Tehran on March 8, 2026.
(AFP via Getty Images)
The purpose of the exercise was to prepare for the mass migration of people from Caribbean islands due to powerful and devastating hurricanes. It brought together the Department of Homeland Security, US Southern Command, and other federal agencies. The 600 participants who gathered at Fort Sam Houston in Texas for a week-long simulation faced a primary challenge: to prevent migrants from reaching the United States by intercepting them and repatriating them at sea.
“Our goal was to move people, equipment and supplies as quickly as possible to the affected areas, as well as provide the Navy and Coast Guard with additional surveillance assets to locate migrants at sea,” said Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, the 12th Air Forces Southern commander, in a statement from 12th Air Force public affairs.
This scenario of hunting down and interdicting migrants in the ocean may sound like the stuff of Trumpian nightmares, but the simulation was carried out in 2015 under the administration of President Barack Obama, whom pundits celebrated for his identification of climate change as a “national security” threat. The exercise, which took place as record numbers of refugees were drowning in the Mediterranean, was not unique to Obama: It was carried out before and after his administration, in a number of forms, part of broad efforts of the US security state to prepare for, as the 2022 National Security Strategy put it, “the existential challenge of our time.”
Treating climate change as a “national security threat” may seem like wise environmental policy, and indeed many liberal environmental and climate groups have welcomed this nice-sounding embrace by the national security state. The military and deportation apparatuses are, after all, consistently well-funded and resourced US bodies, and them “taking climate seriously” gives a sense of progress: If the hard-nosed military is doing something about this, then maybe the rest of the society will be right behind.. But the reality has played out differently. The vast bulk of resources are not spent on mitigation, much less reducing carbon extraction and emissions, but on defending the United States and its allies against unrest, mass migration, and potential resource conflicts. …
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Fortress America Is Now Our Main Climate Policy
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Current Issue
Environment
/ March 13, 2026
Fortress America Is Now Our Main Climate Policy
The US spends trillions not to prevent climate catastrophe but to protect the country from climate refugees and resource conflicts.
Sarah Lazare
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
A dark smoke cloud engulfs destroyed vehicles following a US-Israeli airstrike on the Shahran oil refinery in northwestern Tehran on March 8, 2026.
(AFP via Getty Images)
The purpose of the exercise was to prepare for the mass migration of people from Caribbean islands due to powerful and devastating hurricanes. It brought together the Department of Homeland Security, US Southern Command, and other federal agencies. The 600 participants who gathered at Fort Sam Houston in Texas for a week-long simulation faced a primary challenge: to prevent migrants from reaching the United States by intercepting them and repatriating them at sea.
“Our goal was to move people, equipment and supplies as quickly as possible to the affected areas, as well as provide the Navy and Coast Guard with additional surveillance assets to locate migrants at sea,” said Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, the 12th Air Forces Southern commander, in a statement from 12th Air Force public affairs.
This scenario of hunting down and interdicting migrants in the ocean may sound like the stuff of Trumpian nightmares, but the simulation was carried out in 2015 under the administration of President Barack Obama, whom pundits celebrated for his identification of climate change as a “national security” threat. The exercise, which took place as record numbers of refugees were drowning in the Mediterranean, was not unique to Obama: It was carried out before and after his administration, in a number of forms, part of broad efforts of the US security state to prepare for, as the 2022 National Security Strategy put it, “the existential challenge of our time.”
Treating climate change as a “national security threat” may seem like wise environmental policy, and indeed many liberal environmental and climate groups have welcomed this nice-sounding embrace by the national security state. The military and deportation apparatuses are, after all, consistently well-funded and resourced US bodies, and them “taking climate seriously” gives a sense of progress: If the hard-nosed military is doing something about this, then maybe the rest of the society will be right behind.. But the reality has played out differently. The vast bulk of resources are not spent on mitigation, much less reducing carbon extraction and emissions, but on defending the United States and its allies against unrest, mass migration, and potential resource conflicts. …
Fortress America Is Now Our Main Climate Policy
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Fortress America Is Now Our Main Climate Policy
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Current Issue
Environment
/ March 13, 2026
Fortress America Is Now Our Main Climate Policy
The US spends trillions not to prevent climate catastrophe but to protect the country from climate refugees and resource conflicts.
Sarah Lazare
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
A dark smoke cloud engulfs destroyed vehicles following a US-Israeli airstrike on the Shahran oil refinery in northwestern Tehran on March 8, 2026.
(AFP via Getty Images)
The purpose of the exercise was to prepare for the mass migration of people from Caribbean islands due to powerful and devastating hurricanes. It brought together the Department of Homeland Security, US Southern Command, and other federal agencies. The 600 participants who gathered at Fort Sam Houston in Texas for a week-long simulation faced a primary challenge: to prevent migrants from reaching the United States by intercepting them and repatriating them at sea.
“Our goal was to move people, equipment and supplies as quickly as possible to the affected areas, as well as provide the Navy and Coast Guard with additional surveillance assets to locate migrants at sea,” said Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, the 12th Air Forces Southern commander, in a statement from 12th Air Force public affairs.
This scenario of hunting down and interdicting migrants in the ocean may sound like the stuff of Trumpian nightmares, but the simulation was carried out in 2015 under the administration of President Barack Obama, whom pundits celebrated for his identification of climate change as a “national security” threat. The exercise, which took place as record numbers of refugees were drowning in the Mediterranean, was not unique to Obama: It was carried out before and after his administration, in a number of forms, part of broad efforts of the US security state to prepare for, as the 2022 National Security Strategy put it, “the existential challenge of our time.”
Treating climate change as a “national security threat” may seem like wise environmental policy, and indeed many liberal environmental and climate groups have welcomed this nice-sounding embrace by the national security state. The military and deportation apparatuses are, after all, consistently well-funded and resourced US bodies, and them “taking climate seriously” gives a sense of progress: If the hard-nosed military is doing something about this, then maybe the rest of the society will be right behind.. But the reality has played out differently. The vast bulk of resources are not spent on mitigation, much less reducing carbon extraction and emissions, but on defending the United States and its allies against unrest, mass migration, and potential resource conflicts. …
