Threats Without Threateners? Exploring Intersections of Threats to the Global Commons and National Security

This think piece was sponsored by the Skoll Global Threats Fund, whose mission is to "confront global threats imperiling humanity by seeking solutions, strengthening alliances, and spurring the actions needed to safeguard the future." In particular, the Fund focuses on five threats that, if not all fully global, do require multiple parties to participate in addressing them:nuclear proliferation, Middle East conflict, climate change, water scarcity, and pandemics. In contrast to the established significance of nuclear proliferation and Middle East conflict, the relevance of the other three threats to national security remains less examined. To explore whether it might lead to different perspectives in approaching these issues, this paper looks at climate change, water scarcity, and pandemics as global issues with potential public "bads." It also looks into the national security dimensions of these three issues and how they are related—their similarities and differences, and their interconnections—focusing on the commonalities that make them difficult to address. It then reviews what might be called the "usual" approaches to such problems, examining why several have not worked well so far. The implicit conclusion: without some novel approaches, these global threats will persist. The paper then asks the reader to consider some different approaches illustrated through suggestive cases intended to make each type of approach more concrete. This aims to inspire ways of thinking about new policy approaches, not to suggest that they amount to "the solution." Nor does this think piece present a thorough review of what is possible. Rather, the idea is to advance a conversation, ideally one across disciplines and perspectives, to help readers become more creative about the possibilities for action, not only by governments but also by business, civil society, and organizations like the Skoll Global Threats Fund. It is to individuals in such institutions, as well as to other thought leaders and interested citizens, that this paper is addressed. And though we write from a U.S. perspective and are ultimately most concerned with U.S. national security, the threats covered are global or at least regional, so we seek to engage readers beyond U.S. borders