Red, Green, and Colorblind: Could a Security Lens Bring the Climate Crisis Into Focus?

For decades, American discourse on climate change has been politically color-coded. 

Since the early 1990s, climate change has devolved from an urgent challenge into a polarized standoff, reduced to talking points divided along ideological lines. On one side, progressives view the issue through a "green" lens, prioritizing environmental sustainability and the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This focus necessitates immediate, large-scale emissions cuts to protect long-term ecological health. On the other hand, conservatives often adopt a "red" filter, prioritizing economic growth and U.S. energy independence while viewing environmental policies as a direct threat to national security.  

Both sides have remained entrenched in their positions, while the legislative stalemate persists and climate risks grow. The impacts of climate change are no longer distant projections, regardless of certain interest groups’ efforts to undermine science. From sea-level rise and severe drought to food insecurity and mass migration, the immediate threats of a warming planet to national and global stability are already unfolding.

This begs the question: What happens when climate change is no longer framed as an environmental issue, but rather a threat to national security? Could a security framework dissolve the partisan color-coding that has paralyzed climate policy, or would it simply repaint climate politics entirely?

It turns out this isn’t some far-fetched hypothetical. This shifting view on climate change is already underway. Since 2014, the U.S. Department of Defense has characterized climate change as a “threat multiplier,” citing how rising seas jeopardize naval installations, drought destabilizes fragile regions, and extreme weather strains disaster response systems. This perspective has gained traction even among high-level Republican officials. 

James Mattis, former Secretary of Defense under Donald Trump, has asserted that climate change is a tangible threat to American interests. In an unpublished written testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation hearing, he pointed to new “open-water routes emerging in the thawing Arctic,” as well as the way resource scarcity in global trouble spots creates “operational challenges for troops and defense planners.”

A strong emphasis on national security has traditionally served as a cornerstone of American conservative thought. So framing climate change through military readiness, border stability, and geopolitical competition opens a pathway for right-leaning policymakers to engage without embracing environmental activism. One does not need to support sweeping climate regulations to worry about Arctic shipping lanes, food and water security, or China’s dominance in clean-energy manufacturing.

In this framing, climate policy steers away from “Save the Polar Bears” and moves toward safeguarding American power. Could this be a viable path towards bipartisan climate action? Or is it a slippery slope?

According to scholars, this shift can offer a few advantages. First, a security lens can potentially break political gridlock and mobilize resources in the United States. Climate policy and funding have become deeply politicized and often stalled. For example, the Trump administration canceled or froze more than $29 billion in community environmental and renewable energy grants awarded under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, including funding for natural disaster preparedness, workforce development, and flood mitigation.

Framing climate change as a security issue, however, could foster bipartisan cooperation and accelerate action on infrastructure resilience, disaster preparedness, and adaptation funding. As noted by scholars at the University of Chicago Law School, national security can serve as a powerful, third-party validator. This can allow annual defense spending bills to act as a legislative vehicle in addressing climate adaptation, exemplified by climate adaptation provisions recently added to the National Defense Authorization Act. Expanding funding for coastal infrastructure planning, evacuation-relocation strategies, emergency response, and climate-risk surveillance provides critical benefits to national security. But more importantly, it provides relief to communities most susceptible to the effects of climate change.

Securitizing climate change also facilitates the integration of environmental goals into national strategy, which can significantly bolster mitigation efforts by shrinking the security sector's carbon footprint. This shift is crucial, as the U.S. Department of Defense remains the world’s single largest institutional consumer of petroleum and energy.

Under the Biden administration, Executive Order 14008: “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” mandated military services to develop plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions and positioned the United States as a global leader committed to the Paris Climate Agreement. However, these initiatives remain fragile. Recent shifts in executive priorities under the Trump administration demonstrate that a security lens alone cannot guarantee the long-term prioritization of environmental goals.

Additionally, integrating climate concerns into traditional security frameworks carries the risk of unintended militarization. If framed primarily as a threat, climate change can be used to justify border fortification or foreign military interventions rather than addressing the root causes of environmental degradation. For instance, debates over the U.S. southern border can intensify as climate-driven food insecurity in Central America spurs climate migration. Scholars warn of “Avocado Politics”: policies that appear “green” on the surface but are “rotten” at the core, often characterized by restrictive migration and centralized decision-making that bypasses democratic processes. 

Ultimately, applying a state-centric security lens can disregard the human dimension of the crisis, prioritizing territorial defense over humanitarian assistance. Because climate change is a global phenomenon, “closing borders” to protect national interests can distract from the crisis’s underlying drivers while simultaneously undermining international cooperation.

A security lens can sharpen our focus on political mobilization, climate adaptation, and disaster preparedness, but we must ensure it doesn't distort the fundamental objectives of climate action. It should be balanced with human-centric approaches that prioritize global mitigation over nationalist defense. Otherwise, we risk it repainting climate politics entirely.