The Department of Defense is seeking ways to transition to more efficient and sustainable energy use to support operations, but a smaller pool of available funding is pitting these efforts against a range of other pressing national security interests.

The nexus of energy, climate change and national security is an area that demands the US military’s attention, said the Defense Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategy Daniel Chiu at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC yesterday. The DoD created a specific energy-focused unit, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Operational Energy, in 2010. It aims to enhance energy security through a combination of reducing use, diversifying supply and incorporating energy-conscious considerations into future planning.

“Initially, we think about this as an operational, near-term, almost tactical issue,” Chiu said. “We can do more with our military capabilities if they are more efficient and based on sustainable energy sources.”

And the US military’s energy costs are not insubstantial. Frequent reference is made to the DoD being the US’ largest energy consumer. “We can minimize costs,” Chiu said.

The Defense Department had previously considered large outlays for energy as a necessary evil. “Our view was, when we were at war, we would bear those costs,” Chiu said. “But we’ve realized that that’s not a sustainable approach from a budgeting or a planning perspective.”

In a broader and longer-term sense, diversity of supply – by source and by supplier – and reduced need can do much to enhance energy security, both for the military and for the US. And any military has an interest in minimizing the risk of interruptions to its own energy supply lines, and diverse, sustainable sources can help to achieve that. “Energy availability can actually change our strategic environment,” Chiu said.

Climate Change

Climate change, likewise, poses near-term and long-term challenges for the US military. Short-term challenges include changes to sea levels with impacts on Coast Guard installations in Alaska “that have to be dealt with immediately”, Chiu said.

Longer-term, the DoD must consider “what the impact could be on food and water scarcity, mass migration, and stability in various parts of the world”, Chiu said.  “I’m thinking very hard about the potential for increasing need for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.”

The Sequestration Effect

But managing these energy and climate issues will require funding, and funding is now in much shorter supply than it has been in the past. The sequester – automatic budget cuts that took effect on March 1 that resulted in a substantially smaller US defense budget – is pitting various initiatives within the DoD against each other for a slice of a much smaller pie.

“All of this is happening against a backdrop of shrinking budgets,” Chiu said. “This has made this an extremely difficult job, because this is not a matter of adding new requirements, this is a matter of prioritizing new requirements. This is a very tough fight.”