The environmental dimension of national security: A test of systems analysis methods

The systems approach permits us to analyze national security as a cluster of interconnected elements, in which the environmental dimension appears to be the most important one. The environmental problem is divided into two main aspects: environmental security per se and the impact of environment on the overall status of a nation's security. It is argued here that the quality of life and health serve as both the main objective and the principal criterion of environmental security in a social system. Indices of these two factors are used in this article as indicators of the state of this type of security. They confirm that vast areas of Russia, the Ukraine, and Central Asia (especially the Aral Sea region) should be considered as presenting a substantial risk to local people and even producing global impacts on both natural and man-made systems. Environmental factors that destabilize national security are also divided into two groups: those that impact social systems directly and negatively (mainly natural disasters) and technological and sociopolitical agents that cause indirect impacts, in both war and peace time, as well as in the civil and military sectors of the economy. Developments in the former Soviet Union (the Commonwealth of Independent States) are used as an illustration of the consequences that such impacts may have on the status of national security.