As climate change intensifies, a major issue is to understand how rapidly changing geophysics and war are intertwined. Since 2013, at the Red Team Analysis Society we study the way climate change, the military and geopolitics interact (Climate change security, The Red Team Analysis Society). Since then, things have changed dramatically. The complex relationship between …
Author Archives: Dr Jean-Michel Valantin (PhD Paris)
The Military and the “Climate Blowback” – Summer 2021 (1)
The impacts of climate change are intensifying. Some of these are the multiplying extreme weather events, such as mega wildfires and giant floods. The intensity and the scale of these events are now so important threatening for infrastructures, ecosystems and human life, that they entail a growing mobilisation of military forces. Thus, we need to …
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Antarctic China (2) – China’s Planetary Game
(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli) A planetary Go game: Most Western geopolitical observers seem to be unable to see the planetary scale strategy that China deploys in the Antarctic (Alexander B. Gray, “China’s Next Geopolitical Goal: Dominate Antarctica”, The National Interest, 20 March 2021). The roots of this “very Great Game” run deep in Chinese history and …
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Antarctic China (1): Strategies for a Very Cold Place
Going South While being under the increasing pressure of climate change, the Antarctic is attracting the strategic attention of China. Since 1983, China is a member of the 1959 international Antarctic treaty. This international treaty defines Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans all military activity on the continent (The Antarctic Treaty). …
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The Chinese Fishing Fleet, Influence and Hunger Wars
(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli) The Chinese fishing fleet is a gigantic organisation. It is composed of a mind-numbing number of ships, “somewhere” between 2.600 and 17.000 distant-water fishing ships (M. Guttierez, A. Daniels, G. Jobbins, G. Guttierez Almazor, C. Montengro, China’s Distant Water Fleet, Scale, Impact and Governance, ODI, 2020). These myriads of ships operate …
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Losing Texas to Climate Change and the COVID-19?
(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli) From Texas with Cold In February 2021, a “polar vortex ” swept through the U.S. and triggered a “perfect (winter) storm” that ravaged Texas (Johny Diaz, Guilia Mc Donnell, Nieto del Rio, Richar Faussett, “ Texas extreme cold snap has killed residents in their homes, cars and backyards”, SBS News, 20 …
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China, the “Health Silk Road” of Vaccines, and Security
Beyond the proliferation of the Chinese vaccine Enters Sinopharm On 14 January, Hungary’s government signed an agreement with the giant company Sinopharm in order to purchase millions of doses of the Chinese CoronaVac (CCV) (“In EU first, Sinopharm Coronavirus vaccine approved by Hungary”, Nikkei Asia, 31 January, 2021). One week before, it had made a …
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Is the West Losing the Warming Arctic?
Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli The militarization of the Arctic – So what? Over the last few years, NATO, the U.S. and Scandinavian militaries have been multiplying national and regional manoeuvres in the Arctic. This is especially true in Norway and the Barents Sea, very close to the Norwegian and Russian land, air and sea frontiers. …
Adapting to the Burning World?
Design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli A Bright and Burning Future Over the last years, each summer, tsunamis of fire surge in North America, Russia, Africa, South Asia, and Europe. Each year, they break former records and spread wider, while becoming much more intense. These fires define the parts of the world that are going to become a …
Global Apocalypse Now, the California Way
Design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli Facing Apocalypse The Apocalypse literally means “the Book of Revelation”. From a theological as well as heuristic point of view, it means that the Apocalypse is the moment in history when entire societies are forced to lift the veils of illusions. Doing so, the revelation of the real state of things emerges, …
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