Research Project "Climate Change & Defense" has started

27 August 2026

Photo: CCASCOE (Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence)

The research project "Climate Change & Defense" funded by the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF) has started!

Svenja McGrath and Benno Fladvad research military practice at the intersection of local livelihoods and state sovereignty. Svenja is currently on her first research visit to Canada.

Focusing on the Canadian Arctic, this project, funded by German Foundation for Peace Research, examines how climate-related vulnerabilities are becoming incorporated into priorities and practices of national security and defense. Particular attention is paid to the growing emphasis on ‘deterrence through resilience’ through which civilian infrastructure, local capacities, and community resilience become integrated into national defense considerations, not least due to the recently agreed increased defense spending commitments by NATO Allies. As such, challenges like infrastructure deficits, limited connectivity, and community vulnerability have long shaped life in the North; Increasingly, however, these issues are being framed not only as matters of development or adaptation within civil government spheres but also as central pillars of national sovereignty, operational effectiveness, and deterrence.

The project addresses a central question of the politics of anticipation: as defense institutions assume a growing role in responding to climate change threats, which definitions of risk and security become authoritative, and with what consequences for human and ecological security? Ultimately, the project argues that climate change is not only generating new security challenges but also transforming the institutions, practices, logics and spatial arrangements through which security is attempted to be provided, reshaping the boundaries between civilian and military domains in the contemporary Arctic and beyond.