The Security Issue Complex: 'Climate Change, Energy, Resources, and Crisis Commodities'

In the paper on the security issue complex of “climate, energy, resources, and crisis commodities”, the authors will first show that each foundational dimension of the security issue complex, namely climate, energy, resources, and crisis commodities, is profoundly intertwined with each other, which in turn necessitates and justifies the setting-up of this security issue complex. Furthermore, it will be shown that many of these intricate relationships run in a bi-directional way, meaning that each part of a pair of these elements can act upon and shape the very condition of the other. Most importantly, this bi-directional relationship can be assessed for the conceptual pairs “climate – energy”, “climate – resources”, and “energy – resources”, but also, to a lower extent, however, for the conceptual pair “climate – crisis commodities”. Second, it will be shown that within this security issue complex, it is of particular importance to profoundly take into account the innumerable interactions and interdependencies between various referent objects of security, namely, among others, national security, human security, regime security, and – to some extent, at least – also societal security. In a third step, the authors will then connect the interwoven foundational elements from step one with the entangled referent objects of security from step two in order to highlight the precise and specific nature of the general dynamics at work within this security issue complex. In doing so, the authors will in particular highlight the complex, intricate, and peculiar security challenges posed by both rising sea levels and mean temperatures, desertification, decreasing precipitation and declining soil moisture, which in turn are adversely affecting individual human beings, and the security of regimes, societies, and nations.