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The article presents a conference paper titled "Who Cares about the Weather? Climate Change and U.S. National Security" prepared for the annual conference of the International Studies Association in Honolulu, Hawaii. It seeks to link the issue of climate change with energy security, nuclear proliferation, disasters and reputational concerns. It also aims to introduce a line of new climate change political science research that speaks to the ambitions of the original proponents of environmental security.

Climate change is a novel problem. Never before has the human species had the capacity to alter the planet’s basic life-sustaining functions in as fundamental a way as it does now. Nor have our modern economic and geopolitical systems faced a fundamental ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transformations in energy systems, as the historian John McNeill has argued, have often had a major effect on great power politics. The heavy use by the Dutch of fossil fuels helped them develop their economy and give them scope for geopolitical reach. In ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2000 presidential campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush called for a "humbler" foreign policy.. Yet as President, Bush surprised both domestic and international audiences through a series of actions overtly hostile to existing multilateral policy instruments: his Administration declared the Kyoto Protocol "dead;" de-signed the treaty in support of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and punished countries that failed to sign immunity agreements with the United States; undermined enforcement protocols for the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions; and withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). These policy changes all occurred before September 11th, frequently cited as the “shock” that caused the United States’ dramatic shift towards a policy of unilateralism and the aggressive use of national power. The puzzle that animates this paper is, "How was this set of unilateralist ideas about foreign policy, which were not clearly evident in the campaign, able to take hold in the Republican Party and Bush Administration? How did these ideas overcome and displace the counter-vailing establishment internationalism that had largely governed the policies of the Clinton Administration and most of his predecessors since World War II?" This paper show how these unilateralist ideas gained expression by looking at several key, pre-September 11th instances of unilateralismâ€"the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, the ICC, and the ABM Treaty. Our explanation is that the Bush Administration was elected in 2000 exclusively on domestic policy grounds. Americans were not paying much attention to foreign policy in the 2000 elections. The end of the Cold War and America's unipolar moment gave the United States considerable slack for what kind of foreign policy it would pursue. However, undercurrents of traditional isolationism (what we call conservative nationalism) and neo-conservativism (what we call liberal nationalism) both were rising up in the Republican Party to cut against establishment internationalism, the governing philosophy of the Cold War era that united liberal internationalists and conservative internationalists (in other words, realists) in a broadly multilateralist grand coalition. The twin strands of the new anti-multilateralism in the Republican Party were exemplified in Congress by Jesse Helms (largely a conservative nationalist) and in the Executive Branch by Paul Wolfowitz (largely a liberal nationalist). While they differed over the degree to which U.S. influence could reshape the world in its image, both were united in their relative hostility to the existing multilateral instruments and orientations that had characterized Cold War and Clinton era policymaking. The 2000 elections and the capture of the Executive Branch and both houses of Congress, we argue, allowed those groups to gain politically and bureaucratically at the expense of liberal and conservative internationalists through chairmanships of key Congressional committees as well as the appointments process in the Executive Branch. This electoral change thus allowed expression of these tendencies which were then reinforced by the events of September 11th, 2001. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is climate change a valid national security issue for the United States? Even taking a narrow definition of national security, there are clearly ways in which climate change already constitutes a national security concern for the United States. This article evaluates a number of these potential linkages including the directs effects of climate change on the territorial United States, the effects of climate change on the country's extraterritorial interests, and the security externalities of energy and climate change. I offer an account of Ònational securityÓ that is consistent with conventional understandings of security but that also leaves room for environmental harms. In so doing, I also identify criteria by which climate change could constitute a threat to national security. While some of these linkages--the risks from rising sea levels--may have been over-dramatized by enthusiastic advocates, other examples--such as the risks of extreme weather events both to the homeland and to America's strategic interests overseas--may be more likely to cause security problems for the United States in the short- to medium-run. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What has happened to establishment internationalism in U.S. foreign policy? Conventional wisdom is rapidly becoming that generational, demographic, and cultural changes within the United States are inexorably leading to the decline of the broad, post-war internationalist consensus that dominated American foreign policy since 1945. Despite considerable diversity, this new cohort of foreign policy types is thought to be more unilateralist and America-first oriented than the preceding generation, and its rise is thought to be a product of both the death of the World War II generation of diplomats and the ascension of new groups and individuals as the political center of gravity in the US has shifted South and West. Despite the frequent assertion that this change has taken place, however, no study has analyzed whether or not in representation or belief if the foreign policy establishment that has emerged is qualitatively or compositionally different. To measure whether or not internationalist representation and thought has experienced a secular decline, this paper identifies a set of empirical indicators to track (1) changes in foreign policy voting patterns by members of Congress (2) changes in representation in the foreign policy elite and (3) changes of beliefs of the main foreign policy players in the Executive Branch and the U.S. Congress. First, we track the voting scores of members of Congress for their “conservative” or “liberal” character using the foreign policy votes from the American Conservative Union (1970-2004) and Americans for Democratic Action (1948-2004). Our second set of indicators track the state of birth, educational profile, and formative international experience of a cross-section of the U.S. foreign policy-making elite, including congressional chairmen and appointed positions in the Department of State, Department of Defense, and the National Security Council. Our third and fourth sets of indicators seek to track the ideational patterns of elite thought as represented by Presidential State of the Union addresses and party platform manifestos. While we find support for increasing partisan polarization in Congress on foreign policy, there is only mixed evidence to suggest that internationalism has experienced a secular decline. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the response by rich industrialized countries to a subset of primarily moral and humanitarian issues that emanate from or disproportionately affect developing countries including debt relief, climate change, HIV/AIDS, and the International Criminal Court. Why were some of these issues—climate change, the ICC—so contentious while debt relief and HIV/AIDS were not? The basic argument of the paper is that where the U.S. fails to advance a constructive plan to address an issue and proves unwilling to bear the costs of leadership, this creates opportunities and incentives for European political grandstanding to placate domestic public opinion and buttress the institutional project of the European Union. Where the U.S. leads and does not abdicate in this class of issue areas, there are fewer opportunities and pressures for grandstanding, leading to less contention and politicization of the issue. The article also distinguishes grandstands from true moral stands, drawing on the literature on costly signaling, suggesting that the former involve cheap expressions of political outrage whereas the latter imply more substantial investments of political and physical capital. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the source and significance of the transatlantic divide between the U.S. and Europe. The paper examines several explanations such as Robert Kagan’s argument that American preferences for unilateralism and European preferences for multilateralism stem from underlying power positions. Drawing on John Ikenberry’s work, the essay notes that multilateralism is often a successful tool of great powers. The paper then considers Charles Kupchan’s argument that great powers inevitably decline. With Europe on the rise and eager to play a more dominant role, Kupchan suggests more conflict can be expected. As evinced by a widening cultural gap on issues such as the death penalty, Kupchan envisions strains in the transatlantic alliance that only conscientious policymakers can mute. While sympathetic to Kupchan’s argument, the essay takes issue with his assessment of European cohesiveness and the extent of the values gap. Through the analysis of climate change politics, the paper concludes that domestic political processes and institutional configurations undermine transatlantic cooperation and accentuate values differences, particularly on issues such as the use of force. Like Kupchan, the essay suggests that policymakers can mitigate these problems, but success will require appeals to respective domestic polities that compromises are necessary to further the common good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]