Making a World of Climate Insecurity: The Threat Multiplier Frame and the US National Security Community

Abstract

How do dominant framings of climate change and security shape the future trajectory of climate security? This article answers these questions by analyzing the dominant threat multiplier framing of climate change and security in the American national security context. Using the emergent worldmaking concept, it argues that American national security organizations’ intellectual and physical responses to questions of climate security risk creating a dismal and limited future in which national security systems adopt a reactive and managerial posture toward the effects of climate change. The key effect of this frame is to reorient questions of climate and security around the priorities and agendas of national security organizations rather than at the sources of need and instability.