Future Studies of Military-Security Threats Caused by Climate Change in Iran, Using the Future Wheel Method

Abstract

Climate change is one of the 15 Millennium Challenges for the Future of the World and is one of the seven major challenges facing Iran. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with three climate drivers, presented four possible scenarios by 2100. Each of these scenarios describes the main indicators of climate change, such as temperature and precipitation. But little research has been done about the different implications of these changes in different parts of the world. Climate change over the last 20 years in Iran has had a lot of devastating consequences. Iran is in the semi-arid belt of the world. So, in the last 20 years, there has been a drought, a crisis of microstates, migration, floods, air pollution, severe heat, extreme cold, local conflicts. It is anticipated that in the future the consequences of climate change will spread to Iran. These consequences can have different environmental, political, economic, social and military-security dimensions. We answered this question in this paper that: In the next 30 years, the consequences of climate change, What threats are there in the military arena for the Islamic Republic of Iran? By using the next wheel method and combining this method with expert panels and brainstorming, we achieved more than five possible military threats in the 30-year horizon, the most important consequences are: Border security, social security, internal chaos, foreign conflicts and imposing heavy economic costs on troops.

Keywords

• futures studies
• futures wheel
• climate change
• military-security consequences