Climate change has been a key factor in the rise and fall of societies and states from prehistory to the recent fighting in the Sudanese state of Darfur. It drives instability, conflict and collapse, but also expansion and reorganisation. The ways cultures have met the climate challenge provide lessons for how the modern world can handle the new security threats posed by unprecedented global warming.

Combining historical precedents with current thinking on state stability, internal conflict and state failure suggests that overcoming cultural, social, political and economic...

The Arctic is opening. Global warming is leading to seasonal sea-ice retreat, which in turn opens hitherto impassable shipping routes and new areas for resource exploitation. Such changes are elevating the Arctic s geostrategic value and stoking inter-state competition. The admission of five Asian states as Arctic Council observers in 2013 underlines the increased importance of the High North in global politics. And as the sea ice retreats, so military forces are redeployed northwards, raising the prospect of conflict.

Christian Le Miere and Jeffrey Mazo bring much-needed sobriety...