Natural Disasters and Conflict
“In November 1970, a storm set a collision course with the most densely populated coastline on Earth. Over the course of just a few hours, the Great Bhola Cyclone would kill 500,000 people and begin a chain reaction of turmoil, genocide, and war.”
The deadliest known tropical cyclone in history made its way north through the Bay of Bengal into the heart of what was then East Pakistan. In their book, The Vortex, Scott Carney and Jason Miklian describe the turmoil caused when the cyclone devastated a fragile country newly created out of the partition of India.
When British rule over India ended in 1947, the largely Muslim areas of India’s east and west extremes became Pakistan. East Pakistan and West Pakistan were separated by over a thousand miles of Indian territory. Relations between East and West Pakistan suffered from differences in geography, language and culture. Following government reforms by the president of Pakistan, General Yahya Khan, general elections were set for December 1970.
Four weeks before the election, on November 11, 1970, the Bhola Cyclone struck East Pakistan. The government, centered in West Pakistan, was criticized for its relief efforts after the storm. The storm “became a flashpoint for political upheaval in Pakistan.” Although East Pakistan urged postponement, elections proceeded as scheduled on December 7. The Awami League, a political party which had been formed to campaign for East Pakistan’s autonomy from West Pakistan, defeated the Pakistan Peoples Party of Yahya Khan.
“The cyclone, combined with Yahya’s callous, catastrophic mishandling of the aftermath, triggered the political momentum for a revolution.” The administration in West Pakistan refused to form a government with the Awami League, nullifying the election. Rioting degenerated into civil war, widening into the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, and declaration of independence for Bangladesh on March 26, 1971. The authors described events as “one of the first times that a natural event helped trigger a civil war.” More people are estimated to have died in the war than in the cyclone.
The relation between natural disasters and conflict was the subject of a 2010 Brookings Institution study. The study concludes that “particularly for developing countries with weak governments, a natural disaster can cause political instability. Indeed, in countries such as Guatemala (1976 earthquake) and Nicaragua (1976 earthquake), governments have fallen largely because of popular discontent over the way the disaster response was organized.”
A Foreign Policy article reported on the June 2021 G7 meeting discussion of collective security and climate change action. ”U.S. and U.K. governments started to consider climate change as a security threat and a driver of instability, even referencing it in their defense strategies. One of the main concerns for both U.S. and British defense officials is that climate change can create conditions that will increase hostilities between or within nations.
These conditions include droughts, floods, wildfires, storms, and other natural disasters that may lead to food and water shortages, mass migration, and outbreaks of disease—potentially leading to violent conflicts over land or resources or civil outrage that could destabilize governments.
The latest UN report on climate change warns the world is on a “fast track’ to disaster, not that we haven’t heard this many times before. “Unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, widespread water shortages,” natural disasters more severe than historical events. Preparing for this future means preparing for conflict as well.