‘When the military finds a new territory, it will never leave’: ‘Vital climate infrastructures’ as new climate militarisation strategy? Observations from Nepal

Climate security sees an increased engagement of military power and interests with climate change, through expanding discourse and practice. An underexplored element is the recent rise of military involvement in the protection of ‘vital infrastructure’, that is permeating into investments in climate mitigation and adaptation. In Nepal, climate change is leading to increased economic, geopolitical and military interest in three types of ‘infrastructures’: hydro-electricity dams, disaster response and forests. It finds that the presence of police and the army at dams and forests is increasing, or could potentially do so, while that has had negative consequences in the past and brings along risk. Disaster response when infrastructure is damaged is assigned to the army, but it is not self-evident that it is the most effective or appropriate responder. This paper offers new perspectives on what it proposes to be considered ‘vital climate infrastructure’ and which assumptions guide those towards the military realm. This stands to integrate rivers, humanitarian action and potentially forests into green militarisation strategies, subsuming their social and natural value. This accordingly undermines the adaptive capacities and disaster preparedness of people living in the Himalayan country and beyond. The paper concludes with alternatives that foreground just climate action.