Sharma 10 (Rajeev Sharma, journalist-author who has been writing on international relations, foreign policy, strategic affairs, security and terrorism for over two decades, 2/25/2010, "Climate Change = War?" The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2010/02/25/climate-change-war/)
For all the heat generated by discussions of global warming in recent months, it is an often overlooked fact that climate change has the potential to create border disputes that in some cases could even provoke clashes between states. Throw into the mix three nuclear-armed nations with a history of disagreements, and the stakes of any conflict rise incalculably. Yet such a scenario is becoming increasingly likely as glaciers around the world melt, blurring international boundaries. The chastened United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, still doesn’t dispute that glaciers are melting; the only question is how fast. The phenomenon is already pushing Europeans and Africans to redraw their borders. Switzerland and Italy, for example, were forced to introduce draft resolutions in their respective parliaments for fresh border demarcations after alpine glaciers started melting unusually quickly. And in Africa, meanwhile, climate change has caused rivers to change course over the past few years. Many African nations have rivers marking international boundaries and are understandably worried about these changing course and therefore cutting into their borders. Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan are just some of the African countries that have indicated apprehension about their international boundaries. But it is in Asia where a truly nightmarish scenario could play out between India, Pakistan and China–nuclear weapon states that between them have the highest concentration of glaciers in the world outside the polar regions. A case in point is the Siachen Glacier in the Karakoram range, the largest glacier outside the polar region, which is the site of a major bilateral dispute between India and Pakistan. According to scientific data, Siachen Glacier is melting at the rate of about 110 meters a year–among the fastest of any glaciers in the world. The glacier’s melting ice is the main source of the Nubra River, which itself drains into the Shyok River. These are two of the main rivers in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. The Shyok also joins the Indus River, and forms the major source of water for Pakistan. It is clear, then, why the melting of glaciers in the Karakoram region could have a disastrous impact on ties between India and Pakistan. French geologists have already predicted the Indus will become a seasonal river by 2040, which would unnerve Pakistan as its ‘granary basket,’ Punjab, would become increasingly drought-prone and eventually a desert–all within a few decades. It takes no great leap of imagination to see the potential for conflict as the two nations resort to military means to control this water source. Meanwhile, glacier melting could also be creating a potential flashpoint between India and China. The melting Himalayan glaciers will inevitably induce changes to the McMahon Line, the boundary that separates India and China. Beijing has already embarked upon a long-term strategy of throttling of India’s major water source in the north-east–the Brahmaputra River that originates in China. Indo-China territorial disputes go nuclear - results in great-power draw-in
Kahn 9 (Jeremy Kahn, staff writer for Newsweek, 10/9/2009, "Why India Fears China," http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/10/09/why-india-fears-china.print.html)
Ever since the anti-Chinese unrest in Tibet last year, progress toward settling the border dispute has stalled, and the situation has taken a dangerous turn. The emergence of videos showing Tibetans beating up Han Chinese shopkeepers in Lhasa and other Tibetan cities created immense domestic pressure on Beijing to crack down. The Communist Party leadership worries that agitation by Tibetans will only encourage unrest by the country's other ethnic minorities, such as Uighurs in Xinjiang or ethnic Mongolians in Inner Mongolia, threatening China's integrity as a nation. Susan Shirk, a former Clinton-administration official and expert on China, says that "in the past, Taiwan was the 'core issue of sovereignty,' as they call it, and Tibet was not very salient to the public." Now, says Shirk, Tibet is considered a "core issue of national sovereignty" on par with Taiwan. The implications for India's security—and the world's—are ominous. It turns what was once an obscure argument over lines on a 1914 map and some barren, rocky peaks hardly worth fighting over into a flash point that could spark a war between two nuclear-armed neighbors. And that makes the India-China border dispute into an issue of concern to far more than just the two parties involved. The United States and Europe as well as the rest of Asia ought to take notice—a conflict involving India and China could result in a nuclear exchange. And it could suck the West in—either as an ally in the defense of Asian democracy, as in the case of Taiwan, or as a mediator trying to separate the two sides.