A new mapping tool ties climate change to humanitarian issues including conflict and displacement in countries like Somalia. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

The U.S. military is targeting an unorthodox foe in the battle for political stability in Africa: climate change.

That’s the goal of a new $7.6 million joint military project with the University of Texas, focused on developing a new mapping tool to show where “vulnerability to climate change and violent conflicts intersect throughout the African continent,” according to Scientific American.

The Climate Change and African Political Stability Project (CCAPS) compiles data on civil unrest and other violent conflicts in Africa dating back to 1996. The program also “visualizes multiple dimensions of climate vulnerability and risks in a single map,” Fast.Co.Exist reports, and overlays this with data about conflicts and ongoing climate-related aid initiatives.

The result, project managers hope, will be a tool that shows how climate change causes droughts and food insecurity, which in turn can drive violent local and regional clashes over limited and dwindling resources.

The mapping tool is “a starting point for a conversation … about how we prioritize resources" Joshua Busby, project researcher and assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, told Scientific American.

Climate change impacts can slow economic growth and damage livelihoods. Clearly violent conflict does as well.

Knowing how and where these intersect can help governments and international agencies best allocate limited resources to head off and alleviate impending disasters.

"It is not enough to say ‘Ethiopia is vulnerable’ without explaining which parts of Ethiopia are particularly vulnerable and why," states CCAPS’ research document. “Decision-makers need research that is evidence-based and detail-oriented to help them target aid in the most effective way possible.”

A look at the document’s ‘composite vulnerability’ maps (composed of both climate-related and socio-political indicators) show particularly high risk in troubled countries such as Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But even within each of these, risks vary by location, and a micro-scale understanding is essential for appropriate responses.

The military might not be on the verge of winning the war against climate change. But it’s hopeful that weapons like CCAPS will aid in the battle against its ugliest side-effects.

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Soldiers, the traditional actors in a war, patrol in remote Afghanistan. Not shown here are those that provide comforts on the U.S. bases nearby. Photo: The U.S. Army (flickr)

At the end of a movie, the credits run for cast and crew. At the end of a war, soldiers receive Purple Hearts and well-earned pensions. But when is the production crew of a war recognized?

Lacking in grandiosity, working at a McDonald's inside a U.S. military base isn’t going to win you any medals. And yet, you face the same mortar attacks, the same war zone threats, as soldiers.

In a recent article from The New Yorker, Sarah Stillman reveals the rampant deception involved in recruiting these laborers from the developing world and the slavery-like conditions that prevent them from returning home.

The expansion of private-security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan is well known. But armed security personnel account for only about sixteen per cent of the over-all contracting force. The vast majority—more than sixty per cent of the total in Iraq—aren’t hired guns but hired hands. These workers, primarily from South Asia and Africa, often live in barbed-wire compounds on U.S. bases, eat at meagre chow halls… A large number are employed by fly-by-night subcontractors who are financed by the American taxpayer but who often operate outside the law.

In recent years, federal officials have been spurred into action. The Department of Defense (DoD) initiated an investigation in 2006 following several such grievances. According to the Pentagon-issued directive, FRAGO 06-188 [Trafficking in Persons], (pdf) which went into effect later that same year, “an inspection of contracting activities supporting DoD in Iraq revealed evidence of illegal confiscation of worker (Third Country National) passports by contractors/subcontractors; deceptive hiring practices and excessive recruiting fees, substandard worker living conditions at some sites, circumvention of Iraqi immigration procedures by contractors/subcontractors and lack of mandatory trafficking in persons awareness training.”

Based on a yearlong investigation, Stillman discloses that despite the directive against human trafficking and the Department of Defense's efforts to increase subcontractor accountability, poor workers are still being manipulated, swindled, and robbed.

A typical manpower agency charges applicants between two thousand and four thousand dollars, a small fortune in the countries where subcontractors recruit. To raise the money, workers may pawn heirlooms, sell their wedding rings or land or livestock, and take out high-interest loans... Many learned [upon arrival] that they were to earn as little as two hundred and seventy-five dollars a month as cooks and servers for U.S. soldiers—a fraction of what they’d been promised, and a tiny sliver of what U.S. taxpayers are billed for their labor.

Taking advantage of the least advantaged is despicable enough, but these workers not only lose money and freedom but sometimes their lives. Stillman writes that "for the first time in American history, private-contractor losses are now on a par with those of U.S. troops in both war zones [Iraq and Afghanistan], amounting to fifty-three per cent of reported fatalities in the first six months of 2010." Yes, that is more than half of the total fatalities—and, she notes, the true number is probably higher. The official number is based solely on what the private contracting companies report.

According to the Trafficking in Persons Report 2011, the United States is ranked in Tier 1. This means that the U.S. government has identified human trafficking as a problem and is implementing preventative and remedial laws and programs. After reading Stillman's article, you might question the United States' rating.