On the Frontline of Climate Change is a methodical study - the first of its kind - of larger strategic ramifications of global warming. It examines how climate change will impact on national and international security. Given that climate change can only be slowed but not stopped, it contends that the subject should be elevated to a national-security issue. And given that the world has essentially three choices - mitigation, adaptation and suffering - the greater the mitigation that is done through concerted international action, the less the future suffering and need for adaption.

The books brings out that as the largest and most-populous contintent, Asia is likely to bear the brunt of climate change, making it imperative to build greater institutional and organizational capacity on a national basis. Not only could the long-term linear projections on rapid economic growth in Asia be upset by climate change, but also the region faces the spectre of resource conflicts, large refugee flows and other trans-boundary and internal-security challenges.

The lead author is Brahma Chellaney, a leading strategic-affairs specialist. He is a professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi and the author, most recently of the best-selling Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan (Harper Collins). In writing this succinct volume, Professor Chellaney received valuable research assistance from Heela Najibullah, a New-Delhi-based analyst on non-traditional security issues who has worked with the International Federation of Red-Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in South-East and South Asia.