Military Expansion in Disaster Response and Its Implications for the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus

Disaster response is a pathway for incorporating climate change principles into the framework of the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) nexus. However, the growing military presence in relief operations poses ethical, operational and political challenges. Based on the literature on green militarism and civil-military relations, a critical examination of the military expansion in disaster response highlights its potential to compromise the humanitarian principles underpinning the Triple Nexus. Given the unease already sparked within humanitarian and development circles by the inclusion of the peace pillar due to its association with notions of hard security, the current trend in disaster response may risk inadvertently promoting militarised aid within HDP programming. Focusing on the Philippines as a case study, the analysis enriches scholarly and policy debates on the Triple Nexus from a previously unexplored perspective and aims to open new research trajectories for further exploration.
Keywords: Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) nexus; Philippines; civil-military relations; climate change; disaster studies