Military practitioners must be creative and critical thinkers while confronting today's broad range of traditional and nontraditional national security issues. An analysis of the current climate change policy debate demonstrates the value of considering nontraditional problem sets in an effort to enhance creative and critical thinking. When approaching complex problems such as climate change and other national security threats, policy makers should consider all available tools. One such tool is the Army Design Methodology (ADM). A team using ADM has the potential to change the direction of the current climate change policy debate in order to foster consensus-based action. An analysis of the current climate change policy debate will highlight some of the major friction points in the debate where ADM could help policy makers. In doing so, this will provide military practitioners training in identifying potential bottlenecks and applying critical thinking in other complex problem systems. Policy makers are not generating consensus-based action on climate change. Creative and critical thinking and ADM can help policy makers and by extension, military practitioners on future problems.

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