The
two main threats to the survival and wellbeing of humankind and the
biosphere – war and the environmental crisis – are usually
considered separately. In fact, however, the two problems are closely
connected: neither of them can be solved without at the same time
tackling the other.
On
the one hand, the environmental crisis generates conditions that make
war more likely. Soil erosion, desertification, deforestation,
acidification of the oceans and similar processes intensify
competition for control over arable land, sources of freshwater,
fishing grounds and other natural resources. Alternating flood and
drought augment the flow of refugees. Cross-border impacts fuel new
international tensions.
On
the other hand, war and other military activity – development,
manufacture, testing and maintenance of weapons and equipment,
military training, military games and exercises, disposal of waste –
themselves make a major contribution to the environmental crisis.
Danger and secrecy impede attempts to gauge this contribution and
assessments of environmental issues usually ignore it. That is one of
the main reasons why global heating is proceeding so much more
rapidly than predicted. Even in peacetime, for example, the
Department of Defense is the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the
United States, causing CO2
emissions roughly equal to those of Denmark, but military emissions
are excluded from international climate agreements.
War
devastation
The
list of countries and regions devastated by war is long and growing
longer, from Congo and Libya to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the Gaza
Strip, Yemen and Kashmir. War devastation takes many forms. Some are
well known – the bombed-out buildings, the piles of rubble, the
landmines lying in wait for their victims. Less well known but no
less noxious are the diverse forms of environmental devastation,
including:
*
toxic heavy metals (e.g., lead, tungsten, mercury, molybdenum,
cadmium, cobalt) and white phosphorus deposited by bombing in the
soil and the water supply, causing tumors, congenital deformities and
other serious effects
*
radiation from the depleted uranium (DU) used in manufacturing
munitions, spreading cancer, cerebral palsy and other diseases
(militaries like bullets made of DU fused with metal alloys because
they are better at penetrating armour.)
*
radiation and toxins released into the environment by the bombing of
nuclear power stations and chemical plants
*
urine and excrement in the streets and streams as a result of
destruction of the sewage system
*
oil pollution from damage to pipelines and refineries (Iraqi troops
retreating from Kuwait in 1991 torched 630 oil wells, turning the sea
and sky black.)
Nuclear
war and nuclear winter
Even
a 'minor' nuclear war would be an ecological disaster felt throughout
the world. The best studied case is that of a 'limited' regional
nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which 100 Hiroshima-sized
warheads (less than half of these states' nuclear arsenals) are
detonated mainly over cities. Besides the 20 million projected
short-term deaths and longer-term victims of radiation, such an
exchange would inject up to 6.5 million tonnes of soot into the upper
atmosphere, cooling the global climate for several years and reducing
summer crop yields in various countries by 12-16 percent over a
10-year period.
In
a full-scale nuclear war between Russia or China and the United
States, direct casualties would of course be far higher and the
amount of soot much greater. A prolonged 'nuclear winter' would
ensue, leading to the extinction or near-extinction of Homo
sapiens and other
species (with the exception of primitive organisms in the deep ocean
that do not need sunlight).
Routine
activities
Even
in times of peace the military does enormous harm to the environment
in the course of its routine activities. Thus the Department of
Defense is not only the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the
United States, it is also the largest polluter, generating more toxic
waste than the five biggest American chemical companies combined
(according to an estimate made in the late 1980s – a tonne per
minute).
Let
us consider three specific activities: weapons testing, waste
disposal and war games.
Weapons
testing
Large
tracts of land are devoted to weapons testing. For example, Jefferson
Proving Grounds in Indiana, 250 square kilometers in area, is so
badly contaminated that it has been cordoned off and abandoned.
Before
1963, when the Soviet Union, Britain and the US banned nuclear
weapons testing in the atmosphere, these powers conducted a long
series of tests of atomic and hydrogen bombs in Kazakhstan, the
Australian outback and the Pacific islands, respectively, inflicting
radiation sickness on the indigenous people of these areas, who were
not evacuated or even warned but used as guinea pigs. China continued
nuclear weapons testing at its site in Xinjiang until 1996.
Waste
disposal
The
manufacture and use of weapons generate a huge quantity of
radioactive and toxic waste that somehow has to be disposed of. Often
waste is just dumped into the sea. Much is stored in the ground under
conditions that do not prevent leakage.
A
100-acre basin for the storage of military waste at Rocky Mountain
Arsenal in Colorado has been called 'the earth's most toxic square
mile'. However, there are probably sites in Russia that are no less
toxic and perhaps even less safe, such as Kildin Island in the
Barents Sea, home to used-up nuclear reactors and other parts of old
nuclear submarines.
War
games
War
games and military exercises are a source of less drastic but still
considerable environmental damage, both on land and at sea. Naval war
games, for instance, poison or otherwise harm numerous species of
fish, marine mammals and other sea life. The sensitive auditory
systems of many whales and dolphins are injured by underwater sonar
from submarines. Many non-marine species are also harmed by noise
from military aircraft.
President
Trump's decision at his summit with Kim Jong Un to suspend the annual
war games in South Korea is some small consolation.
Armaments
manufacturing
Then
there is the harm to the environment caused directly or indirectly by
the process of manufacturing armaments. The production of explosives,
for instance, requires toxic chemicals that leak into soil and
groundwater.
A
telling example of the complex interaction between war and
environmental damage is provided by the mining, processing and use of
rare metals and rare earth elements. Besides civilian applications,
these substances are widely used in military electronic systems for
guidance and control, targeting and communications as well as in jet
engines. Their extraction causes severe pollution (see The
Socialist Standard,
MW, May 2011). Moreover, there is high potential for conflict over
control of deposits, as in the war in eastern Congo – a rich source
of the rare metals cassiterite and coltan (see The
Socialist Standard,
MW, January 2009).
Thus
rare metals and rare earth elements are needed for use in war and war
is waged to control them, while both their processing and their use
in war cause great harm to the environment.
One
World
The
problem of war and the environmental crisis will find their joint
resolution – if, that is, they are to be resolved at all – in the
creation of One World – an undivided global community. Material and
human resources will no longer be wasted and destroyed in war. People
will devote their energy and talents to repairing a poisoned planet
and devising an ecologically sustainable way of life.
STEFAN
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