How Military Operations Impact the Environment: An In-Depth Look

Military operations can have significant impacts on the environment, both during and after conflicts. Some of how military activities can affect the environment include:

1. Military Pollution of the air, land, and water

The world’s military forces are responsible for the release of more than two-thirds of CFC-113 into the ozone layer. During the Cold War, the US and Soviet armed forces produced enormous amounts of hazardous waste. As a result of naval accidents, there are at least 50 nuclear warheads and 11 nuclear reactors littering the ocean floor. There are more nuclear reactors at sea than on land. The Pentagon generates five times more toxins than the five major US chemical companies combined. The US military is the largest single source of US environmental pollution. The cost of the clean-up of military-related sites is estimated to be upwards of $500 billion. This is in addition to the bill for clean-up of former Soviet military activities – a bill still largely unpaid.

Because of the close links between the nuclear arms industry and civil nuclear power generation, the nuclear weapons industry is partly responsible for the environmental contamination caused by the whole nuclear chain: from uranium mining and milling; through transport of ‘yellowcake’, MOX and other nuclear materials (including the risks inherent in transportation by road, rail and on the high seas, and those associated with nuclear-powered vessels); fabrication of fuel rods; reprocessing and fast-breeder reactors; and the problems of storage of nuclear waste over millennia. Such sites as Chelyabinsk, La Hague, Yucca Mountain, Hanford, Sellafield, and Murmansk are likely to be condemned in perpetuity on account of the huge amounts of nuclear materials they contain. The total cost of dismantling nuclear weapons and their production facilities is not easy to calculate, precisely because of the close inter-connection with nuclear energy production. However, it must surely approach the overall costs of making them in the first place. Some estimates of this reach $3.5 trillion for the US alone. (Center for Defense Information).

The military must also recognise its share of responsibility for climate change, via greenhouse gas emissions, especially from aircraft. And yet it is precisely the military whose activities have been excluded from the scope of the Kyoto Treaty.

2. Environmental Impacts of Military Conflict

Some of the most well-known post-war stresses on the environment (combined with serious dangers to human safety and health) are:

* Radiation from nuclear explosions (Hiroshima, Nagasaki)

* Agricultural degradation due to landmines (many African and Asian countries)

* Unexploded “remnants of war” (UXO) impeding agriculture, eg, cluster bombs (Kosovo,

Afghanistan)

* Chemical agents and burning of oil wells (Gulf War)

A list of the more severe environmental impacts of actual conflicts would also need to include the following:

Scorched-earth tactics. It has been military practice down the ages for retreating armies to lay waste to enemy territory. Historical examples include Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow and the Nazis in the Soviet Union and Northern Norway.

Use of “Agent Orange” and other US defoliants during the Vietnam War, which rendered about a third of Vietnam a wasteland. The Vietnamese farming landscape is defaced by 2.5 million craters. In all the wars between 1945 and 1982, Vietnam lost over 80% of its original forest cover. The ecological devastation of the country will take generations to repair.

The Gulf War had major ecological consequences. Four to eight million barrels of oil were spilled into the sea. 460 miles of coastline have suffered massive damage due to oil spills and burning wells. Crude oil may have long-term chronic effects that will eventually lead to coral death. The fuel-air bombs used to clear minefields pulverised topsoil and destroyed all nearby vegetation. The use of ammunition with depleted uranium led to radiation effects. The coalition forces left huge

quantities of refuse, toxic materials, and 45 – 54 million gallons of sewage in sand pits. The Gulf War “syndrome” experienced by allied troops is believed to be partly a by-product of toxic materials.

During the NATO military action in Kosovo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), severe environmental damage resulted from air attacks. Burning oil refineries leaked oil products and chemicals into the River Danube. Chemical plants were bombed, spreading extremely dangerous substances into the environment. Biodiversity sites were hit in the FRY. Increased levels of radioactivity resulted from the use of depleted uranium ammunition. There was fear that a nuclear power plant might be bombed, which would have spread radioactive substances. The Kosovo conflict was the first where the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) made a post-conflict environmental assessment. A UNEP Task Force concluded that pollution at four localities in Serbia was serious and posed a threat to human health. In Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of anti-personnel landmines litter the fields and mountain passes. There is evidence that the use of ammunition containing depleted uranium in the current conflict with Al-Qaeda may also have led to environmental contamination and long-term health hazards.

2. Militarisation of Outer Space

Outer Space is already militarised, with missile systems dependent on guidance from satellites. The US Missile Defense (MD) Programme, now underway (with the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty restraining ABMs scuppered in June 1992 at US insistence) will step up this process. This is in pursuit of “full spectrum” US military domination. The danger of contamination of space through conventional or nuclear explosions in warfare, if militarization of space continues, will be real. There is an urgent need to negotiate a treaty on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS). The US refuses, however, any pre-commitment to a Treaty in discussions at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva.

3. Nuclear weapons development and production

Nuclear weapons development, manufacturing, storage, transport, disposal, etc, all place strains on the environment and impact human health. Radioactive fallout from the now-banned atmospheric nuclear tests is estimated by some researchers to have already caused as many as 86,000 birth defects and 150,000 premature deaths, and may eventually result in more than two million cancer deaths in the long run. Uranium mining, conducted in many countries, is known to lead to severe cases of contamination, and the same is true of operations along the whole production chain. One has only to survey the scale of the problem at the vast nuclear production site at Hanford, USA, to see the urgency and importance of the task.

It is no secret that the disposal and clean-up of Russia’s surplus stocks of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons also present a tremendous environmental (and security) challenge. The G8 governments at their Calgary Summit (June 2002) finally agreed to devote substantial resources to addressing the issue.

While nuclear facility managers often choose to minimise the problem, local citizens’ groups such as the members of the Military Toxics Network in the US have done important work over long periods to reveal the dangers and to campaign for closure, compensation, etc. In the process of nuclear weapons development and production, government departments, local authorities, the private sector, and labour organisations are important actors. What is needed is a systematic effort to bring them together with those who have the finance and scientific expertise, to ensure that the industry is gradually wound up, provisions are made for the long-term future, and the remaining resources are invested in renewable energies and technologies.

4. Land Use by the Military

People around the world are displaced where the military takes over land (and bodies of water) that the residents need to live on or feed from, for use as bases, target ranges, weapons stores, training grounds, etc. A few of the many examples are Thule in Greenland, where indigenous Inuit were displaced for the US base, and the US bases in Okinawa (Japan), Guantanamo (Cuba), and Diego Garcia. Military activities often involve the use of fuels, explosives, solvents, and other toxic substances. When improperly handled or stored, they can seep into the environment and affect nearby communities. Military exercises often damage farmland and other property, as heavy military vehicles travel over small roads and bridges. In the lands of the Innu (Canada) and elsewhere, noise pollution from low-flying military aircraft has proved a serious menace, including to the rearing of animals. This has prompted the development of a vigorous citizens’ campaign. Environmental and health concerns are often relegated to the back seat in favor of military prerogatives. The recent protests of the inhabitants of the Caribbean Island of Vieques off Puerto Rico are another good example of the environmental and social stresses caused by military bases, and the disregard shown by army planners for local people.

Pakistan is also a state where the military is a powerful institution that has run the de facto government affairs for the last 75 years. They have the actual power to do whatever they do in any institution, whether it is the parliament, judiciary, or executive; no one has dared to stand against them. Ms. Ayesha Siddiqa reveals that the Pakistan army possesses 12 percent of the country’s land, out of which senior military officers own two-thirds. And it can be proven by the following table of cantonment areas in Pakistan by the military.

Table 1

Cantt Names and Location by Pakistan Military

 

No	Cantt	Location	No	Cantt	Location
1.	Mardan Cantt	KPK	1.	Kalabagh Cantt	Punjab
2.	Risalpur Cantt	KPK	2.	Kamra Cantt	Punjab
3.	Nowshera Cantt	KPK	3.	Rahim Yar Khan Cantt	Punjab
4.	Peshawar Cantt	KPK	4.	Dera Ghazi Khan Cantt	Punjab
5.	Cherat Cantt	KPK	5.	Bhawalpur Cantt	Punjab
6.	Bannu Cantt	KPK	6.	Mailsi Cantt	Punjab
7.	Abbotabad Cantt	KPK	7.	Khaniwal Cantt	Punjab
8.	Havallan Cantt	KPK	8.	Manser Cantt	Punjab
9.	Tarbela Cantt	KPK	9.	Sanjwal Cantt	Punjab
10.	Kohat Cantt	KPK	10.	Attock Fort Cantt	Punjab
1.	Karachi Cantt	Sindh	11.	Okara Cantt	Punjab
2.	Clifton Cantt	Sindh	12.	Abdul Hakim Cantt	Punjab
3.	Korangi Cantt	Sindh	13.	Shorkot Cantt	Punjab
4.	Manora Cantt	Sindh	14.	Sargoda  Cantt	Punjab
5.	Malir Cantt	Sindh	15.	DIK Cantt	Punjab
6.	Faisal Cantt	Sindh	16.	Jalapur Cantt	Punjab
7.	Jacabbad Cantt	Sindh	17.	Jhelum Cantt	Punjab
8.	Pertoro Cantt	Sindh	18.	Rawalpindi Cantt	Punjab
9.	Hydrabad Cantt	Sindh	19.	Chunain Cantt	Punjab
10.	Badin Cantt	Sindh	20.	Rahwali Cantt	Punjab
11.	Chhor Cantt	Sindh	21.	Lahore Cantt	Punjab
12.	Pano aqil Cantt	Sindh	22.	Walton Cantt	Punjab
1.	Pasni Cantt	Baluchistan	23.	Sialkot Cantt	Punjab
2.	Omara Cantt	Baluchistan	24.	Kharian Cantt	Punjab
3.	Chaman Cantt	Baluchistan	25.	Attock Cantt	Punjab
4.	Zhob Cantt	Baluchistan	26.	Chaklala Cantt	Punjab
5.	Loralai Cantt	Baluchistan	27.	Wah Cantt	Punjab
6.	Quetta Cantt	Baluchistan	28.	Muree Cantt	Punjab
7.	Sibi Cantt	Baluchistan	1.	Rattu Cantt	GB
8.	Khuzadar Cantt	Baluchistan	2.	Sakardu Cantt	GB
9.	Turbat Cantt	Baluchistan	3.	Gilgit Cantt	GB
10.	Gawadar Cantt	Baluchistan	1.	Mangla Cantt	Kashmir

 

A report was presented in the Senate in 2003. According to which the army is running 27 housing schemes in the country.

In the same period, 16 plots were distributed among 130 officers.

 

Details of land held by the Army:

Lahore. 12 thousand acres

Karachi, 12 thousand acres

Attock. 3000 acres

Taxila. 2500 acres

Peshawar. 4000 acres

Quetta. 2500 acres

Its price is 300 billion rupees.

This was revealed in the National Assembly in 2009.

To mitigate the environmental impact of military operations, several strategies have been implemented, including the pursuit of peaceful solutions to all conflicts, the development and utilization of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, and the adoption of sustainable practices and technologies to reduce waste and pollution. It is essential to consider the environmental consequences of military operations, as they can have long-lasting effects on the health and well-being of ecosystems and human populations.

Source: International Peace Bureau, Geneva, August 2002