Warfare in a Fragile World: Military Impact on the Human Environment

Among the crucial problems that confront mankind today are those associated with a degraded environment. This book examines the extent to which warfare and other military activities contribute to such degradation. The military capability to damage the environment and to cause ecological disruption has escalated, and there is no sign that the level of conflict in the world is decreasing. The military use and abuse of each of the several major global habitats—temperate, tropical, desert, arctic, insular, and oceanic—are evaluated separately in the light of the civil use and abuse of that habitat. It is concluded that ecological considerations have not weighed heavily in past human affairs, whether civil or military, and that such neglect is becoming ever more dangerous, especially in view of the awakening demands of an increasingly overpopulated world. It is hoped that consideration for the natural ecology of the different world habitats (some of which are indeed fragile) and of the globe as a whole will deter armed forces from pursuing at least their more blatant anti-ecological strategies and tactics.