Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
War and the Environment: A Conceptual Framework
DUTCH, Steven I., Natural and Applied Sciences,
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Green Bay, WI 54311-7001.
The 1991 Persian Gulf War generated a great deal of discussion about environmental warfare, but that conflict saw neither the first nor even the largest-scale acts of environmental warfare. Environmental warfare is very ancient; even foot soldiers armed with spades have generated massive environmental damage. The effects of war on the environment can be divided into four main components:
SLIDE 2 - (Slide of Gulf War)
During the Persian Gulf war of 1991, it was common to hear claims that the war had introduced something new: environmental warfare. I intend to show in my presentation that environmental warfare is ancient, that even armies of horse soldiers equipped with spades have modified the environment on a large scale, and to present a conceptual framework for describing military effects on the environment. Within that framework, I will identify what was actually new about the Persian Gulf war.
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SLIDE 3
War and the Environment
1. Collateral Effects
2. Use of Environment as a Weapon
3. Environmental Modification to Aid Own Operations or Impede Enemy
4. Eco-Terrorism
With no exaggeration and little effort, one can assemble a literal ton of material about the effect of the environment on military actions; mountain warfare, jungle warfare, winter warfare, and so on. Surveys of the effect of military operations on the environment are less common. I identify four components of military effects on the environment: Collateral Effects, Use of Environment as a Weapon, Environmental Modification to Aid Own Operations or Impede Enemy, and Eco-Terrorism. Military actions may include some or all of these components to varying degrees.
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SLIDE 4
No Military Intent to Cause Damage
Examples:
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SLIDE 5 (Slide of Sphinx)
Vandalism - soldiers will take pot shots at things. Not only did the ancient Egyptians carve a perfectly good yardang into a sphinx, but Napoleon's troops about 200 years ago shot its nose off. Good armies strive to control vandalism, bad armies tolerate or even encourage it. Where actively condoned, vandalism may grade into eco-terrorism.
Siegfried Line
Former East European Frontiers
Military Reservations
Political Power to Resist Development
Vested Interest in Preserving Realistic Training Environment
Military activities can sometimes preserve the environment. Along the World War II Siegfried Line, and along Former East European Frontiers are tracts of land not disturbed for decades, some of the little undisturbed land in Europe. Military Reservations are often the last large tracts of undeveloped land in many places. The military has the political power to resist development pressures, and also has a vested interest in preserving a realistic training environment, which means limiting damage to terrain and plant cover.
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SLIDE 7
Deliberate Triggering of Environmental Effect to Cause Direct Damage to Enemy Forces
Passive use of the environment as a combat multiplier is an ancient military tactic: waiting for suitable weather or moon phase, channeling the enemy into unfavorable terrain, and so on. That's not the sense implied here.
Active triggering of environmental effects makes for fun movies like Under Siege II but is comparatively rare in reality. Until recently we lacked the scientific knowledge and technical capability to trigger environmental effects deliberately. The opportunity to trigger environmental effects arises infrequently, and most of the time environmental effects are inefficient at causing damage, compared to conventional military means. For example, if the enemy is cooperative enough to put his headquarters at the base of an unstable cliff within artillery range, why not just shell the headquarters directly?
The mountain warfare in the Alps during World War I is probably the best example in history of the use of the environment as a weapon. Both Italian and Austrian forces used artillery to trigger snow avalanches on their opponents, with the loss of thousands of lives. This is one of the very rare cases where natural effects amplify a man-made trigger effectively. During World War II, the Allies launched "Dam Busting" raids on dams in the Ruhr valley. To the extent that downstream flooding was militarily effective, this is another example.
Small-Scale: Virtually all Military Construction
Large-Scale:
The defoliation of South Vietnam is probably the best example of envrironmental modification to deprive the enemy of cover. Because tactical situations change so rapidly, there are not too many examples of large-scale tactical modification of the environment to improve mobility. Some of the best were river-modification efforts during the Civil War.
SLIDE 12 (Slide of New Madrid area)
This is an interesting piece of territory. It includes New Madrid and Reelfoot Lake of seismological fame. It also includes the only place in the U.S. where a state is divided into separate pieces. And here occurred the first step in regaining control of the Mississippi during the Civil War.
In 1862, Island Number 10 was in mid-channel and fortified by the Confederacy, blocking the river from there south. The troops could march, but the barges were needed for river-crossing assaults, and they could not survive a run past the Confederate batteries. To get troop barges past the island, a ditch was dug to connect backwaters across the meander bend. A gunboat, the Carondelet, made a nighttime run past the island, followed by others, and that was pretty much that. With gunboats and assault craft on both sides, the Confederates abandoned the area and lost the Tennessee portion of the Mississippi.
SLIDE 13 (Slide of Vicksburg area)
- Omit if time constrained
By mid-1863, Vicksburg was the only Confederate position on the Mississippi. Union forces could approach it from the north or south, but moving forces from one side to the other involved lengthy detours. An attempt was made to cut a ditch across the bend west of Vicksburg to move forces more easily; ditches were cut in several other places as well. Had any of them been located at true oxbow meanders, the efforts might have worked. But they weren't and didn't.
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SLIDE 14 (Map of Louisiana)
- Omit if time constrained
One final example is interesting because it prevented a mistake from turning into a disaster: in the spring of 1864, the Union made an ill-conceived attempt to capture Shreveport. Falling river levels stranded the Union gunboats. Destroying the gunboats would be a disaster but abandoning them was unthinkable; it was tantamount to giving the Confederacy an ironclad fleet on the Mississippi. Wisconsin and Maine infantrymen, mostly lumberjacks in civilian life, made use of a lumberjack tactic. They dammed the river, refloated the gunboats, then broke the dams and floated the gunboats out of danger on the flood waters.
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SLIDE 15
When we turn to strategic modification of the environment to enhance mobility, we find massive projects. During World War I, the Army quickly found that U.S. railroads could not serve its logistical needs and turned to truck convoys. Civilian motorists soon found that the convoy routes offered such unheard-of amenities as regular maintenance, snow plowing, and route markers.
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SLIDE 16 (Slide of 1922 Pershing map)
Shortly after the war, General Pershing proposed a national network of military and civilian highways. He ranked his routes by priority, shown here in red for highest priority, green for second and blue for third. Those of you with extensive field trip experience will recognize many of today's highways.
(Omit if Time Constrained)
The differences between this map and today's Interstate system are as interesting as the similarities. They reflect:
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SLIDE 17 (Map of Interstate System)
In 1919, the Army drove the first truck convoy across the United States, taking three weeks. One of the participants was a young lieutenant named Dwight Eisenhower. Years later, as President, he signed the act creating the Interstate Highway System, officially called the Interstate and Defense Highway System. It looks very much like the network Pershing proposed. On this map, routes are colored as on the previous slide. Dotted routes connect major cities as suggested by Pershing, but differ in location.
The fact that the system is Interstate and Defense Highway System accounts for the anomaly that Hawaii has Interstate highways: they connect all the major defense installations.
The U.S. love affair with the auto, with all its social and environmental impacts, would probably have happened anyway, but its actual development was strongly influenced by military considerations.
Impair Enemy Mobility
Deprive of Supplies
It is usually easier to mess things up instead of improve them, especially in war, so it is no surprise that environmental modification to impede the enemy is so prominent in military history. I will focus on an example of river diversion from each category.
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SLIDE 19 (Map of Huang He)
The Huang He in northern China has created a flood plain that is actually a gigantic alluvial fan. The river historically has alternated between outlets north and south of the Shandong Peninsula. In July 1938, to impede the invading Japanese, the Chinese blew the levees and diverted the river. The effect on the Japanese was minimal, but perhaps 500,000 Chinese died in the floods. In terms of loss of life, this is arguably the worst act of environmental warfare ever.
This is a frustrating episode to document. Chronicles of natural disasters omit it because it was the result of military action, and histories of World War II omit it because it was militarily ineffective.
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SLIDE 20 (Map of Aral Sea)
River diversions improve access to besieged cities, and cut off their water supply. Like the Huang He, the Amu-Darya flows onto a vast alluvial fan. At various times in the past, it has emptied into Lake Sarikamish (where some of the presently-diverted water ends up) and thence to the Caspian via the Uzboy channel. Diversions have been both natural and artificial; for example, the Mongols diverted the river in 1221 during the siege of Urganj.
Of all the volumes written on the Aral Sea ecological disaster, few writers seem to be aware of the complex diversion history of this river, or that there have been previous artificial diversions.
Eco-Terrorism is comparatively modern because only recently have we had the technological capability to create real envirronmental havoc, and only recently has concern for the environment become serious enough for eco-terrorism to be a credible threat. The thought of Genghis Khan or Tamerlane diverting a campaign to protect vulnerable habitat is grimly humorous.
Scorched earth campaigns have been directed mostly against structures and agriculture, but certainly contain a strong element of eco-terrorism. The Shenandoah Valley campaign and Sherman's March to the Sea during the Civil War are examples from American history. One of the most horrific examples was the Mongol invasion of Iraq. The Iraq of today is not the Iraq of a thousand years ago; until the Mongol invasion Baghdad was one of the cultural centers of the world, supported by an irrigation complex thousands of years old. The Mongols annihilated Baghdad, destroyed the canals, and so thoroughly depopulated the country that the canals were never restored.
Time and again we find the Mongols doing things in a manner or scale that would not be seen again until the Twentieth Century. It's almost as if Patton and Rommel had fallen through a crack in space-time and come out in the Thirteenth Century.
In 1945 Hitler ordered a scorched earth retreat in Germany, which was fortunately disregarded by his subordinates.
The events of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 are unique in being pure eco-terrorism. The other examples cited here have at least some military justification, but the Sea Island Oil Spill and firing of the Kuwait Oil Wells were motivated almost entirely by a desire to damage the environment. It is in this respect that the 1991 Persian Gulf War brought something new to warfare.
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Created 4 August 2004, Last Update 11 January 2020
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