Daily Times

The military strategist Clausewitz said, ‘War is nothing but continuation of political interests’ and political philosopher Machiavelli said, “Politics has no relation to morals”. So the ultimate purpose of wars and conflicts is to achieve your purposes, break the enemy will by all means. War and conflicts are as old as human history itself.

The techniques and strategies to win the wars developed with the passage of time. The outcomes of wars and conflicts always come up with heavy prices that include collateral damages including loss of precious lives, destruction of infrastructure, financial crises, health problems and environmental degradation.

The impacts of war and conflicts on environment are both direct and indirect. The direct negative impacts include blasts damages to human settlements, infrastructure, communication networks, disrupting the waste management systems and destruction of resources like oil fields, agriculture lands. Some other impacts include the mass immigration shifting the burden of resources from one place to another place, disturbing the whole ecosystem.

With the industrial revolution, modern techniques of warfare were adopted by the nations to protect their interests. Man started to conquer the oceans and space with warships and aircrafts. These contraptions made things worse by polluting the sky and seas

In olden times, kings and monarchs used the techniques of polluting the waters of rivers with poison to blockade the water supply to enemy. These techniques proved fatal to water life as well. Similarly, another important idea in former times was to set the bridges and forests on fire to prohibit the enemy forces marching towards the forts and palaces. These strategies produced carbon emission into atmosphere and degraded the environment.

With the industrial revolution, modern techniques of warfare were adopted by the nations to protect their interests. Man started to conquer the oceans and space with warships and aircrafts. These inventions further deteriorated the situation by polluting air and water with oils and gunpowder.

In Second World War, when enemy forces seemed to capture Soviet Union initially, Soviet government adopted Policy called ‘Scorched Earth Policy’. Under Scorched Earth Policy Soviet did the systematic destruction, burning and blowing up of the immovable infrastructure, inventories of all kinds, factory buildings, mines, residential areas, public buildings, public records, and even cultural monuments; and the intentional starvation of the civilian population which remained behind to face German occupation.

Second World War also Introduced and tested atomic bomb and left behind all weapons for environmental degradation. When atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it released destructive heat and blind radiations. The extreme heat of thermal radiation burned everything in its path, including animals, trees, buildings and people. The nuclear radiation penetrated the body and many of those who didn’t die from radiation or burns, later developed cancers from the radiation. In longer run, radiations contaminated waters, destroyed the forests and killed wildlife as well. The effects of atomic blasts can still be found in young generation of Japan in form of various physical discrepancies. After practical application of nuclear bombs in World War-II initiated the arm race among nations. Soon after, countries like Soviet Union, China, England and France also developed nuclear weapons at the cost of environmental degradation.

However, for a brief period, nations realised the consequence of this arm race during the period called Détente. In this period, states signed treaties like Sea Bed Treaty 1971 banning the emplacement of nuclear weapons or on the ocean floor beyond a 12-mile (22.2 km) coastal zone to protect the oceans aquatic life from environmental issues. Similarly Outer Space Treaty 1967 was a multilateral treaty to protect space from harmful consequences of arms race.

This period was very short lived and competition among nations started again to rearm them. The Afghan War in 1980,s put the burden of mass immigration on the natural resources of Pakistan. According to Strategic Institute of Studies five million Afghan refugees have been living in Pakistan since 1979. According to Dr AM Mannion in his Research Paper title The Environmental Impacts of War & Terrorism, “The destruction of oil wells in Kuwait during the Gulf war of 1990-1991 also caused widespread environmental contamination. Iraqi troops released about 11 million barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf. This affected approximately 1290km of the region’s coastline, notably in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Local fishing industries and many marine species, such as turtles, whales, dugongs and sea birds, has been adversely affected”.

Other than direct arm conflicts between states, terrorist groups are another challenge for environment issues. The terrorist groups can use any mean to spread terror among public without any consideration including environmental care. The 9/11 attacks on World Trade Centre entirely changed the environment of New York city immediately. The dust particles of the collision polluted whole atmosphere for many days. The millions of tons debris remained on the streets of Manhattan changed whole beauty of the city. Similarly Pakistan lost $123.1 billion in War on Terror that includes environmental destruction in form of infrastructure damages like schools, houses, roads, and bridges etc.

Similarly current crises in Syria have negative implications for environment of the country. Severe damages are being done to chemical industries, oil industries, power plants and sewerage system. This has led to accumulation of million of garbage and debris of destroyed buildings containing many poisonous, hazardous substances and metals, giving birth to many diseases among population.

Many conflicts in the world are due to the greed of natural resources like diamonds, oil & gas, water resources. The ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan on water resources is also wasting millions of litters of water on annual bases. Similarly most of the Middle Eastern crises are backed by intentions of great powers for ‘Environmental Imperialism’.

World needs to join hands against the negative environmental implications of wars and conflicts. However, United Nations realised the exploitation of environment in wars and armed conflicts in 2001 and declared 6th November the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.

The developed nations should not be charged for environmental degradation for their bigger contribution in carbon emissions but for also their strategies to dominate the world through armed conflicts and environmental imperialism. They must pay and contribute in Global Green Climate Fund for their involvement in destabilising the Mother Nature during wars. The countries, which faced the wars and conflicts, must add cost of environmental damages.

The writer is based in Islamabad, Pakistan and works on environmental issues. She can be reached at zilehuma_1@hotmail.com. She tweets at @zilehumma_1

Published in Daily Times, April 4^th 2018.