War and the Environment

War and the Environment

• Passive Use of Environment

• Collateral Effects

• Use of Environment as a Weapon

• Environmental Modification to Aid Own Operations or Impede Enemy

• Eco-Terrorism

• Military actions may include some or all of these components to varying degrees.

The Choke Point

The Choke Point

Collateral Damage• No Military Intent to Cause Damage• Rutting by Vehicles• Cratering (Bombturbation)• Fire• Injury to Plants and Animals

– Threat to mountain gorillas from civil war in Africa– May actually be less damaging to flora and fauna than normal

commerce, development and agriculture.• Chemical Contamination• Nuclear Accidents

– Accidental release of chemicals or radiation, as opposed to chemical or nuclear warfare.

• Vandalism

Vehicle Damage, Bosnia

Battle Damage, Kuwait

Battle Damage, Kuwait

Vandalism

Vandalism

Buddhas of Bamyan

Collateral Protection

• Siegfried Line

• Former East European Frontiers

• Military Reservations

• Political Power to Resist Development

• Vested Interest in Preserving Realistic Training Environment

Former East

German Frontier

Vehicle Damage, Germany

Collateral Protection, California

Environmental Modification to Aid Own Operations or Impede Enemy

• Small-Scale: Virtually all Military Construction

• Large-Scale:– Aid Own Operations

• Deprive Enemy of Cover• Improve Own Mobility

– Impede Enemy Operations• Impair Enemy Mobility• Deprive of Supplies

Earthworks, Fort Ticonderoga

St. Lawrence River, Quebec

Earthworks, Quebec

Alcatraz, California

Environmental Modification to Aid Own Operations

• Deprive Enemy of Cover or Sanctuary– South Vietnam - Defoliation

• Improve Own Mobility– Tactical:

• River modification - Civil War

– Strategic:• German Autobahns• U.S. Interstate System• Suez and Panama Canals

Island Number Ten and

New Madrid,

1862

Vicksburg Canals, 1863

Red River Campaign

and Bailey’s Dam, 1864

World War I and Highways

• Railroads insufficient for Army’s needs

• Army turned to truck convoys

• Civilians found convoy routes featured such revolutionary innovations as:

– Route Markings

– Regular Maintenance

– Snow Removal

Pershing’s Map, 1922

The Interstate Highway System

I-70, Glenwood Canyon, Colorado

I-70, Glenwood Canyon, Colorado

The Suez Canal

Suez Canal• Connections between Nile and Red Sea

dug in ancient times

• Modern canal by Ferdinand de Lesseps 1858-1869

• Easy terrain

• Principal winner: Britain enabled to extend military reach

• Red Sea organisms invading Mediterranean

The Suez-Panama Connection• De Lesseps took on the job of building a

canal across Panama

• Nobody else could have kept the project going as long as it did

• 22,000 died before project abandoned in 1893

• French actually excavated about 1/3 of canal

• Built railroad across Panama

The Nicaragua Alternative

Continental Divide, Nicaragua

Volcan Momotombo

Nicaragua or Panama?

• French lobbied hard to have the U.S. take over their route in Panama

• An ill-timed postage stamp killed the Nicaragua route

• French investors in Panama bought out

The Panama Canal

• U.S. and Colombia sign treaty in 1901 to build canal

• Colombian Senate refuses to ratify

• U.S. backs separatist revolt in Panama

How U.S. Succeeded

• Disease control

• Life support for workers to ensure long term commitment

• Get a Bigger Hammer– Bigger equipment– U.S. experience with railroads

New Lock Construction

Gaillard (Culebra) Cut

Deepening the Canal

Rio Chagres

Dredging

Dredging

Gatun Locks

Gatun Dam

French Trench

Prepared New Channel

The Future?

• Largest ships cannot use the Panama Canal despite improvements

• Sea Level Canal?– Panama?– Nicaragua?

• Environmental Impacts?

Corinth Canal, Greece

Corinth Canal, Greece

Corinth Canal, Greece

Corinth Canal, Greece

Environmental Modification to Impede Enemy

• Impair Enemy Mobility• China 1938 - Breach Huang He Dikes• Chemical Warfare• Deprive of Supplies• River Diversion in Sieges• Scorched Earth Campaigns• Shenandoah Valley - Civil War• Sherman's March - Civil War• Extermination of Buffalo - Indian Wars• 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.

Herbicide Effects, Kurdistan

Diversion of Huang He, 1938

Topography of China

Loess in China

Huang He Diversions 400 BC - Present

Scale of Huang He Diversions

Japanese Strategy

1938

Extent of Flooding(After Todd,

1949)

Military Effects of the Breach• Minor losses of Japanese troops and materiel• Few troops caught on the wrong side escaped• Chinese gain time for withdrawal and relocation

of capital• Flood also protects Japanese flank• Little additional fighting in Central China• Japanese capture of Wuhan (Hankow) delayed

by only a couple of months• No central authority in much of Central China• Communists gain support

Flood Fatalities, 1938

Affected Population

Flood Fatality Estimation

Flood Severity Warning Time Fatality Rate

High None 30 – 100 % (75%)

> 1 hour X Number still at risk

Medium None 3 – 35% (15%)

> 1 hour <1 – 6% (3%)

Low None 0 – 2 % (1%)

> 1 hour <<1 %

• Graham, W.J., 1999, DSO-99-06, A Procedure for Estimating Loss of Life Caused by Dam Failure

• Assuming poor understanding of risk downstream• Fatality rate in parentheses is recommended prediction

value

Casualty Model Applied to 1938

• Population of Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu flooded counties = 13.2 million (Lary, 2001)

• Medium severity, no warning (15%) 2 million fatalities

• Medium severity, > 1 hour warning (3%) 400,000 fatalities

• 844,000 fatalities = 6.4%

Visualizing the Risk

Use of Environment as a Weapon

• 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.

Use of Environment as a Weapon

• Comparatively Rare

• Lack of Knowledge

• Lack of Capability

• Lack of Opportunity

• Inefficiency

Use of Environment as a Weapon

• Deliberate Spread of Natural Plagues

• World War I - Italian Alps

• World War II - Allied "Dam Busting"

Eco-Terrorism

• Mongols in Iraq - 1259• Hitler's Scorched Earth Order - 1945• Sea Island Oil Spill - 1991• Kuwait Oil Wells – 1991

– Pure Eco-Terrorism– Most Other Examples had Other Military Functions

• Chemical Warfare• Hypothetical Doomsday Devices

Eco-Terrorism

• Reasons For Use:– Deterrence– Intimidation– Lower Quality of Life for Enemy– Deprive Victor of Fruits of Victory (Scorched

Earth)

Eco-Terrorism

• Comparatively Modern

• Recent Technological Capability

• Recent Rise of Environmental Concern

First View of Kuwait

Satellite View,

March 2, 1991

Rawdatain Oil Field

Darkness at Noon

March 24, 1991, 11 AM

Turning Night into Day

What’s Worse than a Burning Oil Well?

Oil on the Beach