'Silent Victim'? Interrogating the Ecological Implications of War

Image: A US Air Force aircraft spraying defoliant in South Vietnam in 1962 – US Air Force / Wiki Commons

Wars and conflicts fundamentally alter landscapes and ecosystems, leaving behind scars that often go unaccounted for amid discussions dominated by human casualties and strategic competition. Rarely do analyses on wars consider the environment; it is presumed to be a ‘silent victim’, an unavoidable collateral of the human condition that is essentially conflictual. Yet, the intersection between warfare and environmental degradation is complex and critical, especially in the context of the unfolding polycrisis today. This interplay positions the environment not just as the backdrop but as a key variable in geopolitical dynamics.

A Silent Victim?

Framing the environment as a ‘silent victim’ suggests its passivity during armed conflicts, but this characterization is misleading. The ecological consequences of war are loud and astonishing; deforestation, pollution, and biodiversity loss represent tangible evidence of warfare’s impact. For instance, the use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War led to the contamination of over three million hectares of forest, deeply affecting biodiversity, agricultural productivity, and leaving a lasting impact on the health of the people. In Afghanistan, longstanding conflicts led to a reported 33.8% decline in forest coverage between 1990 and 2005, whereas the post-conflict Sri Lanka saw a loss of approximately 188,407 hectares of forest cover. Wars inject pollutants—such as heavy metals, fuel residues, and other toxic substances—into the air and water. The burning of 700 Kuwaiti oil wells during the Gulf War in 1991 caused massive air pollution and water contamination. The ecological destruction caused by armed conflicts thus manifests in various alarming ways. These are not merely collateral damage but amount to ecological violence.

The ecology continues to remain degraded even in peacetime as states pursue relentless militarism. In the north-western Himalayan zone between India and Pakistan, militarisation and climate change have depleted 29% of the Machoi glacier between 1972 and 2019. The China-India border region has seen significant militarisation since the 1962 war, further endangering the fragile ecologies to deforestation, landslides, and glacial lake bursts. Further, globally, the military sector significantly contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for approximately 5.5% of total carbon emissions, making it the fourth-largest emitter. It is key to note that global military spending reached a staggering $2.44 trillion in 2023, starkly dwarfing global climate finance. It is grossly inadequate then to believe that the environment is a ‘silent’ victim of the struggle for power and peace. Yet, why is the environment deemed to be so? Better yet, who benefits from this obfuscation? We might find some answers in the domain of knowledge making and value creation in international relations.

Silenced, Not Silent

The environmental consequences of war and militarisation discussed above are barely recognised in traditional international relations theory and praxis. Dominated by realist thinking, global geopolitics prioritizes military power and ‘hard’ security over ‘soft’ ecological concerns. Realist narratives naturalise war as an inevitable reality of the anarchical international system and essentialise military power for states’ survival. Dominant IR logics view nature as irrelevant to statecraft, refute ecological casualty, and resource interdependence. Nature remains an afterthought—a resource pit to exploit, rather than an active agent in itself.

Thus, international relations not only silences the environmental ramifications of wars but also fails to account for emerging problems posed by planetary limits, transboundary ecological risks, environmental casualties of war, and global interdependence in ecological flows – all of which are, in fact, inextricably tied to global geopolitics. These ecological crises, compounded with climate change, transcend national boundaries and individual states’ capabilities. While these may not directly cause conflicts, they are likely to be threat multipliers to potentially worsen existing conflicts and weaken national security and sovereignty.

An Alternative Understanding

To better understand the silencing of the environment, we can adopt the constructivist lens. Constructivists are concerned with how ideas, norms, and discourses shape security narratives in international politics. Contrary to traditional IR’s reliance on power and conflicts as immutable referents, constructivism posits that security and power are socially constructed concepts defined by states’ perceptions of threats.

Thus, traditional international relations has often articulated threats to privilege military and national sovereignty considerations, while neglecting ecological violence. Nature is conceived as a passive resource, a battlefield, or at most, a strategic asset. This distortion has become the dominant, universal episteme, influencing strategic policies and international law.

Furthermore, the state’s (constructed) identity as the legitimate security provider is intricately tied to militaristic capabilities and not ecological stewardship. Indeed, dominant global modernization logic equates progress with resource extraction, crafting a narrative where conflict becomes a tool for resource control, and nature itself becomes a site of contention and competition rather than cooperation.

A Critical Approach

Critical theory helps demystify the relationship between war and environmental degradation further and explains who benefits from the strategic silencing and invisibilisation of the environment in conflicts. As Robert Cox asserts, theories are situated within historical contexts and serve specific purposes. Traditional IR’s obsession with military power and narrow conceptualisation of security at the cost of nature must be examined in light of historically rooted socio-economic interests. Tracing the socio-economic and political roots of dominant theories, norms, and practices, critical theory unravels the linkages between capitalism, militarism, and ecological violence. There emerges a deeply capitalistic structural root of the ‘military-carbon complex’, which refers to the intricate symbiotic relationship between the military establishment, the defence and the fossil industries, and the resulting environmental destruction.

Militarism actively reproduces ecological violence through arms production and distribution, both heavily fossil fuel dependent. War is a technology that drives the military capitalist order; it becomes a method of stabilising access to and the continued exploitation of carbon-intensive resources. Conflict necessitates and facilitates the commodification of nature through reckless resource extraction, including minerals, oil, and rare earths. Environmental damage is a feature, not a bug, of militarised capitalism. Thus, global military actions, strategies, and conflicts perpetuate ecological destruction in the name of national security while serving capitalist interests. To mitigate environmental harm resulting from wars, it is crucial to acknowledge and understand these structural drivers.

The ‘silence’ of the environment in war is, therefore, not inherent; it is constructed through historically and socio-economically rooted interests in the dominant discourses. For the relationship between international politics and nature to mend, certain reconceptualizations are warranted. The socially constructed ‘security’ must be redefined to encompass ecological and human security, and climate justice. Sovereignty should be reimagined to include ecological health, not only territorial integrity. Wars must be ‘de-naturalised’ as the historically contingent institutions that they are. Further, there must be a wider recognition that transnational challenges such as climate change actively erode the usefulness of the Westphalian notions of sovereignty and bounded territoriality.

Related articles:

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The Case for a Climate-First Maritime Reframing of the Indian Ocean Region (3-minute read)

The Indus Water Treaty Suspension: A Wake-Up Call for Asia–Pacific Unity? (3-minute read)

Left Behind: Why Afghanistan Cannot Tackle Climate Change Alone (3-minute read)

Robert Mizo is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delhi, India. He holds a PhD in Climate Policy studies. His research interests include Climate Change and Security, Climate Politics, Environmental Security, and International Environmental Politics. He has published and presented on the above topics at both national and international platforms. Robert has recently been a Japan Foundation Indo-Pacific Partnership (JFIPP) Research Fellow based at the Toda Peace Institute, Tokyo.