Impact of Warfare on the Natural World: A Historical Summary Richard P. Tucker
Introduction: Major Themes
- Acceleration of the capacity of states to inflict violence
- Acceleration of destructive capacity of military tech, and its demands on natural resources for the production
and use of weapons
o Recognize military aspects of societies in peacetime
- Warfare (& its link w changes in natural world) must be understood in terms of systematic links to broader
trends in human history
- Counter-theme: recognize in some circumstances warfare has reduced human pressure on nature, allowing
other species to flourish (at least temporarily)
o Natural resource depletion during war also led to govts intensifying systems of resource management &
protection (espesh for resources used in military)
- Enviro impacts of war always specific to the characteristics of particular ecosystems
- Enviro impacts of warfare rather than the ecological causes/settings of battle – present back through the
millennia to early human times when nature shaped human life far more than humans were able to reshape
nature
Hunter-Gatherer and Sedentary Farming Cultures
- Tribal warfare highly localized & tools had limited destructive power
- Borders fought over for control of food & other resources, shifts in control of territory often
- Attackers raid field& food supplies (get resources & cripple foes) = high mortality rates
- In “buffer zones” where uninhabited, nature flourished
- Tool w great destructive power = fire early ecological impact on semi-arid regions
Urban Civilizations with State Systems
- More complex political/military orgs, better tech enabling large-scale warfare & greater impacts on nature
- Neolithic Era of settled agri (10 thousand yrs ago) in the Near East
- Large scale human labour = perennial agri via irrigation canals
- Siltation and water logging issues
- Enemy’s irrigation systems often target
- Late 1200s Mongol conquered many civilizations: wipe out/enslave popns, plundered, fail in popn/income/state
revenue – some rulers reconstructed
o Iraq massacred popn of Baghdad- civil govt breakdown, lost central position in Islamic world, collapse
of irrigation (depended on for prosperity), continued centuries after
- 2500 yrs ago ecological changes from warfare clear in N/E Mediterranean basin – wood for weapons and
defence
- Burn enemies forests and pillage their farmlands – rural ppl fled to forests and created new farmland (damaging
the fragile woodlands)
- Naval warfare also damaged – lumber ports grew at mouths of rivers where ships were built, cleared forested
watersheds upriver to meet shipyards needs, timber supplies low so move to distant sources
- Rise of Roman Empire dramatic transformation on Mediterranean and European landscaped
o Timber supplies for navy=deforestation,
- Along Rhine and Danube- military fortifications, led to domestication of entire landscapes - Urban centres declined and rural medieval Europe emerged – popns fell and agri lands reverted to secondary
woodlands until a peaceable era of popn growth and forest clearances ushered in the High Middle Ages in the
12 cent
- Major enviro impacts of organized violence revolved around fortification and siege warfare – social hierarchies
important in shaping warfare’s enviro impact
- Lords defended their headquarters by building fortifications – devouring woods and croplands
- Peasants endured raids on food and livestock
- Peasant levies impressed byt heir lords swept across farms and woodlands taking away subsistence from their
adversaries of the moment
- One of major paradoxes regarding enviro impacts of war appeared in 16 cent during early stage of transition to
industrial warfare – ottoman Empire introduced canons and muskets to arsenal
o Prior to this, campaigns lasted a long time, with new weapons sieges were brief – decline in enviro
degradation
o Medieval warfare greater and more permanent damage to civilian & economic life
th
o Ecological stress also decline in the 16 cent
- China great river basins draining wide mountain systems, dense lowland popns, north-south distances,
o Cycles of stability then civil war recurred for 25 centuries (imperial dynasties aimed to control)
o Complex irrigation systems targeted, refugees damaged enviro as traveled/camped
- India increasing military force became key, royal armies led by elephant corps- diminished food&
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