The Scars That Never Heal

It was August 10, 1966, in the midst of the Vietnam War. The Fairchild C-123 Provider, an American military transport aircraft, flew low over the Mekong Delta.

The cargo aeroplane holds more than 3800 litres of Agent Orange. The plane released tons of herbicides over thousands of acres of dense mangrove forest. Many trees dropped their leaves within weeks of the spraying.

Millions of trees died within months.

The mission ‘succeeded’: the enemy forces (Viet Cong) lost their major cover. But the dioxin from the herbicide remained in the soil.

Even after fifty-eight years, it remains there. The US military sprayed more than 76 million litres of this deadly herbicide over Vietnam between 1961 and 1971.

The stated goal was purely tactical: destroy forest cover and crops to expose enemy positions. But the actual result was a major environmental catastrophe with multi-generational consequences.

This was not just collateral damage. This was complete environmental destruction as a military strategy to win a war that was not even their own.

The Lasting Poison of Agent Orange

Agent Orange contained 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T mixed in equal parts (1:1). The manufacturing process created Dioxin as a byproduct.

Especially TCDD: 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, a carcinogen classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The TCDD is ranked as among the most toxic compounds humans have ever created. The US military sprayed this carcinogen on the delta at concentrations 13 times higher than its legal use limit.

The objective of the Americans was rapid defoliation and not controlled management. More than 2.1 to 4.8 million Vietnamese civilians who had no blame or say in the conflict experienced direct exposure.

The ranch hand operation obliterated more than 5 million acres of forest cover. More than 500,000 acres of farmland were destroyed. The Southern Vietnamese mangroves lost about 36% of the total mangrove cover.

Some regions even lost more than 90 per cent!

Mangroves help filter water, protect the coastline from storms, and absorb carbon at rates five times higher than any tropical rainforests. Destroying the mangroves eliminated these services for decades.

The Vietnamese government now estimates that the mangroves will take more than 100 years to return to their pre-war situation in high contamination areas.

The partially recovered forests now show species diversity 50-60 per cent below the pre-war levels.

But the dioxin from the soil did not disappear. It binds to the soil particles, accumulates in fat tissues, moves up the food chain and then damages the placenta.

The Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that about 3 million Vietnamese citizens, about 3% of the population, still suffer health problems linked to the cursed Agent Orange. Birth defects still appear after three generations following the original exposure.

The Children born in 2026 show neural tube defects, cleft palates and limb deformities caused by the dioxin encountered by their grandparents about 60 years ago in their youth.

Dr Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, a physician at the Tu Du Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City, documented elevated dioxin levels in the breast milk of the Vietnamese mothers. The women living near these former sprayed zones show such levels.

The levels exceed WHO safety standards by factors of 10 to 100. Mechanism: Dioxin persists in soil. The Crops now absorb trace amounts of this chemical. Livestock eat the contaminated plants.

The fat tissues concentrate deadly toxins.

People consume the meat and dairy of these animals. Dioxin accumulates in human fat and breast milk. Nursing infants receive high doses during critical periods of development.

This cycle continues because the original contamination was severe. The former US base soil samples show about 1000 parts per trillion of dioxin, whereas safe levels rest below 10 parts per trillion.

Draining the Cradle of Civilization

The Vietnam War demonstrates the consequences of deforestation for military strategy. But the Iraqi conflict shows what happens when governments target the water.

The Iraqi government massively drained the Mesopotamian Marshes between 1991 and 2000. The wetlands covered 15000 and 20000 square kilometres. The location is between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The ecosystem supported about 500000 Marsh Arabs. This culture dates back 5000 years. The stated reason was the agricultural development of the desert regions of Iraq, but the actual reason was political.

The Marsh Arabs had opposed the government of Iraq in the 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein’s regime, and now the regime wanted to punish the Marsh Arabs by forcing them out of the region.

Also, the marshes provided refuge for deserters and separatists. Draining the marshes eliminated both the Marsh Arabs (Ahwaris) and the hiding places for the revolters. The government built drainage canals that diverted river water to the Persian Gulf.

By 2000, only 10 per cent of the original wetland remained. 90 per cent of the Marsh Arabs have either fled or died. But the environmental consequences extended beyond the immediate area.

Previously, marshes had filtered agricultural runoff before reaching the Persian Gulf. Without the mangroves’ filtration, the nutrient loads in the Gulf increased. The algal blooms proliferated, the fish population declined, and marshes stored carbon and supported migratory birds.

Millions of these birds, travelling between Siberia and Africa, depended on these wetlands. When these marshes disappeared, the migratory bird populations along the entire route declined drastically.

Restoration efforts began after the 2003 regime change to revive the Mesopotamian Marshes once again. Workers demolished some of the dams and canals. The water slowly started to return to some parts of the marshland.

Today, roughly 50 per cent of the original marshy lands hold water once again, though the entire ecosystem has not fully recovered. Non-native species now dominate the area.

Many native fish species populations remain depressed. But many of the original Marsh Arabs who fled never returned.

A Sky of Black: The Kuwait Oil Fires

During the Gulf War of 1991, after the entry of the United States and literally about a quarter of the world to help Kuwait fight back against Iraq’s invasion and made the Iraqi forces start retreating, the retreating Iraqi forces set fire to about 600 oil wells in February 1991.

The fires lit in February burned for 9 months straight and were finally extinguished in October 1991. The smoke plumes reach more than 3000 meters in height. The plumes stretched 1000 kilometres downwind.

The fires contributed 2 to 3 per cent of the global carbon emissions for that entire year. The daily output, which was about 2 million barrels of oil, was burned.

This produced roughly 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per day; the total emissions likely exceeded 500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over the 9 months of burning.

Black rain fell across the nation and nearby regions for months. The rain contained unburned oil, soot, sulfur and carbon compounds, etc. The polluted rain coated buildings, vehicles, crops and soil. Kuwait spent years trying to clean up the mess caused by the Iraqi forces.

Some agricultural areas were left unusable for more than a decade. The fires created roughly 300 oil lakes. The leftover crude oil pooled up on the desert surface.

Some lakes even covered up to 49 square kilometres. The oil seeped up to 1.5 meters deep into the sand and soil. The cleanup required excavating contaminated soil. Treatment occurred in specialised facilities.

Kuwait spent more than $50 billion on environmental restoration of the entire nation. The old lakes spread across the nation, obliterating the desert vegetation of the small nation.

They killed insects, reptiles, and even small mammals!

They also poisoned the groundwater. Even after months of cleanup, residual hydrocarbons persist to this day. Studies done in 2015 continued contamination in former oil lake areas.

The Uncalculated Climate Toll

All these examples given above show one thing: direct environmental destruction through military conflicts. But they also contribute to climate change in uncalculated ways.

In Vietnam, 2 million hectares of forest cover were destroyed, which held 180 million tonnes of carbon. It is equal to the entire greenhouse gas emissions of the Netherlands.

When the trees died, the stored carbon was given back to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. The lost forests no longer take in the carbon from the atmosphere.

Over the span of 60 years, this equates to up to roughly 400 million tons of carbon dioxide not absorbed like normal.

If all plastic were made of carbon dioxide, it would take an entire year just to finish that amount of carbon. In the Kuwait fires, about 500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted in just 9 months.

That is equal to the greenhouse emissions of Canada or the United Kingdom.

In the draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes, the wetlands had stored carbon in the form of peat and other organic matter. When the marshes dry out, the stored carbon oxidises and is released into the atmosphere.

The Iraqi marsh drainage released up to 15 to 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. These three conflicts led to about 915 to 920 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

It is about the same weight as about 86.5 BILLION humans combined. These calculations exclude the carbon cost of weapon manufacturing, rebuilding destroyed infrastructure, and ongoing medical care for affected populations.

All of those factors added would lead to an unimaginable number.

The Carbon Footprint of Modern Warfare

The Russo-Ukrainian war, which was started in 2014 but practically began in 2022, provides a great example of such conflicts. This war has destroyed forests, agricultural land, industrial facilities and entire regions.

Some early estimates suggest conflict produced 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in the first year. This includes direct military operations and infrastructure destruction.

The Kakhovka Dam on the Dnieper River in the Kherson Oblast was much destroyed and breached in June 2023 by the Russians. The breach flooded 600 square kilometres.

The floods destroyed ecosystems. It contaminated the nearby agricultural land with industrial chemicals. It displaced wildlife.

The rebuilding of the dam and the treatment of contaminated areas will require years of effort. The process will produce substantial emissions.

Meanwhile, Syria and the Syrian civil war offer another contemporary case. Eleven years of conflict destroyed water treatment plants.

Destruction forced populations to burn wood for cooking food. People had to boil untreated water to drink.

Deforestation in Syria accelerated. The air pollution in Damascus increased by more than 400 per cent during the Syrian civil war.

The increase came from makeshift diesel generators and burning wood and waste. These patterns repeat across the years across the world. The conflict destroys environmental systems.

Affected populations adopt survival strategies that further damage the environment. Recovery requires energy-intensive reconstruction. Climate has paid multiple times for each war and other military conflicts.

The Loophole in Global Climate Policy

International law addresses some of the environmental destruction during wartime. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 prohibit attacks on works containing dangerous forces.

Prohibition will apply if attacks may cause severe losses among civilians. The Rome Statute of 1998 says that widespread, long-term environmental damage is a war crime. But enforcement remains rare to this day.

No one, not even a single person, faced prosecution for the spraying of Agent Orange over Vietnam. No one apologised for the drainage of the Mesopotamian marshes.

The Kuwait fires occurred during the retreat of the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. The prosecution of the Iraqi generals became totally impractical after the Conflict had ended.

The Paris Agreement of 2016 required countries to report emissions every 5 years. The Agreement requires setting reduction targets.

But military emissions often go unreported in these reports. Many nations exclude military fuel consumption from national inventories. The excuse was operational security.

But the result was massive carbon sources escalating carbon accounting and ultimately out of the whole climate equation.

The Conflict and Environment Observatory estimates that military forces produce 5.5 per cent of global greenhouse gases. This is almost equal to the emissions of Russia or Japan.

So the Militaries face no reduction mandates by international organisations.
The point is that you cannot solve a problem you refuse to count. The current climate policy across the world treats war emissions as an exception.

The military operations receive permanent exemption from UN-regulated emission limits. This exemption makes no sense to anyone except the militaries themselves, the governments and the defence companies.

The carbon dioxide from a jet engine traps heat just like carbon dioxide from a car. The atmosphere does not distinguish between military and civilian emissions.

Counting the Cost: Steps Toward Accountability

The first step toward accountability requires measuring and reporting the issue. Every military operation should report its carbon footprint to its government and the government to the international organisations.

The report should include the fuel consumed, forests destroyed, infrastructure demolished, and reconstruction required. These numbers should appear in the national emission inventories without any exceptions.

The second step requires consequences. Countries that wage war should face corresponding emissions reduction requirements. If a military produces 50 million tonnes during a conflict, the civilian sector must cut 50 million tonnes elsewhere, like industry or agriculture.

This creates an economic incentive and pressure on the militaries and governments to avoid or shorten their conflicts to protect their civilian sectors. The third step demands restoration funding.

The nations that destroyed another country’s forests, wetlands, agricultural system and other things should pay the attacked nation for the restoration of the affected environment.

Not as a charity or goodwill but as a real, legally binding obligation. This money should pay for the suffering of the affected populations and environmental recovery.

And definitely not to military reconstruction.

War destroys the environment. This statement is not a metaphor. It describes the measurable physical processes. Every forest burned, every inch of soil poisoned, every litre of water diverted, every GRAM of carbon released, and every ecosystem eliminated all count.

Their consequences shall persist for generations.

• The Vietnamese children of 2024 suffer severe birth defects from the dioxin from their grandparents’ era in 1968.
• The burnt Kuwaiti soil still contains the hydrocarbons from the 1991 fires.
• The Iraqi marshes still remain half of what they originally were despite 20 years of continuous restoration.

Climate change multiplies these harms tens and hundreds of times.

The higher temperature stress has already damaged the ecosystems. Higher temperatures hit the populations already weakened by years of conflict.

The solution: see the destruction of the environment for short-term military gain in war as an actual climate issue.

Not just any other humanitarian issue.

Every tree burned adds carbon to our atmosphere.

Every wetland drained removes future carbon storage.

Every oil well torched means the planet is getting a little hotter.

The climate impact of a war lasts longer than the conflict itself. We track weapons, count weapons and measure territory. With the same rigour, can’t we measure the emitted carbon?

What gets measured gets managed. And what gets ignored gets repeated. The C-123 had sprayed the agent orange completed its mission. The enemy lost cover. But the dioxin stayed in the soil.

So what about the forests that died, the children that kept being born with defects, and the carbon that never got recaptured?

THAT is the true cost of making the environment a target.

The bill of their consequences shall be due for generations.