The Unseen Battlefield: Environmental Cost in Modern Conflict

Contemporary wars not only destroy cities and make people homeless; they also change the nature of the environment that supports humanity. In Middle East and Central Asia during the last three decades armed confrontation has again destroyed energy infrastructure, water facilities, forests, and arable land. These are the environmental implications that are not always as visible as bombed structures or moving front lines but might continue long after the ceasefires are announced.

Since the oil spills of the 1991 Gulf War in Kuwait burn, and since the shattered water systems of modern-day Syria are used, conflict has been increasingly in contact with vulnerable ecosystems and infrastructures. The unintended-or even intentional target of the wider military policies has taken the form of oil wells, rivers, forests and urban utilities.

These instances follow the way the various wars caused unique types of environmental disturbance atmospheric pollution due to oil fires, toxic urban disposal, deforestation and land degradation, and disintegration of water systems. Collectively, they demonstrate that the nature of modern warfare could change both natural and artificial environments in a manner that influences three decades of population health, food security, and ecological stability.

Oil wells in flames outside of Kuwait City following Operation Desert Storm.

The Gulf War (1990–1991): When Oil Became a Weapon

In August 1990, Saddam Hussein led the Iraqi troops into Kuwait, and the invasion was geopolitical in nature. The war spread to the atmosphere and the sea when the oil wells in Kuwait were set ablaze by retiring troops in 1991.

As the coalition troops progressed in the Operation Desert Storm, the Iraqi forces burned over 600 Kuwaiti oil wells. It is estimated that some 6-8 million barrels of oil per day were on fire at the heart of the disaster (UNEP, 1991; NOAA, 1992). The columns of smoke were many thousands of meters high and created soot clouds that blocked sunlight, worsened the quality of air on the territory, and carried the smear of particulate pollution through the Gulf.

Scientific tests also revealed very high levels of particulate matter (PM), sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) the toxic substances that are produced during the incomplete combustion (UNEP, 1991; Husain, 1995). In some areas of the region, acid deposition was witnessed. Oil fallout created large oil lakes in the desert of Kuwait- estimated at 40-50 square kilometres which contaminated soil with heavy metals and hydrocarbons (UNEP, 1991; Omar et al., 2006). Loss of vegetation, deaths among wildlife and disturbances of microbial makeup in deserts were extensively broadcast.

At the same time, millions of barrels of crude oil were pumped into the Persian Gulf on purpose generating the largest oil spill at the time (NOAA, 1992; Sheppard et al., 2010). The oil spills polluted some 1,000 kilometres of the coastline, which had a drastic effect on the mangroves, salt marshes and intertidal environment. Hydrocarbon exposure and sediment contamination was a significant disruptive factor to fisheries, as well as coral communities (Price, 1998; Sheppard et al., 2010). The hydrocarbons remained in the oceans over years, and ecological effects of these effects were observable in many years after the war had ended.

There were also serious effects on the public health. Research associated exposure to smoke and fine particulates with respiratory irritation, asthma exacerbation and other lung effects in local communities and deployed troops (Husain, 1995; Institute of Medicine, 2000).

The Gulf War is therefore a very clear case of industrial infrastructure turned into an environmental weapon. Though not explicitly declared as such ecological warfare, the intentional burning of oil wells and release of crude oil into waters created ecological harm to the scale of major industrial accidents, except that it was done during armed conflict.

Ecological restoration of the Kuwait desert, as well as the marine ecosystem of the Gulf, has been incomplete and disproportionate. Remediation activities have minimized the surface contamination, but decades afterward, the left behind hydrocarbons are found in soils and sediments. The war showed the way modern energy systems may turn to be both the motive of conflict and the tool of environmental destruction.

The Iraq War (2003–2011): Toxic Urbanization

In 2003, the US invaded Iraq in the name of Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons were never discovered. The government was overthrown in a short period. The war did not.

Not only insurgency and sectarian disintegration followed. It was the gradual environmental disintegration of a pre-existing weak urban and river system. The post-2003 war transformed cities into persistent contamination areas if the Gulf War 1991 burnt oil field. It was not an ecological shock that took place once. It was layered toxicity.

One was uranium (DU) depleted munitions. DU is uranium that is deprived of most radioactive isotopes. It is highly compact making it efficient in the anti-armour rounds. When such rounds hit, it may aerosolize into small metal pieces. The particles become entrenched in soil and dust. The scientific question on the extent of contamination and its health impacts remains under debate, although the localized heavy-metal residues in the affected sites have been recorded (UNEP, 2007; IAEA assessments). It is not dramatic radiation that is of concern, but rather chronic exposure - soil toxicity, possible ground water leaching, and the long-term agricultural consequences in densely targeted areas.

Military burn pits were another source of another layer. The waste materials (plastics, electronics, batteries, medical waste, petroleum products, etc.) were burnt in the open-air pits in U.S. bases in Iraq. Mixed waste streams that are burnt emit fine particulates, dioxins, furans, as well as other persistent organic pollutants. These chemicals may remain in the soil and accumulate in the food chains. The discussion of veteran’s health issues in the United States has put burn pits on the agenda, although the Iraqi communities were also exposed. Perimeter fences were not known by the smoke.

The most widespread harm has been infrastructural, however.

Power plants were bombed. Water purification systems collapsed. Pumping stations stopped. The sewage systems failed without electricity. Wastewater was drained straight into the river Euphrates and the river Tigris. These are not merely waterways but civilization arteries. Raw sewage and industrial effluents when introduced in large amounts into them cause a decrease in oxygen levels, growth of pathogens as well as reduction in fish numbers. Downstream agriculture, which was already impaired due to salinization and decades of upstream damming, was hit even farther.

Salinity is a silent murderer. The Iraqi irrigation systems that were reliant on controlled flushing and maintenance fell apart under conflict conditions. Due to the lack of drainage and decreased freshwater flow, the soil became salty, decreasing the yield of crops. Farmers abandoned land. Food security weakened. There was an increase in desertification pressure within already arid areas.

It is the ecological footprint of a long-term unstable situation: not an apocalyptic plume, but a gradual rusting up of mechanisms that ensure that water is clean, soil fertile, and the air is breathable. Toxicity in cities becomes natural. Rivers are being converted to waste channels. Disaster of public health pneumonia, water infection, a possible exposure to heavy metals is integrated into everyday life.

It was not only the Iraq War that changed the way of governance. It transformed the circulation of metabolism, the energy, waste, water, in a weak ecological network. And in case of infrastructure failure in a semi-arid nation, it does not automatically recover. Ecosystems can rebound. Political systems can renegotiate. Salinized soils and rivers in a state of chronic pollution do not put themselves back on election periods.

The contemporary war does not even have to burn whole landscapes to cause ecological damage. It sometimes merely jostles the clockwork which prevents nature and cities finding harmony and leaves entropy to do the rest.

A Stryker fighting vehicle lies on its side after surviving a buried IED blast in 2007. C-52 of 3/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team

Afghanistan (2001–2021): Environmental Erosion Under Occupation

The mentioned purpose was met when the United States initiated military operations in Afghanistan in October 2001 after the September 11 attacks because the Taliban government had offered Al-Qaeda refuge. This was soon followed by a two-decade war of international alliances, civil conflicts, weak governments, and successive periods of unrest.

The environmental impact of the latter long war was not as dramatic as the act of oil fields ablaze, yet it was a lot more lateral. Already facing a weak environment caused by dry climate and mountainous topography, Afghanistan slowly wore out over time because of the war, displacement and economic survival.

Deforestation was one of the most conspicuous effects on the environment. Afghanistan had a great forest cover especially the eastern provinces of the country including Kunar and Nuristan. The weak government and the economy of war facilitated illegal logging that was rampant. Timber cartels sold expensive cedar and pine across the borders, whereas locals who were experiencing energy scarcity and poverty used trees to obtain fuel and buildings (UNEP, 2003).

Forests are not merely aggregations of trees. They regulate watersheds. When they become extinct, the soil becomes devoid of cover. The rainfall causes a direct flow down slopes causing erosion to be accelerated leading to an increase in the occurrence of landslides and floods. The disappearance of forest habitat also poses a risk to the biodiversity in an area where snow leopards, Asiatic black bears and many migratory birds exist.

The other environmental heritage is subterranean: landmines, unexploded ammunition. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s made it one of the most mined nations in the world and later conflicts only contributed to the contamination. There are millions of mines and bomb remnants of war that have made a vast area of agricultural lands and grazing lands unusable (UNMAS reports). Human life is not the only one that is at risk in these hazards. They dismantle landscapes, limit the routes of migration, and exclude the ecological restoration in the regions of the impact.

Another contamination layer was caused by military infrastructure. International bases in Afghanistan produced bulk wastes that were in most cases dumped in the open-air burn pits. Plastics, electronic devices, chemicals and others were commonly burnt together, with toxic smoke containing particulate matter and persistent organic pollutants. The risks in the storage and transport systems of the fuel also transferred the risks of leakage which provided the introduction of petroleum residues and heavy metals in the adjacent soils and ground water.

These pressures were accumulated over time. Soil erosion, unexploded ordinance and contamination led to the loss of productive agricultural land. Inhalation into water systems became monotonous in several areas, both through the degradation of watersheds and because of poor infrastructure. Afghanistan currently has in place severe cycles of droughts; the weakness of the environment aggravated the state of the country in face of climate strains.

The outcome has been a topography in which the ecological vulnerability and political instability support each other. Poor forests impair the water uptake. Lost soils decrease harvests. Poor yields increase poverty in the rural areas, which drives the communities to extract even more resources.

The environmental cost of war did not come as one devastating phenomenon in Afghanistan. It simply occurred over time, in the form of forests being cleared, fields becoming unproductive, and ecosystems being overstretched to the extent that they can no longer recuperate.

Syria / ISIS Conflict (2011–Present): Water Systems in Ruin

The Syrian war started in 2011 as part of the wider movement of Arab Spring. Soon, protests against the regime of Bashar al-Assad turned into a multi-front civil conflict between the state troops, anti-government groups, extremist groups that included the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and an international network of allies including Russia, the United States, Turkey, and local militias.

What followed was not just one of the most catastrophic humanitarian crises of the 21 st century. It was a water system breakdown too, but a breakdown that focuses on the environmental systems, the water systems that carry on the life of an urban area quietly.

The destruction of water treatment facilities and pumping stations was viewed as one of the most harmful consequences. Air strikes, artillery and ground combats again and again caused the destruction of plants that filter drinking water and sewage treatment. The failure of these systems causes the cities to lose the invisible machinery to split the clean water and waste. Untreated sewage was discharged directly into rivers and groundwater systems in most cities in Syria such as Aleppo, Raqqa, and some parts of Damascus (UNEP, 2017; reports by the ICRC).

The outcomes were soon felt in the social health. Polluted water sources were a source of waterborne disease outbreaks like cholera and acute diarrheal disease. Since the infrastructure was damaged, the large rivers in the region such as the Euphrates River recorded high pollution rates as untreated waste and industrial wastes were released into the waterways.

There were also battles over energy infrastructure. Several parties were targeting oil fields and small refineries, especially in eastern Syria. ISIS depended on crude oil mining and crude oil refining to fund its activities. These informal plants burnt crude oil in open pits and makeshift refineries emitting heavy plumes of poisonous smoke of sulphur compounds, soot and heavy hydrocarbons. Subsequently, the discharges of pollutants into the atmosphere were increased by the coalition airstrikes of the oil infrastructure controlled by the ISIS (UNEP, 2017).

At the same time, the agrarian economy, which previously supported a significant portion of the Syrian rural economy, started to fall apart. The fighting displaced farmers and irrigation canals as well as pumping networks along the Euphrates basin were damaged or abandoned. Farmlands were not being cultivated. Irrigation systems became clogged or collapsed without maintenance. In semi-arid environments, agricultural abandonment contributes to land degradation: soils lost their structure, vegetation cover was lost, and the forces of desertification escalated.

In the cities another kind of ecological pollution such as could be called toxic rubble was present. Completely destroyed neighbourhoods are full of broken concrete and asbestos, electronic heavy metals and even the remains of explosives. These materials pile up in the streets and in open lots which contaminate soil and water systems gradually.

The Syrian conflict has generated a ripple effect of an environmental crisis over time. Sewage contamination occurs because of collapse of water infrastructure. Pollution of rivers impacts on agriculture and drinking water. Farm failure is a cause of displacement and hunger. The destruction of the environment has a self-perpetuating effect.

This type of ecological breakdown is systemic in contrast to dramatic environmental disasters which are slow. The destruction of pipes, pumps and treatment plants is not very often seen in the headlines when there is a war on, but they transform whole ecosystems and societies.

The war in Syria was not a mere destruction of cities. It deconstructed the water systems that constituted those cities.

Collectively, these conflicts depict a trend: contemporary warfare hardly damages the environment because of a single dramatic incident. Rather, it destroys the systems that ensure the existence of the ecosystems and societies energy networks, forests, farmland, rivers and urban infrastructure.

During the Gulf War, oil as such was turned into an atmospheric pollution weapon. In Iraq, the destroyed cities deposited industrial pollution. In Afghanistan, thirty years of instability had destroyed forests and arable land. In Syria, the rivers and urban systems became the roads of environmental crisis due to the destruction of water infrastructure.

Such cases indicate that the environmental impacts of war are usually long-term and systemic. The recovery of societies can still be influenced by polluted soils, degraded watersheds and damaged agricultural systems even after the fighting is over. War consequently becomes a part of the long-term effects of war, sneaking into the populace, their health, the stability of their economies and the strength of their ecosystems, even when the battlefield has long gone quiet.