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ABSTRACT
Drawing from emergent areas of sociological research and theorization, the authors consider the environmental impacts of militaries from a comparativeinternational perspective. The article begins with an overview of treadmill of production and treadmill of destruction theories, the latter of which highlights the expansionary tendencies and concomitant environmental consequences of militarization. This theoretical overview is followed by a narrative assessment of military growth and energy consumption, with a particular focus on the US military over the past century. Next, the authors detail the various environmental impacts associated with the growth and structure of national militaries, briefly discuss potential future research directions, and conclude by calling for scholars in future studies on society/nature relationships to seriously consider the environmental and ecological impacts of the world's militaries.
KEYWORDS
climate change, conflict, environmental sociology, globalization, militarization, resource consumption, sustainability, treadmill of destruction
Introduction
War has long contributed to ecological degradation, including the diversion of rivers, scorched earth practices, the destruction of plants and animals, oil spills, the burning of oil wells, and the use of chemical and biological weapons. The atmospheric testing of atomic and nuclear bombs produced radioactive fallout that spread throughout the world via wind, water, and living creatures (Commoner 1967, 1971). In fact, the detonation of Trinity-the first atomic explosion- in the New Mexico desert on 16 July 1945 ushered in the nuclear era, which coincides with the age of ecology (Hagen 1992; Worster 1998).
The environmental impacts of militarization are not limited to war and the testing of nuclear weapons. Military institutions, often in the name of national security and geopolitical circumstances, have cre- ated large-scale built and social infrastructures to sustain and support the coercive power of nations. Advances in military technologies, the resource demands to maintain the social and built infrastructures of militaries, the testing of machinery and weapons, and the transportation of soldiers and weapons to distant places have increased the overall ecological and environmental impacts of the world's militaries (Clark and Jorgenson 2012). As a result of these activities, "the world's armed forces are the single largest polluter on earth" (Renner 1991: 132).
In what follows we direct attention to the relationships between the environment and the world's national militaries. We present a general discussion of the treadmill of...