International Security Through Environmental Challenges Mossalanejad, A.

Abstract

During the 1960s, the relatively new approaches like environmental warfare and intentional environmental deterioration came in to the global security and strategic literature. Till now, through different conventional and unconventional wars, the governments have imposed intentional and unintentional adverse effects on the environment some of which are lasting for decades. The application of weapons, the destruction of structures and oil fields, fires, military transport movements and chemical spraying are all examples of the destroying impact war may have on the environment. Warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development. States shall therefore respect international law providing protection for the environment in times of armed conflict and cooperate in its further development, as necessary. Several United Nations treaties have provisions to limit the environmental impacts of war or military activities. The daily generated waste that is discharged to the environment by the military troops all around the world, the imperfect disposal of different radioactive, chemical and microbial weaponry in different locations of the planet and even the space are among the numerous proved evidences of the theory that militaries are the main environmental threats directly - during the war time- and indirectly - during the peace time-Besides the war, the energy and its relative issues are among the most significant challenges threatening the global security. Most civil and between-countries conflicts all around the world have been occurred with direct or indirect relations to the energy resources. Providing a dependable source of .energy is considered as a major principle in the defensive potential of different countries. Increasing the level of dependency of different countries to each other, a global commercial energy market would result in a remarkable decrease in the number of conflicts caused by energy crisis. Shifting the global focal attention from the fossil fuels towards the renewable clean sources of energy would play a key role in preparing the required infrastructure for achieving the global energy and environmental security.