The human suffering inflicted by war is so terrible that we may naturally overlook the environmental damage which large-scale conflict causes. Sometimes, of course, it is all too obvious, as with the case of Agent Orange, the highly toxic defoliant sprayed by the Americans over 12,000 square miles of forest during the Vietnam war, or with the mass oil pollution from the Sea Island terminal in Kuwait during the Gulf war in 1991. But on the whole, and certainly with major conflicts, damage to the natural world is a secondary consideration.

Read More at www.theguardian.com