In the early years of the cold war, scientific research on environmental warfare promised to harness the power of nature in a "total war" between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States supported scientific research on biological warfare, radiological warfare, weather modification, and other subjects in the earth sciences in order to find ways to use science during the coming conflict. While many scholars focus on the effects on war upon the environment, this study examines the scientific research and policies designed to utilize environmental modification as a weapon. Policies about such weapons were debated at the highest levels and became a point of negotiation between allies. Although we know about the extent of this research, we know very little about its influence upon American strategy; we know even less about the relationship between environmental warfare at the national level and environmental security at the international level. International organizations, such as the UN specialized agencies, took up the question of environmental security as part of their mandates for public health, food security, and world peace. Their principal questions were the same as the ones pursued by the United States and Britain for military purposes: How do the populations of the world become vulnerable to natural phenomena, and what can be done to ameliorate the problem? The present project will analyze the reciprocal influences between national science policies and those of the wider military alliance and ultimately of the UN specialized agencies.
One of the intellectual merits of this project is that it explores the international development of science policy, rather than treat American decisions in isolation. It will address national security questions, to be sure, but it will draw on NATO resources and British resources to give a fuller picture of both science and strategy. It also will trace the role of transnational bodies and international agencies in formulating policies and influencing treaty negotiations such as the one banning offensive environmental modification in 1977. This project will be the first international, multi-archival study seeking to understand the influences between science policies in the national and international contexts. It will be based upon national archives in the United States and Britain, the archives of NATO, and the archives of the key UN agencies: the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
The central question of this study is this: how did the science of environmental warfare beginning in the 1940s influence international policies of environmental security by the late 1970s? It is an unexplored question, yet it is fundamental to our understanding of how cold war science has shaped the contemporary world. The answer lies at the intersection of scientific research, strategic planning, and international cooperation in the first three decades of the cold war. One of the broader impacts of this study will be a greater understanding of how American science policies shaped the development of international institutions such as the UN specialized agencies. The environmental vulnerability of developing countries motivated early American research on environmental warfare. China and India, for example, were recognized as prime targets because of their reliance on single staple crops (monoculture) to sustain their populations. This fragility, at first seen as an ecological opportunity from a warfare perspective, has also spurred a great deal of organizational activity on food security at the United Nations. The most vulnerable populations of the world were also the strategically most important peoples of the world in the geopolitical cold war struggle. By tracing the path from environmental warfare to environmental security, the present study will shed light on how the peoples of the developing world were served and/or targeted by international agencies and by national strategic planners. Thus another broad impact is that this study will encourage more research on the linkages between national science policies and global environmental politics in the developing world.
