Since the 1960s the environment has become an issue of increasing public
concern in North America and elsewhere. Triggered by the Second
Indochina War (Vietnam Conflict) of 1961-1975, and further encouraged by
the International Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm
in 1972, the environmental impact of war emerged and grew as a topic of
research in the natural and the social sciences. And in the late 1980s
this led additionally to a focus and debate on environmental security.
Arthur Westing, a forest ecologist, was a major pioneer contributing and
framing both of those debates conceptually, theoretically, and
empirically, starting with Harvest of Death: Chemical Warfare in
Vietnam and Cambodia (1972) (co-authored with wildlife biologist E.W.
Pfeiffer and others). As a Senior Researcher at the Stockholm and Oslo
International Peace Research Institutes (SIPRI and PRIO), and as a
Professor of Ecology at Windham and Hampshire Colleges, Westing authored
and edited books on Ecological Consequences of the Second Indochina
War (1976), Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Environment (1977),
Warfare in a Fragile World: Military Impact on the Human Environment
(1980), Herbicides in War: the Long-term Ecological and Human
Consequences (1984), Environmental Warfare: a Technical, Legal and
Policy Appraisal (1984), Explosive Remnants of War: Mitigating the
Environmental Effects (1985), Global Resources and International
Conflict: Environmental Factors in Strategic Policy and Action (1986),
Cultural Norms, War and the Environment (1988), Comprehensive
Security for the Baltic: an Environmental Approach (1989), and
Environmental Hazards of War: Releasing Dangerous Forces in an
Industrialized World (1990) --- as well as authoring numerous UN
reports, book chapters, and journal articles. This volume combines six
of his pioneering contributions on the environmental consequences of
warfare in Viet Nam and in Kuwait, on the environmental impact of
nuclear war, and on legal constraints and military guidelines for
protecting the environment in wartime
