game reserves where title to the land is still
conflictual approaches of the traditional
disputed by local peoples. There are also
security establishment and state institutions,
as Deudney has pointed out.4 7 For example,
huge dangers in providing any kind of assis-
tance to Third World militaries, given their
the involvement of the intelligence commu-
record of usurping civilian governments. By
nity may give rise to problems.
overseeing such programs and funding Third
The Intelligence Community and
World militaries, DoD may end up an agent
Environmental Security
of repression rather than of environmental
protection, which would lead to further anti-
Various U.S. agencies engaged in intelli-
American feeling around the world.
gence-related activities, especially the CIA and
the National Reconnaissance Office, have
Effects on the Environment
jumped onto the environmental security band-
At the moment, most domestic DoD pro- wagon. Their resources are being turned
grams involve base cleanup activity and the increasingly to environmental ends. The
integration of environmental standards into process started in the early 1990s with the for-
all forms of military activity, including mation of the Environmental Task Force, a
weapons production and usage. The Defense group of scientists and CIA officials who met to
Environmental Restoration Program, one of discuss how classified intelligence data could be
the best-defined environmental security used for environmental research. The process
activities, has the noble goal of providing continued with the declassification by Vice
remediation of past toxic and radioactive President Gore in 1995 of hundreds of thou-
contamination of DoD lands. Nonetheless, it sands of photos taken by spy satellites. At a cer-
has run into political difficulties because of emony marking the event, Gore declared,
the sensitive nature of one of its components, "Today we have turned the swords of Cold
the Base Realignment and Closure program. Warera intelligence gathering into plowshares
It is also susceptible to cleanup overkill, in of information that will help us better under-
some cases choosing high-cost restoration stand and analyze our global environment."4 8
over cheaper containment. In addition, the Since then, the task force (known as the
Defense Environmental Restoration Program MEDEA group) has engaged in a number of
does not cover most contamination at U.S. projects, including the Global Fiducials
overseas bases, so it fails to include what Program that actively monitors the environ-
could be one of the few positive environmen- ment in certain key spots using spy satellites,
tal security activities overseas.46 Instead, DoD rather than simply relying on past data.4 9 In
By overseeing
has focused both on clearing up other coun- addition to those efforts, the director of central
tries' messes, through its programs in the intelligence set up the DCI Environmental
environmental
nuclear waste environment of northwestern Center in 1995 to consolidate intelligence-envi-
initiatives and
Russia, for example, and on teaching foreign ronmental cooperation. The center's three
militaries to factor environmental standards main activities are long-term assessment of the
funding Third
into their activities. There is a huge irony, effects of environmental change on political,
World militaries,
which seems to escape DoD, in one of the social, and economic dynamics; civil applica-
DoD may end up
world's worst polluters going overseas to tions, which encompass the activities of
administer other countries' pollution control MEDEA; and the activities of the
an agent of
efforts.
Environmental Issues Branch, which responds
repression rather
Thus, on top of the societal effects, the to policymakers' inquiries about environmen-
militarization of the environment has impli- tal policies and treaty compliance.50
than of environ-
cations for environmental policy, too.
For environmentalists and others, the
mental protection.
Hypocrisy aside, solving environmental idea of turning swords into plowshares has
problems requires a long-term approach, free obvious attractions. For the intelligence com
-
from the secrecy, centralizing tendencies, and munity itself, turning the expensive machin-
10