E D I T O R I A L
Environmental Security
In the early-1990s, I couldn't understand why the West was so slow in reacting to the war raging in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Just before that war, I had been very surprised when the West reacted so quickly to the crisis affecting Kuwait, waging an all-out offensive on Iraq.I couldn't help to think, at the time, that one of the main reasons (if not the main reason) why the Iraq war happened so quickly was because Kuwait had oil, and the West was threatened by some loss of that very precious natural resource. Of course, Western governments called it a war based on political and humanitarian reasons, which it probably was, to some extent.
Now, in 1999, the West finally took major action in the former Yugoslavia, again allegedly based on political and humanitarian reasons. Nothing really to do with any natural resource. But this time, one result was the massive outrage of environmentalists and scientists over the alleged environmental catastrophe supposedly caused by NATO bombings.
This outrage came at a time when global leaders and organisations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, are taking an ever closer look at threats to national and regional security from the environment. The depletion of natural resources such as oil and water will be disastrous for certain economies and societies. No doubt, threats from war and weapons, especially nuclear weapons, will be with us from the Cold War to possibly the end of human existence.
In this age of concern over threats to the environment, it was predictable that many would question the NATO bombings of the vast petrochemical and oil complex of Pancevo east of Belgrade in April. It was predictable that they would question the use of depleted uranium in weapons and other military tactics.
Was it necessary? Many say that it was. That bombing was the only way to end a humanitarian nightmare. Others say it wasn't. That the humanitarian nightmare is now a long-term one in Yugoslavia, one that may take decades to understand, one without a visible Yugoslav ÒpariahÓ to blame.
Ecological catastrophe? Time will tell.
Is a threatened environment, even if only perceived as such, now a threat to security and stability?
Yes.
