Environmental consequences of war

Abstract

At the end of the Third Punic War in 146 B.C., Roman legions tore down the walls around Carthage, and salted the Carthaginian fields to make them infertile.More recent examples of destruction to the environment during wartime include the U.S. military spraying Agent Orange and other chemicals over Vietnam in a massive campaign during the Vietnam War that defoliated much of that country. Also, during the Gulf War, Iraqi forces blackened the skies by detonating more than 700 Kuwaiti oil wells, and threatened drinking water supplies and marine life by dumping more than 6000 barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf.