
US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries - zerogvt
https://theconversation.com/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than-as-many-as-140-countries-shrinking-this-war-machine-is-a-must-119269
======
delingpole
I always liked this Clickhole piece on military/environmental issues:

5 Ways ISIS Can Reduce Its Carbon Footprint

"As ISIS continues to expand its operations in the Middle East, it is more
urgent than ever for this group to enact sustainable policies that will have
the least impact on our environment. Here are some expert tips to help the
Islamic State go green!

Requiring cars to stop at a military checkpoint leads to fuel inefficiency and
idling engines, especially if an ISIS agent has to search the vehicle.
Limiting checkpoints to one every 20 miles provides similar security with
significantly lower emissions!"

[https://news.clickhole.com/5-ways-isis-can-reduce-its-
carbon...](https://news.clickhole.com/5-ways-isis-can-reduce-its-carbon-
footprint-1825123209)

~~~
yourcousinbilly
The Onion did it better in 2008:

"North Korea has one of the largest armies in the world, but they save
consumption by simply not feeding them"

"Truly elegant in its simplicity"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvz_xzaMvCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvz_xzaMvCQ)

------
LeifCarrotson
US Military is a bigger _insert topic here_ than as many as _insert large
number here_ countries. Whether that topic is economics, or employees, or
technology, or any other metric you want to analyze...the US military is
large.

Edit: It would be more interesting to compare pollution from the military vs
other countries or other militaries as a function of their size. Similar
problems often arise when comparing states - it's unsurprising when California
is the largest and Wyoming is the smallest; please normalize your data! For
example, the US military budget of ~$650B is comparable to the GDP of
Switzerland or Saudi Arabia, or alternatively comparable to the GDP of the ~80
smallest countries. That 80 country GDP vs 140 country pollution difference is
already more illuminating to me...

~~~
flexie
Actually, I find it surprisingly small when considering how powerful it is.

In terms of men (2.2M active and reserve), combat tanks (6,300), artillery
(1,700), war ships (130), submarines (70) and fighter planes (2,400) it’s
dwarfed by militaries of the past.

Of course the firepower is much larger nowadays and nuclear weapons also make
conventional military play a different role, and the US military - although
engaged in several conflicts around the world - is mostly a peace time force,
but I still find it amazing that the armies of the WWII era were so much
larger.

~~~
steve19
Other countries with large armies tend to throw poorly trained, and in the
case of NK, poorly fed conscripts at the problem.

The US regularly fights wars so the troops are not only well trained but there
is a lot of individual and institutional experience.

~~~
azernik
> Other countries with large armies tend to throw poorly trained, and in the
> case of NK, poorly fed conscripts at the problem.

This is a strange mischaracterization of Israel's and South Korea's
militaries, which are two of the largest in proportion to population in the
world.

Other countries with large armies don't have to pay for the enormous
logistical tail the US uses to deploy worldwide, and the unique readiness
levels and naval/air capabilities required to do so on reasonable notice.

~~~
steve19
Israel is not in the top 20 active duty, South Korea is. A good friend of mine
was forced to go back "home" to do military service after we graduated high
school, from what he told me after basic training he basically served his time
doing nothing near the dmz.

Sounded like they didn't know what to do with the conscripts they were being
served up by the system.

Maybe he was unique or maybe he exaggerated.

~~~
azernik
> Israel is not in the top 20 active duty

Well yeah, it's a tiny country. In terms of active duty personnel _per capita_
, it's fourth in the world (2.1% of population, as opposed to 1.2% for South
Korea and 0.4% for the USA).

> from what he told me after basic training he basically served his time doing
> nothing near the dmz.

The security strategy of Israel and South Korea is:

* Be able to call an army of ~10% of the population into being within 48-72 hours

* Have an active-duty military with the latest and most up-to-date equipment and training to hold the line until that enormous reserve is ready

* Have intelligence services capable of giving advance warning so the active-duty military doesn't need to hold out as long

So yes of course someone drafted into the ROK army will be trained for combat,
and then spend several years on equipment maintenance and training waiting for
The Big One to roll around.

Israel is a bit different in that, in addition to its preparations for high-
intensity conventional war, its active-duty army is also involved in low-
intensity conflict continuously. This is a major concern for the army, as it
needs to make a tradeoff between levels of force to apply to the daily grind
in the West Bank and the Gaza border areas, and the level of readiness for
high-intensity conflict - Israel's poor performance in the 2006 Lebanon War
was widely attributed within the Israeli military establishment to the reduced
training for conventional warfare while the army was caught up in the
counterinsurgency work of the Second Intifadah.

------
ApolloFortyNine
This could be a poster child for how you can be telling the truth, but
obviously are biased.

Wikipedia lists 186 countries GDP [1]. The 46th (186-46=140) listed country is
Romania, with a GDP of $239 billion. In 2018, the U.S defense budget was just
under $700 billion. Spending more money, and especially on a Navy at that,
will obviously lead to more pollution.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(nominal\))

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Right. Normalize the data or get lost.

------
ecmascript
I always have wondered how people calculate pollution from countries. I mean,
that must be from data gathered from the government?

For countries/governments that doesn't even have or have a very limited
garbage disposal, that must mean they pollute very little on paper when in
reality people just throw stuff into the ground / ocean etc.

I don't really believe this article. It seems like a typical clickbait shit
article actually. Pollution is not only how much CO2 you release into the air,
just look at some rivers in India which are incredibly polluted or countries
in Africa where people simply burn metal in hunt for rare metals which they
can sell. That pollution is probably not included in this statistic which
makes me call bullshit on this claim.

~~~
antoineMoPa
Dirty rivers suck, but humanity's big problem right now is global warming.

~~~
czechdeveloper
Well, we face multitude of issues. For example loss of biodiversity is likely
as important as global warming.

~~~
Voloskaya
Loss of biodiversity is in big part caused by global warming (temperature
rising, ocean acidification etc.) Global warming is not caused by loss of
biodiversity.

On top of that, many of things that need to be done to reduce global warming
will directly positively affect biodiversity, such as reducing deforestation
and thus habitat loss.

So no, fixing global warming is more important since its a prerequisite to
stopping loss of biodiversity.

------
griffinkelly
I think it's worth noting that many of the vehicles, ships, airplanes used now
by the US military were designed in the 80s, and the last thing on the mind of
the engineers were carbon emissions. Hopefully, Lockheed Martin, Northrop
Grumman etc. start thinking about this stuff in the future.

Interestingly at one point, the US Navy wanted to go all nuclear. That would
have helped carbon emissions. [https://www.wearethemighty.com/gear-tech/navy-
nuclear-power-...](https://www.wearethemighty.com/gear-tech/navy-nuclear-
power-cruiser-destroyer?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4)

~~~
ryantgtg
There are also some extreme double standards within these organizations. On
the one hand, the Navy has ambitious and impressive sustainability goals. And
on the other hand, the Navy reportedly (I've heard this anecdotally from
friends in the Navy) straight up dumps all the trash from their air craft
carriers and ships into the ocean.

Also anecdotally - but maybe someone with closer knowledge can corroborate -
army divisions (?) want to maintain their budgets from cycle to cycle, and to
do so they need to prove that they _need_ that money. I have heard that the
Air Force, as an example, will rapidly spend down their budgets at the end of
a budget cycle by dropping jet fuel and firing off missiles willy nilly.

~~~
0xffff2
>Also anecdotally - but maybe someone with closer knowledge can corroborate -
army divisions (?) want to maintain their budgets from cycle to cycle, and to
do so they need to prove that they _need_ that money. I have heard that the
Air Force, as an example, will rapidly spend down their budgets at the end of
a budget cycle by dropping jet fuel and firing off missiles willy nilly.

This is true for all large organizations in existence, both on the military
and civilian sides of government and in large corporations.

------
rdlecler1
This isn’t surprising. The US military has 1.3 million people that are
engaging in a lot of transportation.

If we look at list of countries by population, 140 countries have less that
10m people (90 have more than 10 million). So on a per capita basis, the US
pollutes maybe 7x as much per capita but again, because the military is using
so much transportation it’s not surprising. I would bet CEOs have a bigger per
capita carbon footprint.

------
mooseburger
Yeah, and still the fact is that if US GHG emissions drop to 0, it won't do
much for global warming. It was good that Biden brought up in last night's
debate that the US produces 15% of global GHG emissions. Which is
disproportionate to their population, but also small enough that unilateral
actions by the US will not solve the problem.

------
_lessthan0
Wow, this thread makes me want to delete my account. People of the US are way
too scary for my liking, makes me never want to land in your country. For me,
if US doesnt stop playing the world cop position the worse this world will
get.

------
_RPM
People don’t remember Pearl Harbor much. Or even 9/11 anymore. Is the US
supposed to bow our heads, and be vulnerable to attacks?

------
tudorconstantin
We should go and force them to reduce it /s

------
RenRav
Considering the amount of money budgeted to military spending, this isn't too
surprising.

------
easymodex
How about the USA rather starts a military intervention in whichever country
is destroying the environment the most. Fighting for a habitable planet for
all mankind sounds like a better idea than fighting for oil, no?

~~~
Fjolsvith
By the looks of it, it would probably be in India or China. [1]

1\. [https://waqi.info/](https://waqi.info/)

~~~
aasasd
From what I've heard, container ships with their super shitty fuel may dwarf
the pollution of the entire automotive fleet and probably plenty of
industries.

Then, a good bet would be to assail the country that contributes the most to
consumerism.

As a bonus, this would take out a large portion of the Southeast Asia
pollution.

------
Fjolsvith
Yet still smaller polluter than 55 countries.

------
vectorEQ
but we get taxed more :D and then they spend our pollution taxes on more
pollution. What a wonderful world.. :D

~~~
zanny
There truly are few ways to waste taxpayer dollars more thoroughly than on the
military.

Social security goes from taxpayer to retiree often to be spent immediately at
market for goods and services useful to many fellow countrymen.

Medicare removes the burden of caring for your elderly from the lives of
millions. Its a huge economic boom to not have your parents retirements
costing you your time and productivity.

The military, the third largest expense, has three principle benefits - its a
direct jobs program for ~3 million people (the enlisted proper military and
their tertiary federal contractors supporting them). It keeps in business a
dozen or so arms corporations that use their revenue to lobby congress to
spend more on the military to make themselves and their investors more money.
And it projects American power abroad to use gunpoint as a weapon of trade
negotiation and to "maintain the peace" (even through ideological warfare) in
our zones of trade globally.

The first two are obviously awful for what purpose they fulfill in a vacuum -
you could much more cheaply just house 3-5 million people and give
billionaires free money instead for a fraction of the actual cost of
maintaining the US armed forces. And as a US citizen the idea that my tax
money goes to maintain peace in the world for the benefit of all of mankind
might be passably acceptable if there were no other choice, but organizations
like UN peacekeepers exist (though palpably suck at) fulfilling a similar role
except without the bias towards US economic interests. Perhaps without this
one nation acting as world police collaborative organizations could fill the
role, but probably not.

So it comes down to a moralistic argument - is it worth it to waste the time
of millions of Americans to perpetuate a theater show dick waving competition
with hostile dictatorships like Russia and China around the world for the
express purpose of maintaining US economic imperialism. Because its really up
to you - we slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocents in deserts and huts
the world over but in exchange few nations have the spine to try engaging in
organized warfare amongst their neighbors for fear of US intervention. There
are benefits, its just if the costs we pay, and continue to pay and more each
year, especially when any benefit that could generally be perceived as of
universal benefit are things I would at least more generally like to see all
of humanity not only pay but participate in the management of are worth it.

------
Circuits
Our military (US) and military budget is just another cold war era echo which
has been propagating for far too long. There are so many alarmist media
outlets in this country who 'make their steak' off of fear mongering (looking
at you FOX news) and what's more unfortunate is the general public's seeming
endless supply of naive assent too their ideals and tactics.

It isn't the US governments fault the military industrial complex is so large,
it's ours. So long as we continue to sheepishly abide by the ignorant notion
that our public officials are moral actors whose ambitions and initiatives are
driven and monitored by their superb ethical standards we are doomed.

We have to hold the women and men in office accountable not only for their
actions but for our agenda. We have to stop living under the yoke of fear and
distraction pumped out by the media machine. We have to be brave and fight
back or else, when the shit hits the fan, we can only blame ourselves.

~~~
bsaul
it’s funny how most people forget that every single american president since
georges bush junior has been elected on the promise of reducing us’s
involvment into foreign countries ( i’m old enough to remember people accused
him of being isolationist), but have all been prevented to so by external
events.

With the rise of China and its exponential military spendings, do you think
that decreasing us military budget would be a wise strategic move ?

~~~
hwillis
> With the rise of China and its exponential military spendings, do you think
> that decreasing us military budget would be a wise strategic move ?

The budget is essentially unchanged[1]. The _value_ of that budget has
increased exponentially because the value of Chinese currency has increased.
China has not directed any more of its resources to its military.

Even more foolish is acting like the Chinese military is capable of
threatening the US any time soon. Like fuck, at least we still kind of fight
proxy wars with Russia; we do nothing of the kind with China. China is totally
incapable of force projection outside tiny pacific islands. China is the only
nuclear country that has a "no first use" policy on nukes. They have a
_single_ aircraft carrier, compared to the US' eleven. The US has as many
carriers (which are the single dominant mode of force projection) as the rest
of the world combined.

The US military is so absurdly oversized that we would benefit strategically
by spending the money on R&D or the economy instead. Until such a time as the
US expects to literally fight China, Russia, and the EU at the same time, the
military is massively excessive.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_China#/medi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_China#/media/File:China_published_military_budget_by_percent_of_GNP.tiff)

~~~
adventured
China is already nearly spending as much as the US is on its military once you
adjust for the difference in the cost of personnel (which is half of US
military spending), ie adjust for PPP. The US has the best paid soldiers in
the world for any major military, which matches up with the US having among
the highest median pay of any nation.

When China's economy is another 50% larger, matching where US GDP is at today,
you can expect China's real military spending to considerably exceed the US
today.

Thanks to drastically lower salaries & benefits, the personnel costs for the
Chinese military is a far smaller portion of its total military spending as
compared to the US share.

Adjusted PPP comparison:
[https://i.imgur.com/SY22Whj.png](https://i.imgur.com/SY22Whj.png)

------
Roxo
Surprise, surprise, the military-industrial complex is destroying our planet.
How people can still support this is beyond me.

~~~
mc32
I think you have to balance that against not preventing instability around the
world. What would it look like if China, Russia, Iran and many others were
unchecked and we let them do whatever they wanted...

Now, the current admin is cutting back on involvement. Some candidates call
for more interventionism. That we’re retreating from “our duty” to be
international police, essentially. So what is it?

~~~
ssijak
I think you are living inside a big bubble. When was the last time China
showed military aggresion outside its borders, especialy on the other side of
the world? US doing the “checking” around the world left countless people dead
for nothing, and a lot of countries ruined. Not to mention trillions od
dollars spent on financing that. US complain about Russia meddling with US
elections (through 150k worth of Facebook ads lol) but then proceeds to
overturn number of democratically elected governments around the world.
Hipocracry much?

~~~
griffinkelly
China is showing force against Taiwan:
[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3004049/tai...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3004049/taiwan-
blasts-china-reckless-and-provocative-fighter-jet)

China is building islands all around the South China Sea:
[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-
defence/article/21...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-
defence/article/2133483/china-has-built-seven-new-military-bases-south-china)

China now has a presence in Africa too:
[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/africa/pentagon-accuses-
chinese...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/africa/pentagon-accuses-chinese-
blinding-djibouti-based-u-s-pilots-lasers-n871096)

~~~
saiya-jin
First 2 items are about their borders - not that I agree with the actions, but
these are completely understandable.

The Africa still isn't a proper comparison - building few bases where you
invest tons of money and extract crutial resources isn't the point here,
bloody invasions that destroy whole region for generations and kill millions
innocent are. And this is something specific to US, even Russia didn't do
anything comparable.

Anything after WWII, maybe but just maybe including Korea is actively adding
evil to this world. But I suspect not many americans are willing to accept
truth here

~~~
griffinkelly
Ask anyone in Taiwan, they’d have a strong difference of opinion on Taiwan
being apart of any piece of China, or within the borders.

As for countries being militarily aggressive, and causing direct conflict
since WW2, sure the US, but there have been numerous wars since. A few at the
top of mind —-First Afghanistan War ( Russia), Battle of Falkland Islands
(Argentina), Iran vs Iraq War

------
ThomPete
One thing that is always missing from these discussions is the whole picture.

You have to factor the pros and the cons in any situation. This kind of
headlines and focus only focuses on the negatives with regards but forget to
ask why we have a military, to begin with and what the cost would be if we
didn't.

A much healthier approach IMO is to look at how we can improve energy
production in general as that's at the heart of things here. And once we look
at that we will quickly realize that we are already looking at that but
finding out it's not as easy to improve the way we currently use energy as
people might want it to be.

But then again that wouldn't create as many clicks.

Somehow that underlying reality is lost on a surprising amount of people.

Our relatively wealthy, safe, modern lives with all the bells and whistles and
freedoms we in the west take for granted, only is possible because it
ultimately sits on top of military dominance that allows us to secure acccess
to the proper resources and gives us negotiation power.

~~~
dashundchen
> Our relatively wealthy, safe, modern lives with all the bells and whistles
> and freedoms we in the west take for granted, only is possible because it
> ultimately sits on top of military dominance that allows us to secure
> acccess to the proper resources and gives us negotiation power.

This belief astounds me. Do you really think your material condition requires
the constant death, destruction and turmoil inflicted by the US military
around the globe?

We should ask the 1 million dead Iraqis and Afghanis what the pros and cons of
the past 20 years of American military policy. How about asking the average
Libyan, Syrian or Yemini if our actions were worth it for "access to the
proper resources"?

Or ask your children, who will be saddled with tens of trillions of dollars of
debt spent on the military industrial complex for decades to come - money that
could have been spent on improving health and welfare domestically for them.

~~~
ThomPete
No but the treath of it does. Name me on other superpower that doesent rely on
strong military.

~~~
_iiu1
Being aggressive and hateful to the entire world at once will tend to requires
substantial bodyguard resources, and will eventually fail.

Peace based upon respect and respect for hard-won rules and structures is the
right road.

Switzerland learned this lesson through bloodshed, after a disastrous campaign
in which nationals supporting the Duke of Milan got caught in reprisals from
his foes, thus beginning the great Swiss tradition of neutrality in foreign
conflict.

While I won't argue about the relative morality involved in World War 2, I
will argue that all ensuing wars the USA has been involved in have ultimately
undermined it's prospects for future peace.

It seems like many of my fellow Americans need a history lesson vis-a-vis
Iran.

The USA and UK conspired to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian prime
minister Mossadegh, as he threatened to nationalize (their own) oil, which
Standard Oil, among others, didn't like very much (Shades of United Fruit and
Guatemala anywone?)

We then attempted to install the Shah (we knocked down their democracy because
it was too lefty, then we put a king back on the throne.)

The 1979 revolution was a direct reaction to this, and could have been seen
coming from a decade before.

This was initially a real revolution, but of course, they purged the lefties
and students out and installed a right wing religious government, rather like
many Republicans want for America.

And we have the nerve to hammer on them for desiring self-actualization...
incredible.

Hypocrisy is not even the beginning of it...

~~~
ThomPete
CH is not a superpower and in fact helped superpowers. You are confusing what
would be nice with what is a reality.

