tee on the Challenges of Modern Society, created an
environmental program which included assistance for
cleanup in Eastern Europe. NATO stated the military,
“must conduct its activities in an environmentally
sustainable manner” and suggested ways to promote
greater environmental awareness in the armed forces
(NATO 1991). Significant technical aid was given to
Russia to reduce stockpiles and destroy both nuclear
and chemical weapons. In addition to NATO support,
Western European nations also contributed funding
to help address dangerous environmental conditions
in the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent
States, which included massively contaminated Soviet
military bases in Eastern Europe.
As the idea of environmental security gained trac-
tion in the early 1990s, the U.S. government turned to
military-to-military assistance programs and alliances
to help nations pursue environmental health. The
U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) launched pro-
grams to teach concepts and provide assistance on a
wide range of needs, including environmental preser-
vation, reversing or controlling degradation, securing
vital resources, and cleaning up from past practices.
U.S. scholars explored these issues in the context of
a new emerging role for the revolution in military
affairs in a post Cold War backdrop (Butts 1993 and
1994). Some, inside and outside the military, opposed
this “greening” of the military, either because it was
deemed a threat to the primary mission of the mili-
tary, or because critics feared military appropriation
and distortion of environmental issues. Military lead-
ership eventually accepted the need to incorporate en-
vironmental elements into security analyses.
The U.S. Army held the first Senior Environmen-
tal Leadership Conference in November 1988, which
focused on environmental concerns to be addressed
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