Description
Along the logic of ‘less fuel, more fight’ – decarbonising defense to reduce emissions but not missions – Western military sectors are presenting military practice as a driver of climate action and centering the arms industry as a guarantor of sustainable development. What critics have parodically described as a ‘military green transition’ toward “wind-powered Gripen, piloted by Gretas”, referring to the fuel-hungry fighter jet Gripen and climate activist Greta Thunberg. This irony is well placed. The trend towards greening is paralleled by a historical upsurge in military spending, weapons production and the re-centralisation of militarism in national security doctrines. Military sectors are both deepening their fossil fuel lock-in and increasing their reliance on mineral extraction to join the green energy transition; ever-intensifying war and militarism’s dependence on extractivism.
In this paper, I capture the ongoing militarisation of eco-social challenges through the concept of ‘green militarism’. Developing a geopolitical ecology of green militarism, I juxtapose the promises (meaning) and practices (materiality) of the military’s emergence as climate actor – engaged in climate governance – with the underlying material realities of the military as ecological actor – sustained by and productive of detrimental eco-social conditions. The paper interrogates the consequences of green militarism for eco-social justice struggles and foregrounds its disruption by resistance movements tackling militarism and extractivism as joint harms. Doing so, I identify the geopolitical interests that drive military climate action, along with the struggles over meaning and material resources that mark global efforts toward either a military green or an eco-socially just transition.
