5.6 Herbicides in Warfare: The Case of Indochina

The Second Indochina War (or Vietnam Conflict) of 1961-1975 is noted for the widespread and severe environmental damage inflicted upon its theatre of operations, especially in the former South Vietnam (Westing, 1976, 1980, 1982a, 1984b). The US strategy in South Vietnam, inter alia, involved massive rural area bombing, extensive chemical and mechanical forest destruction, large-scale chemical and mechanical crop destruction, wide-ranging chemical anti-personnel harassment and area denial, and enormous forced population displacements. In short, this US strategy represented the intentional disruption of both the natural and human ecologies of the region. Moreover, this war was the first in military history in which massive quantities of anti-plant chemical warfare agents (herbicides) were employed (Buckingham, 1982;Cecil, 1986; Lang et al., 1974; Westing, 1976, 1984b). The Second Indochina War was innovative in that a great power attempted to subdue a peasant army through the profligate use of technologically advanced weapons and methods. One can readily understand that the outcome of more than a decade of such war in South Vietnam and elsewhere in the region resulted not only in heavy direct casualties, but also in long-term medical sequelae. By any measure, however, its main effects were a widespread, long-lasting, and severe disruption of forestlands, of perennial croplands, and of farmlandsthat is to say, of millions of hectares of the natural resource base essential to an agrarian society. This section first reviews the history of the use of herbicides in warfare. It goes on to summarize the employment of these agents during the Second Indochina War against forest trees and crop plants, and then describes their immediate effect on flora and fauna. Following a brief treatment of the persistence of the agents used, it concludes with a summary of the long-term ecological effects, primarily with reference to South Vietnam.