The Military-Environmental Complex

INTRODUCTIONOn January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his farewell address to the nation.1 That speech is famous for the President's caution:In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.2President Eisenhower's counsel was as prescient as it was wise. The military-industrial complex of which he spoke has deep historical roots3 and largely pejorative connotations.4 Cooperation among the military, the private sector, and universities, with the blessings of government institutions like Congress and the President, led to concerns about the entanglement of a private profit motive with the government's strategic decision making about whether to go to war.5The military and its mission to "provide the military forces needed to deter war and protect the security of our country"6 are often perceived to be entangled with the military-environmental complex, and thus, inherently at odds with environmental protection.7 Legal doctrine reinforces this view. The military is largely exempt from environmental laws and regulations covering such broad areas as habitat conservation and information disclo- sure rules concerning toxic chemicals-at least when those laws conflict with the military's mission to protect national security.8In the arena of energy use-with its concomitant impact on climate change-the military hardly appears to be the environment's friend. The military has an enormous carbon footprint and vast energy needs.9 The Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest single consumer of energy in the nation.10 Although some might view this fact as yet more evidence of the military's ongoing conflict with the environment, it should more properly be viewed as an exceptional opportunity for innovation in energy efficiency and the development of new technologies-both of which could have the potential for widespread crossover to and from the civilian realm.Although the military-industrial complex has largely pejorative connotations, scholars have recognized a more positive dimension to the cooperation it engendered between the military and the private sector.11 At its height during the twentieth century, the military-industrial complex led to the development of new technologies such as semiconductors, the global positioning system (GPS), the internet, and computers, inventions that transformed both war fighting and the civilian realm.12 In addition to these "spin-offs" from the military into the private sector, military procurement of commercially developed technologies stimulated industrial development by "spinons" from the private sector to the military.13 Like this history of technological innovation, the military's current relationship to the environment and its interaction with the private sector-particularly in the areas of sustainable energy use, demand reduction, and pursuit of renewable energy sources- are far more complex than legal exemptions or statistics about the DoD's greenhouse gas emissions might lead one to believe. A more nuanced understanding of the relationship between the military and the environment in this exceptional area of sustainable energy use and climate change is both warranted and timely.The debate over how to combat climate change-focusing, for instance, on efforts to reduce energy demand and promote the development of renewable energy sources-provides an especially important context in which to assess what role the military can play in advancing solutions to a major environmental problem. The primary questions in this law and policy debate center on the types of regulatory tools that best address the problem and the level of government at which those tools are best employed. …