ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF MILITARY ACTIONS IN CONTEXT OF WORLD WARS

Abstract

The article considers the negative factors of the human impact on the environmental situation during the largest world wars. The analysis of various sources made by the authors resulted in the conclusion that this problem remains underestimated in the scientific community up to the present and enjoys little popularity with historians and ecologists, which leads to the gaps in large environmental studies and modern projects. Unfortunately, today the factor of the adverse impact on the environment is neither a sufficient reason to settle military conflicts of various scale nor the subject the famous world researchers focus on. Environmental issues have had low priority in comparison to political, demographic, socio-cultural and psychological issues of war as a destructive phenomenon throughout the entire existence of humanity. This context determines the scientific novelty of the research of the authors who raised an undoubtedly important issue of large-scale impact of military conflicts on natural environment. The authors point out that armed hostilities in the world didn't cause global environmental catastrophes but became the consequence of the devastating effect on ecosystems, flora and fauna, which ultimately forms an integral part of the global environmental crisis system