Introduction

Protection of the environment during training and operations is an important priority of the United States Navy. Maintaining the appropriate balance between environmental protection and mission achievement is a complex proposition, as the focus of operations shifts along the continuum from peacetime training, to military operations other than war, to warfare itself. This chapter describes the United States Navy's efforts – in concert with other military services, the Joint Staff, and international military organizations – to develop environmental protection doctrine and policy that provides appropriate guidance for operational staff and leaders in this critically important area. This chapter gives substantial treatment to military operations other than war (MOOTW).

First, this chapter helps to identify the essential linkages through which legal principles pertaining to the protection of environment in military operations are given real-world effect. Clear international consensus on appropriate norms for environmental protection during war, even if achievable, would be considerably less effective without meaningful translation of those norms into military doctrine and policy governing battlespace practice. Environmental protection can be much more efficiently achieved through prevention of environmental injury in the first place (a result of enlightened operational decisionmaking) than through post-conflict damage assessment, recovery from and/or prosecution of responsible parties, and efforts to remedy the damage.

Second, for the foreseeable future the prospect of all-out world war – full-scale multinational conflict on several continents – is thankfully minimal. By contrast, it is virtually certain that most nations will continue to conduct military training and exercises, and that many states will periodically engage in large-scale military operations other than war.