The bombs that exploded last month in Asia should spell the end of the Kyoto Protocol. When India, then Pakistan, publicized its nuclear capabilities and made the world more risky, undermining the illusion that the world’s only superpower, the United States, could eviscerate its military and economic capability with impunity. Unfortunately, in negotiating the treaty in Kyoto, the Administration ignored its effects on our fighting forces. By agreeing implicitly to limit the military’s energy use, the final agreement could impair our defense, reduce our safety, and harm our economy.

The Administration, in the person of Under Secretary of State, Stuart Eizenstat, denies that the Kyoto agreement would adversely affect the military. He points to the following language in the compact:

Although the Administration claims that this protects our military from any constraints stemming from the Kyoto agreement, it would appear on the surface to exempt only those military operations authorized by the UN Security Council. That Council includes five permanent members with veto power, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China. Any one of the permanent members could prevent authorization of a multilateral operation. (Russia’s current opposition to the use of military force in Yugoslavia or in Iraq illustrates the potential problems with requiring UN consent.)

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security, Sherri Goodman, and Under Secretary Eizenstat each claimed on separate occasions in testimony to Congress that multilateral military operations not specifically authorized by the UN would still be exempt, provided they were consistent with the UN Charter. Goodman asserted that Grenada and Panama would have been exempt, but many individuals and some countries denounced the United States government for sending the military into Panama and Grenada, calling those actions "clear violations" of the UN Charter.

Goodman went on to insist that "if we were to undertake, for some reason, a completely unilateral operation, we do not need an international treaty to tell the United States how to operate unilaterally. That is a matter of United States sovereignty." In other words, "To Hell with the Treaty!" One can sympathize with that view yet worry that, in borderline cases, it might make the United States pull its punches rather than be tagged as a scofflaw.

The United States has acted unilaterally in the past and almost surely will want to do so again in the future. Besides the two military operations in the Americas noted above, the US after the Gulf War dispatched a contingent of its armed forces to provide humanitarian aid to Bangladesh in the wake of a devastating cyclone. Would such an effort create greenhouse gases that would be tallied against the United States? If so, that would require further cutbacks in carbon dioxide emissions in the civilian economy. The prospect might put a real damper on providing aid to ravaged peoples.

At present, the United States has forces stationed in Europe, South Korea, and Japan, as well as in Bosnia and the Balkans. Would emissions produced by US forces in the line of duty count against, for example, Germany or against the American quota? Defense maintains that such sticky wickets can be negotiated.

Goodman has testified as well that, since US forces overseas have been cut sharply, emissions from our military stationed abroad are down from 1990 levels, providing a gain under the Protocol to the host country. That does imply less of a burden for Germany. To the extent the US has simply relocated those troops home, however, it would increase the magnitude of the cutback needed by the US to meet its treaty obligation.

The American total would include most of the operations of the US military, meaning that the larger, the better trained, the more effective the military, the lower the amount of greenhouse gas emissions available for the private sector. Goodman estimated that a 10 percent cut in fuel consumption, which would reduce CO2 by a comparable percentage, would cut 328,000 miles per year from tank training, requiring an additional six weeks for the Army to deploy its motorized forces. For the Navy, she calculated that 2,000 steaming days per year would have to be slashed from training and operations. The Air Force would have to reduce flying hours by 210,000 annually. If the military had to meet its fair share and reduce its emissions by the same percentage as mandated for the whole country, the cuts in training and operations would be three times Goodman’s estimates. Meeting Kyoto could mean that our military would be unable to respond to threats in a timely manner, a scary prospect.

Secretary Goodman asserted that the DOD "does not seek special treatment for its facilities and non-tactical vehicles." She pointed to the conversion of base vehicles (trucks and cars used on military bases) to run on alternative fuels.

But what about its planes, its tanks, its ships at sea? If owned by civilians, military vehicles would qualify for gas-guzzler taxes. Should we ask the Defense Department to buy only fuel-efficient tanks that get 40 miles to the gallon? We might have to make them much lighter by taking out the guns and removing the armor. Perhaps the Army should consider sending the troops to battle in Geo Metros. Has the Navy considered that the new fabrics used for sails on racing yachts could bring back the sailing schooner? How about windmills on destroyers? Assuming that they could still fly, should the Air Force switch our B-2 bombers over to burning natural gas? Alternatively we could give fliers nitrogen-oxide (laughing gas) to let them get high.

Secretary Goodman, in her oral Senate testimony, announced that "the administration has decided that it will oppose efforts to impose emissions limits or constraints on domestic military operations and training." "This is new news," she proclaimed. To the extent that the Administration lives up to that proclamation, it is good news for our defense establishment but bad news for the rest of us. If the military increases its emissions, the civilian economy will have to reduce its emissions even more than the 31 percent specified in Kyoto.

All of this would be less frightening, if the Administration had continued to support the demand of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, set out in a memorandum by Secretary Goodman, for a blanket waiver for "military tactical and strategic systems used in training to support readiness or in support of national security, humanitarian activities, peace keeping, peace enforcement and the United Nation’s actions." At Kyoto, apparently under the direction of the Vice President Gore, the United States gave up on any blanket waiver and agreed to the language exempting only UN approved operations.

As it stands, the more the Defense Department is called upon to defend our interests, the more the civilian economy will be required to slash its emissions. By failing to secure an exemption for the military, the current White House puts future administrations into a bind. In the event of a major military conflict, they must either put the economy through a wringer or, as Secretary Goodman implies, tell the world to get lost! Meanwhile the pressure will be on to minimize training exercises that utilize a lot of fuel and substitute computer simulations. That may make the virtual reality crowd happy but it won’t let the rest of us sleep well at night.

Statement of Sherri W. Goodman, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security before the Subcommittee on Readiness of the Senate Committee on the Armed Services, March 11, 1998.

The William J. Casey Institute of the Center for Security Policy. "Is the Administration Lying to the Senate about Kyoto’s Adverse Impact on National Security – or Just Kidding Itself?" No 98-C-70, April 23, 1998.

Testimony of Stuart E. Eizenstat, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs before the House International Relations Committee, May 13, 1998.

Testimony by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., Director of the Center for Security Policy, The William J. Casey Institute of the Center for Security Policy, before the International Relations Committee, House of Representatives, May 13, 1998.