Extractivism and Environmental Damage in North Vietnam during the US-Vietnam War

• In Event: Environmental Extractivism, Speculation, and Impacts in Battle and Beyond

Abstract

The Vietnam War has long been used to illustrate the environmental consequences of war, particularly regarding the use of chemical herbicides like Agent Orange and other measures to reduce forest cover by the US military and their South Vietnamese allies. Yet comparatively less attention has focused on how military actions and decisions in North Vietnam also intersected with environmental damages, from the need to build supply lines and roads to conversion of forests for agricultural fields to produce needed food supplies. In particular, one of the under-studied consequences as the war dragged on was the degree to which North Vietnam had to exploit and export natural resources to fuel their efforts, ranging from timber to minerals and coal. By the early 1970s, North Vietnam’s rich forests and underground natural resources increasingly were harvested and mined as commodities to repay socialist world allies. These friendly countries supported the war efforts through military hardware, personnel and money, but they also sent scientists to North Vietnam to advise local areas on how best to produce valuable export materials, as apatite, phosphate, bauxite, tin, chromium, lead, zinc and copper, which were in high demand by the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe. Based on newly uncovered materials in the Vietnamese archives, this paper discusses how extractivism shaped military efforts in North Vietnam, while also laying the groundwork for the People’s Army of Vietnam to play a long term role in commercial activities after the war, particularly in mining and construction.

Author

• Pamela McElwee, Rutgers University