Call for Papers: The Role of Militaries in Global Sustainability: Linkages, Impacts, Activities, and Operations

Oct 9, 2026 (Deadline: 2027-02-28) | Cambridge University Press
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Global environmental change is accelerating and compounding conflict and security risks. More frequent and intense disasters are displacing people, rising demand for land and minerals is fuelling conflict over access to natural resources, and illicit and conflict economies are proliferating in regions of weak state presence. In this context, militaries and associated security actors are increasingly tasked with what is loosely termed “environmental security” work, even as their own operations remain a significant and under-scrutinized driver of environmental harm.The scale of the military footprint on sustainability outcomes is substantial and growing. Global military expenditure surpassed USD 2.7 trillion in 2024, with a 9.4% year-on-year increase — the steepest since the end of the Cold War (SIPRI, 2024). The world’s militaries are estimated to contribute roughly 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, a figure that exceeds the total emissions of Japan and is roughly double those of civil aviation; yet military emissions remain exempt from mandatory UNFCCC reporting and only voluntarily disclosed under the Paris Agreement, producing what researchers term a “military emissions black hole.” At the same time, military forces are conducting a rapidly expanding portfolio of sustainability-relevant activities — from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) to anti-poaching operations, counter-illegal-mining campaigns, reforestation, and cross-border environmental law enforcement.Despite the scale of these linkages, scholarship on the appropriate role of militaries in sustainability has remained dispersed across peace and conflict studies, environmental politics, military studies, disaster risk reduction, political ecology, and conservation science. As Vogler (2024) and others have noted, there is a striking absence of integrative, evidence-based analysis to inform civil–military decision-making on this nexus. This gap is consequential for policy and practice, for communities affected by military deployment in environmentally sensitive contexts, and for the broader societal transformations that are central to the mission of Global Sustainability.This themed collection will assemble the first integrative, sustainability-framed body of scholarship on the military–sustainability nexus. It will move beyond binary framings of military activity as either harmful or helpful, and instead interrogate the institutional, political, operational, and ecological conditions under which military engagement with sustainability produces beneficial, detrimental, or mixed outcomes. It will foreground underrepresented Global South cases and voices, connect operational and policy evidence to Earth-system and planetary-boundary concerns, and generate findings directly usable by policymakers, practitioners, affected communities, and researchers.Scope and Thematic AreasThe collection will primarily be organized around five thematic areas drawn from recent syntheses of the literature:1. Military emissions and climate change. Direct and indirect contributions of armed forces to global greenhouse gas emissions; transparency, accountability, and reporting regimes; the “military emissions black hole” and pathways to close it; implications of rising defence budgets for decarbonization.2. Military land-system impacts. Land degradation associated with training areas, bases, trench and fortification construction, munitions contamination, deforestation, and conflict rubble; post-conflict land remediation and restoration; urban and peri-urban impacts of militarized violence.3. Military technology as a sustainability shifter. Dual-use and spillover effects of defence innovation in remote sensing, Earth observation, unmanned systems, and low-carbon propulsion; civilian repurposing of military technologies for environmental monitoring and disaster response; risks of technology-driven militarization of environmental governance.4. Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR). The growing operational demand for military HA/DR as climate-related hazards intensify; institutional structures that enable or impede effective deployment; civil–military coordination at scale; implications for military readiness, civil–military relations, and community trust.5. Environmental security operations. Deployment of armed forces against environmental crimes (illegal mining, logging, wildlife trafficking) and for conservation and restoration; “green militarization” debates; multinational and cross-border operations; outcomes, displacement effects, and unintended consequences for affected populations.Additional topics are welcome. The collection will also consider contributions that expand or complicate this framework — for example, military procurement and supply-chain sustainability; gendered dimensions of military–environment interactions; Indigenous, local, and community perspectives on militarised conservation and resource governance; military-to-military environmental cooperation; backdraft effects of climate responses; and post-conflict ecological recovery.Timeline:Extended abstract deadline: 28 February 2027, please send directly to the Publisher (alison.paskins@cambridge.org)Decisions and invitations will be sent by: 16 March 2027Full paper deadline: 4 September 2027Abstract requirements:Extended abstracts (min. 500 to max. 1000 words) should provide a clear overview about the envisioned paper format, structure, expected key insights and novelty of the contribution. Authors are also requested to highlight the addressed foci areas as well as providing a compact overview of key references. Guest EditorsRichard A. Marcantonio, PhD — Assistant Professor of Environment, Peace, and Global Affairs, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame, USA.Geoffrey D. Dabelko, PhD — Professor, George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service, Ohio University, USA; Associate Senior Fellow, Environment of Peace Initiative, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Sweden.Paola Crippa, PhD — Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame, USA.