Independent journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin said the U.S. military is an existential environmental threat to humanity and the planet [1, 2].
This argument challenges the traditional view of national security by framing the military's global footprint as a primary driver of ecological collapse. If the military is the largest institutional polluter, traditional climate policies may fail without addressing defense spending and operations.
Martin discussed these findings during a one-hour interview recorded on Jan. 29, 2026 [1]. The conversation focused on her documentary, “Earth’s Greatest Enemy,” which was released in 2025 [2]. The film examines the environmental damage caused by U.S. military operations across the globe.
According to the interview published by The Real News Network, the scale of the military machine creates a level of degradation that threatens the stability of the biosphere [1]. Martin said that the global footprint of the U.S. military is not merely a byproduct of war, but a systemic issue of planetary degradation [1, 2].
The documentary seeks to bring transparency to the environmental cost of maintaining a global military presence. Martin said the military operates with a level of opacity that hides its true impact on the Earth's climate, and ecosystems [1].
By linking geopolitical power to environmental destruction, the work suggests that the pursuit of military dominance is incompatible with global sustainability goals. The filmmaker said that the current trajectory of the U.S. military machine makes it the greatest enemy of the environment [1, 2].
“The U.S. military is an existential environmental threat to humanity and the planet.”
This critique shifts the climate conversation from industrial emissions to state-sponsored military activity. By framing the U.S. military as a primary polluter, Martin's work suggests that environmental recovery is impossible without a fundamental restructuring of global defense strategies and a reduction in the military's ecological footprint.
