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When examining environmental justice and injustice, surprisingly few studies have examined the experiences of Native Americans. In filling this gap, we criticize and build on environmental and political sociology. We make the case and provide evidence that the U.S. military pursues a pattern of environmental "bads" that cannot be reduced to capitalism and that coercive state policies can mold the spatial distribution of people relative to environmental dangers. Our contribution, then, is both theoretical and substantive. First, we recast the environmental sociology literature by specifying the scope conditions under which a "treadmill of production " and a "treadmill of destruction " are applicable. Specifically, we argue that a "treadmill of destruction" is driven by a distinct logic of geopolitics that cannot be reduced to capitalism. Second, we provide empirical evidence of the "treadmill of destruction" by examining the environmental inequality endured by Native Americans at the hands of the U.S. military. We have collected data on a large number of military bases that have been closed but remain dangerous due to unexploded ordnance. We provide evidence that Native American lands tend to be located in the same county as such hazardous sites. In the twentieth century, the United States fought and won two global wars and prevailed in a sustained Cold War. The geopolitical demands of remaining the world's leading military power pushed the United States to produce, test, and deploy weapons of unprecedented toxicity. Native Americans have been left exposed to the dangers of this toxic legacy.
Despite studies indicating that the environmental risks borne by Native Americans are startling, the extant sociological literature on environmental inequality and Native Americans is limited. Grinde and Johansen (1995) characterize current dynamics as the "ecocide of Native America"; Kuletz (2001) refers to state-sanctioned environmental violence as "nuclear colonialism"; Churchill (2002) and LaDuke (1999) describe a "struggle for the land" (see also Bullard 1994; Gedicks 1993; Small 1994; Sachs 1996; The Akwesasne Task Force on the Environmental Research Advisory Committee 1997; Marshall 1996; Roberts and Toffolon-Weiss 2001). Nevertheless, these compelling case studies of environmental injustice are poorly integrated into the larger environmental justice literature that emphasizes class and race dynamics in urban areas (see Szasz and Meuser 1997; Mohai and Bryant 1992; Lester, Allen, and Hill 2001...