Abstract：

After the birth of herbicides in the modern sense, the United States developed agricultural herbicides into tactical herbicides for war purposes. During the Vietnam War, the US sprayed a large amount of tactical herbicides in southern Vietnam to eliminate forest barriers and cut off the food supply of the Viet Cong guerrillas, causing extensive damage to the vegetation. Instead of achieving its intended purpose, the US waged herbicide war further aggravated its situation in the Vietnam War. The ecological catastrophe caused by the herbicide war in southern Vietnam sparked widespread concern over the issue of herbicides and put the US under enormous pressure from both home and abroad. The Nixon administration pushed for a detente strategy, phasing out tactical herbicide spraying and putting the ban on the use of chemical and biological weapons and environmental protection on the agenda of international cooperation, thus contributing to the detente of US-Soviet relations and the further evolution of the Cold War situation.

Keyword：Cold War environmental history; tactical herbicides; OperationRanch Hand; detente of US-Soviet relations;

Published on Journal of University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Issue 5, 2023.