Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the tactical use Rainbow Herbicides.
Herbicides, also commonly known as weed killers, are substances used to control undesired plants, also known as weeds. Selective herbicides control specific weed species while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed, while non-selective herbicides kill plants indiscriminately. The combined effects of herbicides, nitrogen fertilizer, and improved cultivars has increased yields of major crops by 3x to 6x from 1900 to 2000.
Operation Ranch Hand was a U.S. military operation during the Vietnam War, lasting from 1962 until 1971. Largely inspired by the British use of chemicals 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s, it was part of the overall herbicidal warfare program during the war called "Operation Trail Dust". Ranch Hand involved spraying an estimated 19 million U.S. gallons (72,000 m3) of defoliants and herbicides over rural areas of South Vietnam in an attempt to deprive the Viet Cong of food and vegetation cover. Areas of Laos and Cambodia were also sprayed to a lesser extent. According to the Vietnamese government, the chemicals caused 400,000 deaths. The United States government has described these figures as unreliable.
A defoliant is any herbicidal chemical sprayed or dusted on plants to cause their leaves to fall off. Defoliants are widely used for the selective removal of weeds in managing croplands and lawns. Worldwide use of defoliants, along with the development of other herbicides and pesticides, allowed for the Green Revolution, an increase in agricultural production in mid-20th century. Defoliants have also been used in warfare as a means to deprive an enemy of food crops and/or hiding cover, most notably by the United Kingdom during the Malayan Emergency and the United States in the Vietnam War. Defoliants were also used by Indonesian forces in various internal security operations.
Agent Blue is one of the "rainbow herbicides" that is known for use by the United States during the Vietnam War. It contained a mixture of dimethylarsinic acid and its related salt, sodium cacodylate, and water.
Agent Purple is the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in their herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War. The name comes from the purple stripe painted on the barrels to identify the contents. Largely inspired by the British use of herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency, it was one of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides" that included the more infamous Agent Orange. Agent Purple and Orange were also used to clear brush in Canada.
Herbicidal warfare is the use of substances primarily designed to destroy the plant-based ecosystem of an area. Although herbicidal warfare use chemical substances, its main purpose is to disrupt agricultural food production and/or to destroy plants which provide cover or concealment to the enemy, not to asphyxiate or poison humans and/or destroy human-made structures. Herbicidal warfare has been forbidden by the Environmental Modification Convention since 1978, which bans "any technique for changing the composition or structure of the Earth's biota".
Agent White is the code name for a herbicide used by the U.S. military in its herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War. The name comes from the regulatory requirements of identifying each container of the various herbicides through the addition of colored stripes. The colors used were orange, purple, pink, blue, and white by the manufacturers to ensure that the contents were easily identifiable during shipment and usage, as the colors were selected by the U.S. government. Largely inspired by the British use of herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency, it was one of the so-called "rainbow herbicides".
Agent Green is the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War. The name comes from the green stripe painted on the barrels to identify the contents. Largely inspired by the British use of herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency, it was one of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides". Agent Green was only used between 1962 and 1964, during the early "testing" stages of the spraying program.
2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, a synthetic auxin, is a chlorophenoxy acetic acid herbicide used to defoliate broad-leafed plants. It was developed in the late 1940s, synthesized by reaction of 2,4,5-Trichlorophenol and chloroacetic acid. It was widely used in the agricultural industry until being phased out, starting in the late 1970s due to toxicity concerns. Agent Orange, a defoliant used by the British in the Malayan Emergency and the U.S. in the Vietnam War, was equal parts 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D. 2,4,5-T itself is toxic with a NOAEL of 3 mg/kg/day and a LOAEL of 10 mg/kg/day. Agent Pink contained 100% 2,4,5-T. Additionally, the manufacturing process for 2,4,5-T contaminates this chemical with trace amounts of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). TCDD is a carcinogenic persistent organic pollutant with long-term effects on the environment. With proper temperature control during production of 2,4,5-T, TCDD levels can be held to about .005 ppm. Before the TCDD risk was well understood, early production facilities lacked proper temperature controls and individual batches tested later were found to have as much as 60 ppm of TCDD.
Agent Pink is the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War. The name comes from the pink stripe painted on the barrels to identify the contents. Largely inspired by the British use of herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency, it was one of the rainbow herbicides that included the more infamous Agent Orange. Agent Pink was only used during the early "testing" stages of the spraying program before 1964.
Economic warfare or economic war is an economic strategy utilized by belligerent nations with the goal of weakening the economy of other states. This is primarily achieved by the use of economic blockades. Ravaging the crops of the enemy is a classic method, used for thousands of years.
The Rainbow Herbicides are a group of tactical-use chemicals used by the United States military in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Success with Project AGILE field tests in 1961 with herbicides in South Vietnam was inspired by the British use of herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s, which led to the formal herbicidal program Trail Dust. Herbicidal warfare is the use of substances primarily designed to destroy the plant-based ecosystem of an agricultural food production area and/or to destroy dense foliage which provides the enemy with natural tactical cover.
The War Remnants Museum is a war museum at 28 Vo Van Tan, in District 3, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. It contains exhibits relating to the First Indochina War and the Vietnam War.
According to a 2005 report conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Vietnam has the second highest rate of deforestation of primary forests in the world, second only to Nigeria. The use of defoliants during the Vietnam War had a devastating and long-lasting impact on the country's forests and ecology, affecting 14-44% of total forest cover, with coastal mangrove forests being most affected.
Project Agile was an Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) project in the 1960s that investigated means for engaging in remote, limited asymmetric warfare. The research was intended for use in providing U.S. support to countries engaged in fighting Communist insurgents, particularly in South Vietnam and Thailand.
Study of the environmental impact of war focuses on the modernization of warfare and its increasing effects on the environment. Scorched earth methods have been used for much of recorded history. However, the methods of modern warfare cause far greater devastation on the environment. The progression of warfare from chemical weapons to nuclear weapons has increasingly created stress on ecosystems and the environment. Specific examples of the environmental impact of war include World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Rwandan Civil War, the Kosovo War, the Gulf War, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Indochina mangroves are a large mangrove ecoregion on the coasts of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia in Southeast Asia.
Agent Orange is an herbicide, classified as a defoliant, that was used most notably by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. Its primary purpose was strategic deforestation, destroying the forest cover and food resources necessary for the implementation and sustainability of the North Vietnamese style of guerilla warfare. The U.S. Agent Orange usage reached an apex during Operation Ranch Hand, in which the material was sprayed over 4.5 million acres of land in Vietnam from 1961 to 1971.
Herbicidal warfare research conducted by the U.S. military began during the Second World War with additional research during the Korean War. Interest among military strategists waned before a budgetary increase allowed further research during the early Vietnam War. The U.S. research culminated in the U.S. military defoliation program during the Vietnam war known as Operation Ranch Hand.
