The military isn´t really the first thing you think about when it comes to going green in a figurative sense.

But the war in Ukraine makes me think of some interesting things.

A war is not only about those in the front trenches but everything else that brings a nation to be able to sustain that war.

An electric tank is probably not such a great idea, but individual soldiers could carry lots of tools that are solar powered, with a battery, like a radio. Solar powers on that scale, a few centimetres across, like maybe 20 cm by 20 cm, are light, cheap, and small, and some models can fold up too. I imagine lots of smaller computer systems could do that too.

Russia´s missile and drone strikes on infrastructure makes Ukraine have to deal with power outages. Stuff like small scale solar power won´t completely replace regular power stations most likely, but it can be enough for important aspects of daily life. A city might have a million buildings in it. Targeting them all with weapons like that is hard, and those that break through the air defense systems will be even less numerous.

And it would also be important to remember that most wars in the world are not in Ukraine but many more are lower intensity stuff. Bringing things to environments like that are hard, if the insurgents can just blow up the trucks. The things people want to live well like basic medical care and education, the lack of it leading to resistance movements, you can bring them to those people with small scale renewable energy which needs less capital upfront to build power stations and electrical grids.

What else have you discovered about greener sources of stuff can you think has an impact on the military and war?