Traditional and western academic views generally believe that the damage to the environment is caused by years of war. For example, in the battle against the invasion of nomadic people, agricultural civilization recorded destructive tactics such as scorching the earth and sprinkling salt on the grassland on which nomadic people depended; The nomadic people plundered and destroyed the intersection of agriculture and animal husbandry more seriously. For example, it is described in the Military History of the Western World, "Some people think that the climate in Central Asia suddenly became dry in the first few centuries after AD, and reached its peak in 500 AD. Some people think that it is caused by the invasion of nomadic people and the destruction of navigation channels. T.Peisker said: in order to make the owner of a water grass field afraid to pay tribute to them, it is only necessary to capture the main waterway. And these nomads often rob and destroy everything blindly. A single invasion can turn hundreds of aquatic plants into ashes and deserts. Furthermore, nomadic people not only turned countless cities and villages in Central Asia into ruins, but also turned grasslands into bare land. Because of unintentional fires, trees were cut down indiscriminately, and finally the scope of quicksand expanded. "
However, there are also views that "the measures taken by the Central Plains civilization to resist the invasion of nomadic civilization have had a devastating impact on the ecological environment in northern Xinjiang", which provides a new way of thinking and perspective for studying this issue.