From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmilitate against something phrasal verb formalPREVENTto prevent something or make it less likely to happen Environmental factors militate against building the power station in this area. → militate→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
militate against • Even the humdrum tasks are varied enough to militate against a sense of monotony.• The very size would seem to militate against action on closure, with the point of non-viability being some way off.• The two approaches are not mutually exclusive, though efficiency does tend to militate against combinations.• In general, illiteracy and lack of motivation militate against reliability of figures from Third World countries.• These provisions are likely to militate against repeat applications and unduly long orders except where strictly necessary.• Sufficient they must take; but too many would be counter-productive and would militate against surprise and secrecy.• These fundamental dissimilarities will surely militate against the two communities coming together. 