Page 183 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

computing, and space and in other cases through dual-use or surplus hardware.
We know that the emergence of modern meteorology is, in many ways, a product
of two world wars and the cold war. We also know that in the Vietnam era, only
a very few people knew about secret cloud seeding over the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
originating as it did directly from the White House. This dynamic continues
today. Geoscientists with high-level security clearances share associations, values,
and interests with national security elites. Both groups agree on the necessity of
preserving deniability in top-secret programs. We know with certainty that his-
torically, weather and climate control have been portrayed as weapons that might
be used against enemies without their knowledge—or the knowledge of lower-
level operatives and the wider public.
The military roots of meteorology can be traced from the deep past through
the history of the cold war and Vietnam eras. In addition to traditional goals of
being able to function and prevail under all environmental conditions, weather
warriors have attempted to weaponize weather control. In the early cold war
era, they were particularly active in experimentation on cloud seeding, in hur-
ricane modification efforts such as Project Stormfury, and in rainmaking efforts
in Vietnam. The United Nations Convention on the Prohibition of Military or
Any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMoD),
which entered into force in 1978, marks the end of this era and serves as a land-
mark treaty that may have to be revisited soon to avoid or at least try to mitigate
possible military or hostile use of climate control or geoengineering. If, as has
been recently asserted but not yet demonstrated, “[c]limate change has the power
to unsettle boundaries and shake up geopolitics, usually for the worse,” it is cer-
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tain that the governments of the world will have their strategic military planners
working in secret on both worst-case scenarios and technological responses.

Weather in Wars and battles

The weather has often been called the most violent variable in human affairs; that
characterization could also apply to military affairs. Generals “mud” and “winter”
and admiral “storm” have always had a big influence on the outcome of battles.
Historians attribute the devastating defeat of the Roman general Varus and three
of his legions in Germany in 9 c.e. to a combination of treachery, poor strategy,
rough terrain, and bad weather; the kamikaze (divine winds), legendary protec-
tors of Japan, destroyed Mongol emperor Kublai Khan’s invading force not once
but twice, in 1274 and 1281; and British history teaches that favorable winds and
gales contributed mightily to the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

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