First published in September 2017, this article is of relevance to the ongoing protest movement and debate on Climate Change (COP25)

“Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.” (Study Commissioned by the US Air Force: Weather as a Force Multiplier, Owning the Weather in 2025, August 1996)

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Environmental modification techniques have been available to the US military for more than half a century.

The issue has been amply documented and should be part of the climate change debate.

The U.N. Climate Conference (COP 25) met in Madrid with Delegates from nearly 200 countries. The focus was on Greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “every country on earth is treaty-bound to “avoid dangerous climate change”, and find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally in an equitable way.”: A narrow consensus which focusses on the nefarious impacts of CO2 emissions (from fossil fuel) on World temperature.

What has casually been omitted from the COP debate is the manipulation of climate for military use.

The broader issue of environmental modification techniques (ENMOD) must be addressed and carefully analyzed. It should also be understood that the instruments of weather warfare are part of the US arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their proposed use by the US military against “enemies” constitutes not only a crime against humanity but to put it mildly a threat to planet earth.

In this essay I am providing the reader with direct quotes from a publicly available 1996 US Air Force document on the use of environmental modification techniques which indelibly provide evidence that the threats are real and must be addressed.

It should be noted that the US is in violation of a historic 1977 international Convention ratified by the UN General Assembly which banned “military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.” (AP, 18 May 1977). Both the US and the Soviet Union were signatories to the Convention.

….Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to engage in military … use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party. (Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, United Nations, Geneva, May 18, 1977. Entered into force: 5 October 1978, see full text of Convention in Annex)

Michel Chossudovsky, September 15, 2018, revised December 4, 2019

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US mathematician John von Neumann, in liaison with the US Department of Defense, started his research on weather modification in the late 1940s at the height of the Cold War and foresaw ‘forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined’. During the Vietnam war, cloud-seeding techniques were used, starting in 1967 under Project Popeye, the objective of which was to prolong the monsoon season and block enemy supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The US military has developed advanced capabilities that enable it selectively to alter weather patterns. The technology, which was initially developed in the 1990s under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), was an appendage of the Strategic Defense Initiative – ‘Star Wars’. From a military standpoint, HAARP –which was officially abolished in 2014– is a weapon of mass destruction, operating from the outer atmosphere and capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems around the world.

Officially, the HAARP program has been closed down at its location in Alaska. The technology of weather modification shrouded in secrecy, nonetheless prevails. HAARP documents confirm that the technology was fully operational as of the mid 1990s.

(For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction: Owning the Weather for Military Use, first published by Global Research in 2006).

It should be emphasized that while the US military confirms that weather warfare is fully operational, there is no documented evidence of its military use against enemies of the US. The subject matter is a taboo among environmental analysts. No in-depth investigation has been undertaken to reveal the operational dimensions of weather warfare.

The irony is that the impacts of ENMOD techniques for military use were documented by CBC TV in the early 1990s.

The CBC TV report acknowledged that the HAARP facility in Alaska under the auspices of the US Air Force had the ability of triggering typhoons, earthquakes, floods and droughts: .

Directed energy is such a powerful technology it could be used to heat the ionosphere to turn weather into a weapon of war. Imagine using a flood to destroy a city or tornadoes to decimate an approaching army in the desert. The military has spent a huge amount of time on weather modification as a concept for battle environments. If an electromagnetic pulse went off over a city, basically all the electronic things in your home would wink and go out, and they would be permanently destroyed.”

CBC TV Report

“Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather”

In this article we will provide key quotations from a US 1996 US Air Force document which analyzes weather modification techniques for military use.

The underlying objective from a military standpoint is “Owning the Weather”.

At the time this study was commissioned in 1996, the HAARP program was already fully operational as documented by the CBC documentary.

The stated purpose of the Report is described below:



In this paper we show that appropriate application of weather-modification can provide battlespace dominance to a degree never before imagined. In the future, such operations will enhance air and space superiority and provide new options for battlespace shaping and battlespace awareness there, waiting for us to pull it all together;” in 2025 we can “Own the Weather.” (Commissioned by US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report, (public document) Weather-modification, according to US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report,

“offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary”, capabilities, it says, extend to the triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes:

‘Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.”

See complete reports commissioned by the US Air Force

….From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural weather patterns to complete dominance of global communications and counterspace control, weather-modification offers the war fighter a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary. Some of the potential capabilities a weather-modification system could provide to a war-fighting commander in chief (CINC) are listed in table 1.

Source: US Air Force