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Into the Blue: Weather as a Weapon — Part 2
by keith harmon snow
Circa 1971, the U.S. government viewed ENMOD (Environmental Modification) research as having transitioned from the "basic research" stage to the "operational" stage. Experiments in controlling and modifying the weather were occurring—or had occurred—in 22 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Iran, Israel, Kenya, Italy, France, South Africa, Congo and the U.S.S.R. Airborne seeding programs were undertaken to combat drought in the Philippine Islands, Okinawa, Africa and Texas. (Ed. W.N. Hess, NOAH Labs, Weather and Climate Modification, John Wiley & Sons, 1974: 271)
It was an explosive subject through the 1970s, but after 1977, ENMOD interest seemed to disappear almost overnight. In other words, after decades of intense research and development, after billions of dollars of investment, after major institutions and governmental bodies were created and charged with oversight of ENMOD and its many peripheral issues, and after the entire reorganization of the U.S. government to channel and guide and map out the future of this new and promising military and civilian "technology"—said to be more important than the atom bomb—everything stopped.
Or did it? It was as if a huge curtain fell over the subject as all research, all institutional interests, huge salaries and thousands of jobs vanished. And the mass media stopped reporting anything and everything as if struck by plague. That sudden and total silence is perhaps the most telling and suspicious indication of the secrecy and denial that the ENMOD arena was shackled with. Today, in 2003, it is almost as if it never happened.
Early in 2002, U.S. Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld added over $1 billion to the fiscal 2003 defense budget request to develop certain Unmanned Aerospace Vehicle (UAV) programs. The DOD invested more than $3 billion in UAV development, procurement and operations between 1996 and 2001; it plans to invest $2.3 billion more by 2005 and is likely to spend $4.2 billion by 2010. According to the so-called UAV Roadmap, by 2010 the UAV inventory of all the military services is expected to grow to 290 vehicles. (Roxana Tiron, "Despite Doubts, Airforce Stands by Predator," National Defense Magazine, April 8, 2002)
UAVs will operate as scientific data and image collectors transmitting climate and weather information to ground stations, satellites and airborne platforms. They might also be deployed as the vehicles to deliver seeding agents and to facilitate or distribute other ENMOD inputs at the precise place and time. UAVs are integral components for the facilitation of remote sensing, climate and atmospheric data collection and analyses, and rapid information transfer—all crucial to offensive military ENMOD capabilities.
The U.S. Army Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and the U.S. Air Force Global Hawk and RQ-1 Predator UAVs saw significant operational deployment in the war on Afghanistan, where they proved themselves indispensable, and they are part of a major array of weapons-bearing UAV-type systems slated to deploy various payloads sporting weather-warfare enabling technologies. (Jim Garamore, "Fly High Over Afghanistan," American Forces Press Service, April 2002) RQ-1 Predator was also deployed over Kosovo.
To be continued …
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