(The idea of weaponizing weather is nothing new. Whenever there is a hurricane, someone always says it was directed to where it ended up. Not a big proponent of that line of reasoning since Cuba and Nicaragua still exist however the thought that someone would have proposed such a plan back in the day is hardly shocking. I mean, lets face it. Since Lear man has been trying to control that which we cannot and fantasized about being able to do so. Hell I remember an arc in General Hospital back in the Luke and Laura days when Scorpio the bad guy had a Weather Weapon. Right? So for some wannabes at the DoD to crap out a white paper turning them into Scorpio isn't really shocking. However, if you read a bit of it you will notice we seem to have been investing a lot of DoD money on things and abilities that they laid out in the plan. And, after all, 2025 is just around the corner. You never know. What exactly is that big grid of satellites Elon Musk is building in the sky anyway? Food for thought)
from U.S. Archive 1996 (PDF) (H/T T)
Executive Summary
In 2025, US aerospace forces can “own the weather” by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications. Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the battlespace in ways never before possible. It provides opportunities to impact operations across the full spectrum of conflict and is pertinent to all possible futures.
The purpose of this paper is to outline a strategy for the use of a future weather-modification system to achieve military objectives rather than to provide a detailed technical road map. A high-risk, high-reward endeavor, weather-modification offers a dilemma not unlike the splitting of the atom.
While some segments of society will always be reluctant to examine controversial issues such as weather-modification, the tremendous military capabilities that could result from this field are ignored at our own peril. 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.