In Front of Your Face...

A Research Paper

Presented To

Air Force 2025

by

Col Tamzy J. House

Lt Col James B. Near, Jr.

LTC William B. Shields (USA)

Maj Ronald J. Celentano

Maj David M. Husband

Maj Ann E. Mercer

Maj James E. Pugh

August 1996

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. Some of the potential capabilities a weather-modification system could provide to a war-fighting commander in chief (CINC) are listed in table 1. Technology advancements in five major areas are necessary for an integrated weather-modification capability: (1) advanced nonlinear modeling techniques, (2) computational capability, (3)information gathering and transmission, (4) a global sensor array, and (5) weather intervention techniques. Some intervention tools exist today and others may be developed and refined in the future

Current technologies that will mature over the next 30 years will offer anyone who has the necessary resources the ability to modify weather patterns and their corresponding effects, at least on the local scale. Current demographic, economic, and environmental trends will create global stresses that provide the impetus necessary for many countries or groups to turn this weather-modification ability into a capability. 

In the United States, weather-modification will likely become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications. Our government will pursue su6p ch a policy, depending on its interests, at various levels. These levels could include unilateral actions, participation in a security framework such as NATO, membership in an international organization such as the UN, or participation in a coalition. Assuming that in 2025 our national security strategy includes weather-modification, its use in our national military strategy will naturally follow. Besides the significant benefits an operational capability would provide, another motivation to pursue weather-modification is to deter and counter potential adversaries.

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. (1) “The technology is there, waiting for us to pull it all together (2);” in 2025 we can “Own the Weather.”

Notes

(1) The weather-modification capabilities described in this paper are consistent with the operating environments and missions relevant for aerospace forces in 2025 as defined by AF/LR, a long-range planning office reporting to the CSAF [based on AF/LR PowerPoint briefing “Air and Space Power Framework for Strategy Development (jda-2lr.ppt)].”

(2) General Gordon R. Sullivan, “Moving into the 21st Century: America’s Army and Modernization,” Military Review (July 1993) quoted in Mary Ann Seagraves and Richard Szymber, “Weather a Force Multiplier,” Military Review, November/December 1995, 75.