Climatic weapons are weapons of mass destruction, the main striking factor of which are various natural or climatic phenomena created by artificial means.
Use the phenomena of nature and the climate against the enemy - the eternal dream of the military. To send a hurricane to the enemy, to destroy the crops in the enemy country and thereby cause hunger, cause torrential rains and destroy the transport infrastructure with all the enemy — such opportunities could not but arouse the interest of the strategists. However, before humanity did not have the necessary knowledge and ability to influence the weather.
In our time, man has acquired unprecedented power: he split an atom, flew into space, reached the ocean floor. We have learned much more about climate: now we know why droughts and floods occur, why it rains and snowstorms sweep, how hurricanes are born. But even now we are unable to confidently influence the global climate. This is a very complex system in which countless factors interact. Solar activity, the processes occurring in the ionosphere, the magnetic field of the Earth, the oceans, the anthropogenic factor is only a small part of the forces that can determine the planetary climate.
A little about the history of climate weapons
Even without fully understanding all the mechanisms that form the climate, a person tries to control it. In the middle of the last century, the first experiments on climate change began. First, people learned to artificially cause the formation of clouds and fog. Similar studies were conducted by many countries, including the USSR. A little later, learned to cause artificial precipitation.
At first, such experiments had purely peaceful goals: to cause rain, or, conversely, to prevent the hail from destroying crops. But soon similar technologies began to be mastered by the military too.
During the Vietnamese conflict, the Americans conducted Operation Popeye, the purpose of which was to significantly increase the amount of precipitation over the part of Vietnam along which the Ho Chi Minh Trail ran. Americans sprayed from the aircraft some chemicals (dry ice and silver iodide), which caused a significant increase in rain. As a result, the roads were blurred, and the communications of the partisans were broken. It should be noted that the effect was rather short-lived, and the costs were huge.
Around the same time, American scientists tried to learn how to manage hurricanes. For the southern states of the USA, hurricanes are a real disaster. However, pursuing this seemingly noble goal, scientists also studied the possibility of sending a hurricane to the "wrong" countries. The famous mathematician John von Neumann collaborated with the American military in this direction.
In 1977, the UN adopted a convention that prohibited all use of climate as a weapon. It was adopted at the initiative of the USSR, and the United States joined it.
Reality or fiction
Is it possible at all climate weapons? Theoretically yes. But to influence the climate on a global scale, on territories of several thousand square kilometers, enormous resources are needed. And since we still do not fully understand the mechanisms of occurrence of weather phenomena, the result can be obtained unpredictable.
Now climate control studies are conducted in several countries of the world, including Russia. We are talking about impacts on relatively small areas. Use weather for military purposes is prohibited.
If we talk about climate weapons, then you can not ignore two objects: the American complex HAARP, which is located in Alaska and the object "Sura" in Russia, near Nizhny Novgorod.
These two objects, according to some experts, are climate weapons that can change the weather on a global scale, affecting the processes in the ionosphere. Especially famous in this respect is the HAARP complex. Not a single article devoted to this topic is complete without mentioning this installation. The object "Sura" is less known, but it is considered our answer to the HAARP complex.
HAARP complex
In the early 1990s, the construction of a huge facility began in Alaska. This is an area of 13 hectares where the antennas are located. Officially, the object was built to study the ionosphere of our planet. It is there that the processes that have the greatest influence on the formation of the Earth’s climate take place.
In addition to scientists, the Navy and the United States Air Force, as well as the famous DARPA (Advanced Research Department) are participating in the project. But even with all this in mind, is HAARP an experimental climate weapon? Unlikely.
The fact is that the HAARP complex in Alaska is by no means new or unique. The construction of such complexes began in the 60s of the last century. They were built in the USSR, in Europe, and in South America. Just HAARP is the largest such complex, and the presence of the military adds intrigue.
In Russia, the similar work is done by the object "Sura", which has more modest dimensions and is not in the best condition now. However, Sura works and studies electromagnetism in the high atmosphere. On the territory of the former USSR there were several such complexes.
Around these objects appeared legends. About the complex HAARP say that it can change the weather, cause earthquakes, shoot down satellites and warheads, control people's consciousness. But there is no evidence of this. Not so long ago, American scientist Scott Stevens accused Russia of using climate weapons against the United States. According to Stevans, the Russian side, using a secret installation like "Sura", operating on the principle of an electromagnetic generator, created the hurricane "Katrina" and sent it to the United States.
Conclusion
Today, climate weapons are a reality, but their use requires too large resources. We still do not know enough the most complicated processes of weather formation, and therefore it is problematic to control such weapons.
The use of climate weapons can be a blow to the aggressor itself or its allies, causing damage to neutral states. In any case, the result will not be predicted.
In addition, in many countries there are regular meteorological observations, and the use of such weapons will cause severe weather anomalies that will not pass unnoticed. The reaction of the world community to such actions will not differ from the reaction to nuclear aggression.
Undoubtedly, the relevant research and experiments are continuing - but the creation of effective weapons is still very far away. If climate weapons (in some form) exist today, its use is unlikely to be appropriate. So far, there is no serious evidence of the existence of such weapons.
