South Asia and Beyond

Anti Drone System

Tinkering With Weather: Strategic, Military Applications Possible?

Nitin A. Gokhale
April 18, 2024 - 2:55 pm
4 minutes read

Tinkering With Weather: Strategic, Military Applications Possible?

Cars stranded in flood water caused by heavy rain, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, April 17, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

A flooded airport, travel delays, submerged streets, traffic chaos and more. The usually bustling city of Dubai was brought to its knees and the heavens opened up. More than a year’s rain in a few hours goes against the norm in the arid region and is bound to create havoc. The city had its worst rain pain in over seven decades. UAE relies on cloud seeding-induced artificial rain to meet its water requirements and has been doing it for over 20 years now. This time a similar exercise was done, says a Bloomberg report but maybe the process was mistimed, coming as it did with a storm sweeping through the Arabian Peninsula that brought in favourable rain conditions. So was the flooding a result of excessive cloud seeding as it were? Tough to answer but a host of factors, such as the volume of rain, climate change and improper draining, may have contributed. As the globe hots up and climate change hits home, can weather be manipulated to the extent that it’s weaponised?...Read More

Nitin A. Gokhale

Left to himself, Nitin A. Gokhale would rather watch films and sports matches but his day job as a media entrepreneur, communications specialist, analyst and author, leaves him little time to indulge in his primary interests. Gokhale in fact started his career in journalism in 1983 as a sports reporter. Since then he has, in the past 41 years, traversed the entire spectrum across print, broadcast and digital space. One of South Asia's leading strategic analysts, Gokhale has moved on from conventional media to become an independent media entrepreneur running three niche digital platforms—BharatShakti, StratNewsGlobal and Interstellar—besides undertaking consultancy and training workshops in communications for military institutions, corporates and individuals. Now better known for his conflict coverage and strategic analyses, Gokhale has lived and reported from India’s North-east for 23 years between 1983 and 2006, been on the ground at Kargil in the summer of 1999 and also brought us live coverage from Sri Lanka’s Eelam War IV between 2006-2009. An alumni of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii, Gokhale now writes, lectures and analyses security and strategic matters in Indo-Pacific and travels regularly to US, Europe, Australia, South and South-East Asia to take part in various seminars and conferences. Gokhale is also a popular visiting faculty at India’s Defence Services Staff College, the three war colleges, India's National Defence College, College of Defence Management and the IB’s intelligence school.

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