By Ayesha Asim
For decades, weather warfare occupied a marginal yet persistent place within international security discourse, situated uneasily between military history, scientific experimentation, and geopolitical speculation. In 2026, however, amid renewed tensions in the Middle East, environmental manipulation has quietly re-emerged as a subject of legal and diplomatic concern.
Recent online claims linking rainfall patterns in Iran and Iraq to attacks on US-linked radar infrastructure revived debate concerning the potential militarisation of environmental technologies. Reports circulating across regional media and digital platforms states that rainfall increased following strikes on military radar systems associated with US operations in the Middle East. For example, The Jerusalem Post reported on viral claims that “stolen rains” had returned after disruptions to alleged weather-control operations. Similar narratives also appeared in regional commentary and online discussions following reports of Iranian strikes on radar installations in Iraq and the Gulf region.
The allegations quickly attracted public attention across the region. Yet meteorological experts and scientific authorities strongly rejected such assertions. Iranian weather officials publicly stated that military or aviation radar systems cannot manipulate large-scale precipitation systems. Independent scientific assessments similarly found no evidence supporting the existence of operational technologies capable of engineering regional droughts or storms through radar installations alone. Various news reports and fact-check investigations likewise concluded that the allegations lacked scientific substantiation.
Nevertheless, the controversy itself remains legally and politically significant. Even where claims are scientifically unsupported, their political significance reflects growing international anxiety regarding environmental insecurity and the future strategic implications of climate-related technologies.
In regions already confronting drought, desertification, and severe water scarcity, environmental vulnerability has increasingly become intertwined with geopolitical rivalry and national security concerns.
The concept of environmental manipulation as a method of warfare is not entirely new. During the Vietnam War, the United States conducted Operation Popeye, a covert cloud-seeding programme intended to prolong monsoon conditions along enemy supply routes. The operation intensified international concern regarding environmental modification techniques and ultimately contributed to the adoption of the 1977 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, commonly referred to as the ENMOD Convention.
Under Article I of the ENMOD Convention, states parties undertake not to engage in military or hostile environmental modification techniques having “widespread, long-lasting or severe effects” as a means of destruction, damage, or injury against another state. At the time of its drafting, the treaty primarily contemplated large-scale climatic interventions capable of producing floods, earthquakes, or other forms of environmental disruption.
Nearly five decades later, however, scientific and technological developments have complicated the legal landscape considerably.
Contemporary geoengineering proposals, including solar radiation management and large-scale atmospheric interventions, are increasingly discussed within scientific and policy circles as potential responses to climate change. Although many remain experimental, several possess dual-use characteristics, meaning technologies designed for civilian climate mitigation may theoretically acquire strategic or military applications.
International law remains insufficiently prepared to regulate this emerging ambiguity.
One major challenge concerns attribution. Unlike conventional military attacks, environmental manipulation may prove exceptionally difficult to detect, measure, or conclusively attribute to a particular state actor. Climate systems are inherently complex, and ordinary weather variability can itself generate suspicion in politically volatile environments. Under such conditions, perception may become as geopolitically consequential as scientific verification.
This dynamic is particularly visible in the Middle East, where water scarcity has increasingly evolved into a matter of national and regional security. Iran, Iraq, and neighbouring states face mounting ecological pressures arising from prolonged droughts, declining river flows, and rising temperatures. In such circumstances, narratives involving “climate theft” or foreign environmental interference gain political traction not because they are scientifically established, but because environmental stress has intensified geopolitical mistrust.
The result is a dangerous convergence of climate anxiety, information warfare, and strategic competition.
For international lawyers and policymakers, the central concern is therefore not whether present radar systems can control rainfall. There is no credible evidence that they can. Rather, the more pressing issue is whether existing international legal frameworks are capable of regulating future environmental technologies before geopolitical tensions outpace legal governance.
The ENMOD Convention itself remains limited in both scope and enforcement capacity. Drafted before the emergence of contemporary climate engineering debates, the treaty lacks comprehensive verification mechanisms and provides limited guidance regarding dual-use environmental technologies. At the same time, major powers increasingly regard technological dominance, including leadership in climate-related innovation, as part of broader strategic competition.
As climate pressures intensify globally, allegations of environmental manipulation may increasingly become instruments of propaganda, coercion, and diplomatic confrontation, regardless of whether such claims are scientifically substantiated.
What was once regarded as speculative may soon emerge as a serious challenge for international security governance.
The renewed debate surrounding weather warfare, therefore, reveals less about secret technologies controlling rainfall and more about the evolving nature of insecurity in the twenty-first century. Climate change is no longer merely an environmental issue. It is increasingly embedded within questions of sovereignty, technological governance, military strategy, and state responsibility under international law.
In that sense, future disputes over climate intervention technologies may prove far more consequential than the present controversy itself.
About the author:
Ayesha Asim, PhD Scholar in law and LLM International Law (Gold Medallist), Legal Analyst, lecturer, and with extensive experience in legal research, advisory, policy analysis and teaching. She can be reached at ayeshamalyc09@gmail.com.
