Men's Lifestyle May 27, 2026 0 Comments

The Pentagon’s Silent Battle: Why Climate Denialism Is a Threat They Can’t Fight—And What It Means for Us All

Ever wondered what happens when the Pentagon starts sweating bullets—not over foreign armies, but over the creeping chaos of climate change? Usually, when the National Security Archive spills the tea, it’s all about Vietnam or Pinochet, you know, the classic spy-game scandals nobody forgets. But this time, they’ve dug up a 2021 doc that’s anything but old news: it reveals how Uncle Sam’s top security minds have been quietly freaking out over climate instability, not just for coastlines getting swallowed by seawater, but for political tremors shaking Europe and East Africa. It turns out the Pentagon’s crystal ball isn’t just about tanks and intel—it’s about heatwaves sparking riots, droughts breeding extremism, and rising seas stirring up diplomatic storms. And amidst all this, the Biden administration was throwing everything they had at the problem, from high-stakes war games to secret reports warning of political fissures driven by unequal warming. Makes you wonder—are we really facing the greatest threat in our history, or just playing a very expensive game of denial? Buckle up; this isn’t your typical climate chit-chat. LEARN MORE

3 min read

The good people at the National Security Archive generally provide us with the skinny on government malfeasance of decades past: Vietnam. Pinochet. All the greatest hits of the intelligence “community.” However, this week, they’ve managed to pry loose a document from 2021 regarding the government’s concern over the activities of those clever Chinese climate hoaxsters. From the start, albeit quietly, the Pentagon, to name only one institution, has been out front on the threat of the climate crisis. Now, from this report, we learn that the Pentagon’s concerns went beyond what you might expect, like the logistical damage to the Navy due to rising seas, and that the State Department was monitoring the political ramifications, and that they were profound. From the National Security Archives:

The reports shed light on how the intelligence community, the Pentagon, and other U.S. agencies assessed climate-driven instability across Europe and East Africa while attempting to develop a coordinated “whole-of-government” approach to climate security. The documents also reveal the extent to which the intelligence and defense communities rely on predictive modeling, open-source and third-party climate analysis, and interagency coordination to anticipate and prepare for future risks. The new revelations come as the Trump administration is pursuing an aggressive campaign to remove government data and documents related to climate change and other important issues from public access.

Pursuant to executive orders from then-President Biden, it was all hands on deck regarding the crisis.

Two months after Biden signed the EO, the DOD conducted Elliptic Thunder, its first-ever climate and environmental security tabletop exercise. In a post-exercise “Quick Look” (Document 1), the DOD’s J8-Studies, Analysis, and Gaming Division said that Elliptic Thunder had used an “East Africa vignette,” reflecting the Pentagon’s emphasis on capacity building in regions most vulnerable to the “cascading” impacts of climate change and state violence. Participating agencies—which included DOD, the State Department, the National Security Council, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Intelligence Council, the CIA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—used a typical Blue Team (U.S. Government perspective), Red Team (adversary), and Green Team (allies, partners, and science) wargame structure centered around three moves: instability due to extreme heat, drought, and the rise of violent extremism; food insecurity and extreme flooding brought on by El Niño; and extreme cyclone activity, cholera outbreaks, and “their impact to strategic international government positions.”

In the fall of 2021, INR, a member of the U.S. intelligence community tasked with providing all-source intelligence and analysis to diplomatic and foreign policy efforts, published a confidential assessment on the growing threat of “political fissures” in Europe over climate action. The report identified varying regional climatic impacts as among the causes of conflict, namely unequal warming and water security issues between northern and southern Europe: “Southern Europe will suffer from persistent heat waves, drought, and wildfires… [while] northern Europe will see a rise in land prices as arable land elsewhere in Europe becomes scarcer.” This “uneven” exposure, INR stated, “is likely to widen the income gap between the two regions.”

On the energy front, the report anticipated that populist groups, along with countries reliant on fossil fuel imports at the time like Poland and Hungary, would impede the renewable energy transition in Europe. “Radical political parties, rather than denying or obfuscating climate science, are shifting their criticism to the expected costs of the energy transition.”

You have wonder whether we’re not downplaying the administration’s efforts on behalf of ignorance. “Climate denial” doesn’t even half-cover everything they’re actually denying. Political instability. Food shortages. Epidemic disease. Population dislocation. That’s a lot of denying. Performative stupidity is a full-time job.