Military Preparing to Fight â€˜Climate Changeâ€™ Instead of Wars?

When our national focus was still sane, the United States Department of Defense had a singular goal: defending the U.S, while maintaining the capability to wage war on two fronts. What did that look like? If the United States were drawn into a two front war like World War II, we would be able to triumph.

So what happens when you take on so many priorities that the objective actually becomes more elusive? We should ask the Pentagon after they implement Directive E 4715.21, or the directive relating to "Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience."

The directive comes as a direct result of Executive Order 13653, Obama's effort to institutionalize his stance on climate change within the government. The thinking goes, If the effects of climate change are imminent, shouldn't we make the appropriate preparations? What could go wrong?

For starters, what happens when the military procuring weapons based not solely on cost, reliability and effectiveness? Does the introduction of climate sustainability disrupt this already cumbersome balancing act? Producing cost effective, functioning technology is already a challenge that the defense establishment grapples with, doesn't this create more problems than it solves?

This is corroborated by the Daily Caller's report, which excerpts the report by saying The way in which DoD acquires its weapons platforms and supplies will also see significant changes. According to the document, the assistant secretary of defense for acquisition will overhaul policies to integrate climate change considerations into mission area analyses and acquisition strategies across the life cycle of weapons systems, platforms, and equipment.

If we want to return to the original mission of our military, which is readiness, Congress itself must be ready to flex its Article I muscles.

That's pretty bad, but it gets worse. It also creates climate boards that will integrate the new standards into all layers of the services . Worse still, the militarys tactical aims are being complicated, according to Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning,

Sergeants leading a platoon should not be worried about the environmental sensitivity of a rice paddy that needs to be traversed to achieve their mission, while providing the maximum security for the personnel under their command.

Tank commanders should be afforded all the training they need no matter how much fuel is expended in the process.

And Naval Captains should run their ships at the speeds that are necessitated by the immediate needs of the situation.

Instead, President Obama would install bureaucratic boards and other second guessers along with real time tactical climate change assessments that would be held over officers' heads should they choose what was deemed to be a climate change insensitive course of action.

A three year moratorium on the Obama climate order should be instituted by Congress to assure that the full impacts can be realized before doing great damage to the technical capabilities of our armed forces, as well as damaging our capability to project force.

If we want to return to the original mission of our military, which is readiness, Congress itself must be ready to flex its Article I muscles.

And through all this welter of change and development, your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable: it is to win our wars.
Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment. But you are the ones who are trained to fight. Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed; that the very obsession of your public service must be: Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war-guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
This does not mean that you are war mongers.
On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

--From Douglas McArthur's speech to the Cadets at West Point, 12 May 1962

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