“Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.”—George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

May 25, 2015 saw the devastation left by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck most of Nepal and left 8,219 dead (final figure as of May 13). Drought has plagued both the state of California and the nation of India, while at the same time, flooding has caused deaths in the southeastern United States. And believe it or not, U.S. and other intelligence services have been quietly keeping an eye on all of this.

No, this is not the beginning of a conspiracy theory movie. (Yes, there are some who believe that Texas is purposely being flooded in preparation for takeover.) This is real life, and while weather watching and seismology may not seem to have a purpose in the “sexy and exciting” (sarcasm) world of intelligence and spies, the forces of nature can wreak just as much carnage as the wars that we hope to forestall—and have often, in fact, caused them.

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Nepal earthquake recovery efforts. Photo courtesy of cnn.com

An earthquake in ancient Sparta

The “equals” that ruled ancient Sparta always held a fear of a helot rebellion, and one incident in particular brought reality to their nightmares. In 464 BCE, a massive earthquake leveled the city of Sparta and killed many Spartan warriors along with its citizens. The helots, seeing a chance to finally throw the yoke of slavery off of their backs, seized their chance and staged what became the most serious uprising in Sparta’s history.

The situation soon became so desperate, the Spartans, who were known for their fierce pride and distrust of anyone and anything not Spartan, called on their Athenian rivals for help in quelling the rebellion. But true to form, they quickly reversed their decision out of fear the democratic Athenians might be more sympathetic to the oppressed helots. History shows that the Athenians, furious about Sparta’s humiliating dismissal of the Athenian contingent, never forgot the insult, partially setting the stage for the Peloponnesian War. So, in a sense, it could be said that two conflicts were spawned from one natural disaster.

A cyclone in Pakistan

In 1970, tensions were already simmering between East and West Pakistan, as East Pakistan complained of oppression by West Pakistan. The populations of the two sections came from different ethnic backgrounds and spoke different languages, and the Bengali people of East Pakistan felt they were discriminated against by the government. On November 12, 1970, the huge Bhola cyclone hit East Pakistan with sustained winds of 115 miles per hour and a storm surge 34.8 feet high, coinciding with high tide. Upwards of 500,000 people were killed by the storm and flooding, leading to intense anger at the government and military, which the people criticized for failing to heed warnings about the storm and bungling relief efforts in its aftermath.