Green Flags, Red Flags, and Khaki in Between

The rising climate × defence crossover—and what it means for justice, capital, & conflict. Tracking the quiet shift of climate innovation toward militarised infrastructure and security-first funding.

Green tech with a side of missiles?

Tracking the strange convergence of climate optimism and national security agendas

Over the last 2–3 months, I’ve been pitched by several sustainability and climate-tech startups in India.

One detail keeps showing up:
👉🏽 Their primary client? The Indian defence sector.

Not long after, my feed filled up with Indo–Pak conflict headlines. And then it hit me — this wasn’t isolated.

Internationally, I’ve started noticing a similar pattern.
Climate-tech startups aligning with defence agendas.
VCs quietly backing dual-use technologies.
Founders pitching resilience, but delivering battlefield readiness.

It’s clever. It’s fundable. It’s geopolitically ‘safe.’
But it’s also deeply unsettling.

Why now? That’s the part I can’t quite put a pin on.

Russia–Ukraine conflict began in 2022.
Israel–Palestine conflict reignited in 2024.
Zuckerberg’s Doomsday bunker made headlines.
Weapons are being traded across borders under the guise of ‘strategic partnerships’ — arms deals are being signed faster than climate agreements.
NATO has been quietly rearming for years — upgrading systems, expanding budgets, and reinforcing its frontlines.
The U.S. is now nudging Rwanda and the DRC toward a peace deal, just ahead of a proposed bilateral minerals agreement with the DRC. In the Congo, cobalt is the new oil, and the old playbook is back — pay with your kidneys for peace.

The world has been tense for a while now.

So why are we suddenly seeing climate solutions retrofitted for defence, now?

And what are they being built for?

Not for farmers. Not for vulnerable communities. Not for climate justice.

But for:

Militaries
Remote/satellite surveillance (especially sustainable space-tech startups)
Conflict-adapted infrastructure
Nuclear dominance — both energy and weapons-adjacent

This isn’t just a funding trend.
It’s a quiet redefinition of climate resilience — one that may not protect the most vulnerable at all.

So I’m asking:

Where is the capital flowing, and what is it silently prioritising?
Who gets protected first in this new resilience economy?
What happens when sustainability becomes just another security strategy?

Not every green solution is built for peace.
Some are being fitted for war.

I explored this last year in more detail:

Additional sources I’ve been reading:

Khaki is the New Green – PitchBook
Is Khaki the New Green? – Pressenza
Inside the Panic Industry – NYT
US inks $142 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia
“If Europe wants to avoid war, Europe must get ready for war,” says Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president.
The Trump administration is expected to push Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to sign a peace deal which is supposed to be followed by a bilateral minerals’ agreement between the U.S. and the DRC.Curious if others are noticing this shift — or if I’m just spending too much time decoding pitch decks and geopolitical patterns.

Credits

This article is written by Deepa Sai, the founder of ecoHQ.

ecoHQ