In January 2012, Barack Obama said, “As we look beyond the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan … we’ll be able to ensure our security with smaller conventional ground forces.” In other words, even though America’s military is being downsized, our military prowess will remain untarnished. “[Y]es, our military will be leaner, but the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats,” he explained. Who knew that meant documenting the effects of climate change — even as terrorism-fueled crises in the Middle East rage on? According to The Washington Times, “Though stretched thin by the aftermath of two wars and the current fight against the Islamic State, the Obama administration has enlisted the Pentagon to measure the shrinking ice in the Arctic in the latest example of the president’s climate agenda being extended to the military. A recent Government Accountability Office report examined the Defense Department’s role in the Arctic, which increasingly will include ‘monitoring the changing Arctic conditions,’ such as ice levels.” America’s retreat — not climate change, as this administration posits — facilitated the Islamic State’s rise. And pulling even more resources away from the real fight to wage war on a straw man isn’t going to make them go away.