Food, Water and Political Power

As UCLA Professor Jared Diamond so eloquently illustrates in his brilliant bio-historical textbook, Guns, Germs and Steel, early civilization spread primarily along the east-west axis (latitude – horizontally across the face of the earth) because sedentary farming – which allowed human beings to live in fixed and organized communities – was based on the ability to grow food crops at the same basic temperature. A mere movement of 500 miles north or south, however, would create such a sufficient climate change that the sustainability of those established crops would fall radically. Likewise, a constant nomadic existence – migrating in search of food versus growing or raising it – was a barrier to the kind of organization that created “civilization” and the division of labor (specialization) that led to language, modernity and innovation.

Farming (vs. hunting and gathering) has been the mainstay of human existence for most of this planet for millennia. But the obvious temperature change, once associated only by moving north or south, is now descending on every corner of the earth with obvious impacts on agricultural productivity. When crops won’t grow where they have always grown, when water either disappears or floods those lands into unproductivity, people suffer.

People without productive land to feed themselves are forced to find new resources, by migration or, where they believe necessary, war. I’ve blogged repeatedly on the impact of the desertification of large swaths of Iraq and Syria, literally forcing millions off their land – some migrating northward to an unwelcoming Europe, some moving to rebellion or accepting the tyranny of radical and ultra-violent extremists as their salvation. Bottom line: in a starving community, those who control access to food rule as they choose. Population explosion combined in areas with scarce food and other necessary resources form a volatile combination.

Where raw political power, often held in place by a military given special privileges to support a ruthless leadership, literally controls the food supply, the results are particularly devastating. We can see how starvation exacerbates the power of political manipulation – creating the potential to build power through blame of outsiders (to rally the starving residents to accept their fate) or by directly controlling civilian access to food, a story told all over the earth, from the Sudan to Iraq, Syria, Venezuela and North Korea. The Cipher Brief (September 6^th) – in an article entitled Starvation Serves as a Weapon for Dictators and Terrorists – provides interesting insights into these roiling undercurrents of destabilization.

“Militant groups recruit the hungry with promises of the next meal, and states such as North Korea and Syria control food as a mechanism of internal power and psychological warfare. The multi-dimensional problem of feeding the world’s hungry is only expected to get worse as climates change, populations grow, and the rural migrate to booming megacities.

“Given the complex relationship between conflict and those experiencing food insecurity, those most in need of emergency assistance reside in war-torn countries. ‘Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations,’ Stephen O’Brien, the United Nations Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council in March. ‘Now, more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine.’

“All four countries – Yemen, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Somalia – are in the midst of brutal wars, not to mention the conflicts in Iraq and Syria that have forced mass migration to Europe. Of Yemen’s 27.4 million population, 18.8 million are in need of emergency assistance, with near 7 million on the brink of starvation. In northeastern Nigeria, where scarcity of food has not historically been a problem, 5.1 million people now find themselves food insecure as a consequence of a devastating insurgency. After the drought that hit Somalia in 2011, claiming the lives of an estimated 250,000 people, the country is now undergoing another, leaving 5.5 million in urgent need of food aid. The South Sudanese government has declared famine in portions of the country, while the UN says that nearly 5.5 million people are staring down starvation…

“With the administration of President Donald Trump proposing major cuts to U.S. food aid programs – that not only facilitate U.S. policy influence abroad, but also help sustain U.S. agricultural and shipping industries – the future of U.S. food aid is in flux. Trump’s appointment for executive director of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, has said the organization is ‘the first line of offense and defense against extremism and terrorism.’ The reasoning? ‘If a family can’t feed their children, after two or three weeks, they will turn to any available resource they can, and is usually extremism,’ Beasley said in relation to displaced civilians following the battle to push ISIS from Mosul in Iraq.

“In announcing the administration’s strategy in Afghanistan last month, Trump declared, ‘we are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists.’ But ignoring the drivers that perpetuate the conflict does little to make tangible progress in advancing Trump’s strategic goals of ‘obliterating ISIS, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.’  The coordinating body of the international community’s efforts in the country, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, has specifically said that ‘there is a possibility that high food prices may be making young men more vulnerable for recruitment by anti-government elements, including the Taliban.’

“It is difficult to determine whether food insecurity can alone lead to the onset of violent conflict.  However, there is evidence that food insecurity can prolong internal violence by forcing vulnerable populations to make difficult decisions for their immediate safety during times of war.” Indeed, we seem to be blinded by catchy slogans and simplistic foreign policy directives, manufactured by self-serving and horribly under-informed leaders, policies that have absolutely no shot of delivering the stated objectives… and, most probably, destined to make the situation that much worse. I’d like to say that this is the “law of unintended consequences,” but most definitely, it is a reflection of “the law of very foreseeable consequences.”

This is particularly sad when the rich nations of the developed world, most definitely including the leading agricultural innovator on earth – the United States – have growing technologies which, when combined with realistic food aid, have the potential to solve the problems that our current foreign policy strategies are merely amplifying: “To overcome these [agricultural support] barriers, aid workers must look to advances in technology to better assess the situation on the ground as well as deliver food aid without fear of violence or the siphoning of aid due to government corruption. Technology traditionally developed by militaries can help humanitarian organizations mitigate these challenges.

“‘The good news,’ says Scott Aughenbaugh, a Research Fellow with the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at National Defense University, ‘is that many of the same types of technologies and techniques the U.S. military has developed or is developing for reconnaissance and intelligence analysis, such as satellites, big data analytics, and drones, are also part of a new generation of tools for monitoring, predicting, and preventing food crises.’

“Perhaps the most prominent of these initiatives is the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), which aggregates atmospheric and meteorological data, satellite imagery, and other inputs and then leverages predictive analytics tools to give early warning to emerging or likely crises. Satellite imagery can identify isolated populations, which can then be reached using drones capable of delivering aid and providing farming assistance.” The Cipher Brief. Instead, we just may continue to define ourselves as selfish targets worthy of attack and destruction.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there are even selfish benefits (if you need that excuse) to spreading kindness and food all over the world.