National Security and Natural Security: The Peace of Water
In 2022, I got a text message from a newly retired friend: the US National Security Council is organizing a briefing on water issues and I’ve suggested that they talk with you. Expect an email very shortly.
The NSC was formed as a policy center during the Cold War to exert power and force. Think of some of its former chairs: Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Zbigniew Brzezinski. These are the men and women who advise the US president on issues of war vs peace, carpet bombing vs surgical strikes, proxy battles vs diplomacy.
I say this in a time when security issues feel especially fraught and tenuous. We seem to have averted conflict in South Asia in the past month, even as tensions in Ukraine and Russia, Gaza, Sudan, and east Asia remain high.
Many traditional donor countries have actually lowered overseas development aid (ODA) over the past few years, often to increase military investment. Funding that had been going to health, climate change, education, or sanitation is now going to tanks, artillery, and attack submarines. Just this week, The Guardian covered how the UK’s prime minister described a new national priority:
Keir Starmer has promised to make Britain “battle-ready” as he unveiled a defense review designed to counter threats…. He promised to spend billions more on weapons factories, drones, and submarines – even if it meant raiding welfare or the aid budget once more to do so.
I’m certainly not saying that reallocating these funds is wrong: priorities should shift as the global threat environment changes as well. But perhaps we should simultaneously reconsider how “natural” security is embedded in national security.
And this brings me back to the NSC. To the best of my knowledge, “water issues” have never been a priority at the NSC before. In such a novel setting and bolstered with the presence of my wise colleague Ingrid Timboe, the NSC staff described their needs while a series of representatives from academia, think tanks, and peer NGOs proffered guidance.
Many of the comments were predictable if you’ve been to any water conference: water supply and sanitation are important for managing poverty; water is important for ecosystems; IWRM helps energy and agriculture groups understand why water is present in and necessary to other sectors; droughts drove immigration in Central America and the Sahel; water is often shared across political boundaries and stirs simmering conflicts from Pakistan and India to Ethiopia and Egypt.
Ingrid and I spoke last — a naked play for time, but wise on reflection. I don’t recall the exact words, but we more or less said, “A real change in how we understand water in the past few years is its deep connection to the climate cycle. The intelligence community has identified climate change as a threat multiplier. What they have not yet understood, however, is that water is also a resilience multiplier. If we can mobilize water resources from this perspective, we are increasing economic stability and political security issues and reducing the risks of conflict.”
The short version: Resilience is the connection to security, and resilience is all about water.
I’m not sure if this argument had a big impact on the NSC, but meeting this audience had a big impact on AGWA. Shortly after, at the behest of the Wilson Center, we applied this concept to US security engagement in the Indo-Pacific region in a short paper. And at a workshop in Washington, DC, a few weeks ago, I was startled to realize that most of the armed services in the US — the Army, Navy, and Air Force — all have water resilience teams, testing operational and conflict issues. The concept of water resilience did not even exist until about 2019. At the same time, a new group works to translate water and climate informatics into intelligence and military “products” to make these insights more accessible and operational.
Is water what we should be leading with for political and social issues? I suspect that natural security is an even better entrypoint for national security than water, much less “water security.” A clear trend over the past two years is that nature, climate, and water have all merged into each other, from corporations to officers managing conflict zones. Natural security means prioritizing landscapes and helping economies and ecosystems to rapid change. The treads of bulldozers to move earth to capture intensifying rainfall is a better investment in the long run than the treads of tanks crossing fields and pastures. The connection of water embedded within shifting natural and climate systems is essential to how we make resilience credible and secure in energy and agricultural systems.
Failing with resilience means failing with water resilience, which means not seeing the watery landscape embedded in our institutions, operations, and programs.
In the end, the NSC published a very good report in 2022. The second pillar emphasized “Promoting sustainable management and protection of water resources and associated ecosystems to support economic growth, build resilience, mitigate the risk of instability or conflict, and increase cooperation.”
I was landing in the early evening that year in Johannesburg for some fieldwork, supporting some UNESCO regional initiatives in South Africa. Turning on my phone, I had an invitation to meet with Vice President Harris when she released the report — which I took as a sign that resilience — and water resilience — had indeed become a security issue. Would some future Henry Kissinger be worried about the Kariba Dam’s hydropower generation levels and the impact on Zimbabwe’s economy? Yemen’s water storage capacity and how this fed terrorism? Perhaps… we can invest more in supply-redundant irrigation facilities and electrical utilities so we will invest less in frigates and fighters. I had to turn down the invitation — I would be in a village in Vhemba while the vice president was speaking. But I heard her even more loudly than she had heard me.
During the time of Eid, I hope we of all faiths can reflect on the peace of water.
John Matthews
Corvallis, Oregon, USA