Water - thicker than Blood?

Ismail Serageldin, in 1995, said – “the wars of the next century will be about water”.

Six billion strong world with a perpetually growing demand for water, involved inequities, emergence of more powerful nations, Laissez-faire capitalistic markets, bigger stock of armaments; do not a pretty picture they paint. Add to that a bit of Climate Change and a dash of low adaptability and Voila! - Recipe for “Water Wars”. A bulk of literature describes water as a cause of severe political tension and armed wars between states, extrapolating the same into frequent future events. Except, verisimilitude of water wars may only be a myth subscribed to by fatalistic ecological advocates, probably because that seems to be the only way general populace would care.

Wars have several reasons and objectives. Water may act as a tool or a target but is seldom a primary cause for a transboundary war. Not to say that water (or the lack of it) does not trigger any violence at all. It has, and can cause intense political instability and acute violence at sub-national level. Political instability in Bangladesh, for example, has been ascribed to environmental degradation caused by diversion of the Ganges waters by India. Ironically, environmental refugees from Bangladesh also found refuge in the same liable state. The earliest recorded inter-state water conflict known is the dispute over exploitation of Tigris boundary channels between Lagash andUmma in 2500 BCE. Hence, the last and only water war happened about 4500 years ago. On the other hand, 3600 treaties for cooperation on international water have been signed historically. So, the plausibility of future water wars cannot be projected from a non-existent history. What other factors can dictate this likelihood?

Strategically, an upstream riparian has no reason to wage war.  Downstream riparian state, to launch an armed offence, would have to be a stronger state. Even then, the upstream state has an advantage as it can antagonize the downstream state by diminishing quantity/quality of its outflow. Moreover, one of the states has to be a non-democracy as democracies do not go to war against each other, thus limiting the sites for the so-called international water wars. Economically speaking, full-scale warfare is tremendously expensive. As noted by an Israeli  Defense Forces analyst (upon being asked if water was accounted for while planning Lebanon’s invasion) for the price of one week’s fighting, five desalination plants can be built. Hence, water wars are neither strategically logical, hydrographically effective, nor economically feasible. Water has in fact, contrary to common perceptions, been a binding factor between otherwise hostile states. Indus Water Treaty has survived 3 wars between India and Pakistan; Iraq gave Kuwait water “in brotherhood” without compensation; and in one of the more interesting agreements between Iran and erstwhile USSR, exists a clause for cooperation on indentifying corpses found in shared waters. Water dispute resolution, as non-dramatic as it seems, will continue to be our best answer.