The Water Wars Are Coming
July 27, 2025
The Water Wars Are Coming
Hydroterrorism and other water-related crises, from the Sahel to Central Asia.
“Water has long been a tool of warfare, but in recent years, the world has entered a dark new era of hydroterrorism,” Abdoulie Ceesay, the deputy majority leader of the National Assembly of Gambia, wrote this month.
As climate change accelerates drought and flooding, stakeholders tussle over shared water sources, and fair-weather frameworks for governing resource management lose relevance, water is increasingly becoming a national security flashpoint around the world, from the Brazil-Paraguay border to communities facing violent extremism in the Sahel.
“Water has long been a tool of warfare, but in recent years, the world has entered a dark new era of hydroterrorism,” Abdoulie Ceesay, the deputy majority leader of the National Assembly of Gambia, wrote this month.
As climate change accelerates drought and flooding, stakeholders tussle over shared water sources, and fair-weather frameworks for governing resource management lose relevance, water is increasingly becoming a national security flashpoint around the world, from the Brazil-Paraguay border to communities facing violent extremism in the Sahel.
This edition of the Reading List dives into the politics of water and considers the ecological, humanitarian, and geopolitical dimensions of the brewing water wars.
A boy uses a pirogue to move between houses submerged in water in a flooded area of Bamako, Mali, on Oct. 3, 2024.Ousmane Makaveli/AFP via Getty Images
The World Is Entering a Dark New Era of Hydroterrorism
International institutions need to start treating water as a national security flashpoint, Abdoulie Ceesay writes.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva meets with Itaipu Director-General Enio Verri and Paraguayan President-elect Santiago Peña at the Alvorada Palace in Brasília on July 28, 2023.Mateus Bonomi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The Dam That Sparked a South American Spying Scandal
Ties between Brazil and Paraguay are fraying as they renegotiate access to one of the world’s most powerful energy sources, Laurence Blair writes.
A shepherd watches over a herd of sheep as they graze for food on the dry bed of Marmara Lake on Oct. 4.Bradley Secker for Foreign Policy
King of the Dammed
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s mega-infrastructure projects are enriching construction companies while reshaping his country’s waterscape for the worse, Hannah Lucinda Smith writes.
People visit the Si-o-Se Pol Bridge in Iran’s central city of Isfahan on April 19, 2024.Rasoul Shojaei / IRNA / AFP via Getty Images
The ‘Water Mafia’ Is Real—and It’s Draining Iran Dry
If Trump wants to do more than make headlines, he should help resolve the water crisis, Nik Kowsar and Alireza Nader write.
Uzbek soldiers guard a checkpoint near the Amu Darya, the river that separates Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, on Aug. 15, 2021. Temur Ismailov/AFP via Getty Images
The Water Wars Are Coming to Central Asia
Things have been bad for decades, but the Taliban threaten to make them worse, Lynne O’Donnell writes.
Chloe Hadavas is a senior editor at Foreign Policy. Bluesky: @hadavas.bsky.social X: @Hadavas
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