When we talk about competing for scarce resources, we still tend to focus on old topics such as oil. That’s got to change, say Kent Butts and Bryan McDonald. Food and the resources needed to produce it are now the greatest security challenge that most states face, which is why it’s time to cooperate on environmental security.
The classical geopoliticians of the late nineteenth century—writing under the influence of centuries of expansionist European wars, resource-based colonial empires, and the Darwinian concept of survival of the fittest—once viewed the state as a living organism driven to grow and expand in a quest for “living space” and the resources necessary to sustain an industrial economy. In contrast, geopolitical concepts of the last 65 years have been characterized by an acceptance of static political borders, resource access via free trade, and the expansion of security studies to include economic growth and environmental change. While no one wants to return to the concept of the “living” state, the geopolitics of the next three decades is likely to be shaped by resource issues and states’ needs for them.
In this period, states must confront a rising global population while managing the twin phenomena of climate change and increasing competition for scarce resources. As a result, environmental issues will become more closely intertwined with national security policy. While discussions of resource competition still tend to focus on twentieth-century flashpoints like oil, food—and the water, energy and land necessary for its production—is now a critical national security concern.
A complex challenge
Today, the world faces a complex set of food-related problems quite distinct from those of the mid-twentieth century, when states worried about population outpacing food supplies. For instance, at present there are high numbers of people who are chronically hungry (the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates 842 million between 2011 and 2013) alongside a global epidemic of people who are overweight or obese (the Overseas Development Institute estimates the number at 1.5 billion adults). This paradox demonstrates that food security turns on questions of what people eat as well as how much.
In coming decades, further shifts in the global food landscape are likely as the world’s population grows and changes, and food, water and energy security become increasingly intertwined. Not only will the global population increase from 7 to 9 billion by mid-century, it will also become older, more urban and wealthier. This will dramatically increase the demand for meat, dairy and processed foods – with significant consequences for agricultural suppliers. Moreover, the world’s food, water and energy systems will become increasingly interdependent, creating a nexus of interactivity that the National Intelligence Council has recognized as one of the megatrends that will shape the future of global politics.
Recent events have made issues of food security seem particularly serious. Since 2008, high food prices and high food price volatility have contributed to unrest and violence in more than 40 countries. But these events are not without historical precedent. In the mid-17th century, poor governance, religious conflict, and climate change (in that case, a period of global cooling) converged in a general crisis that resulted in state collapse and widespread human mortality— with food shortages often serving as key triggers for protests and violence. Nevertheless, poor harvests and food shortages do not cause rioting or state failure. Governance, state capacity, and politics all make a difference in whether a challenge becomes a catastrophe.
Environmental pressures underline the urgency of cooperatively promoting food security – through programs such as the US State Department’sFeed the Future initiative and U.S. Africa Command’s efforts to improve the food security of troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – rather than schemes that pit states against one another. The challenge will be to prevent such programs from losing funding and momentum over the long-term. In a warming and networked world, no society can afford to pretend that food security is not a national security issue.
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