Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

COLUMN: “The fragility of perfection: When supply chains go wrong,” by Buttonwood, The Economist, 3 May 2008, p. 82.

ARTICLE: “Streams of blood, or streams of peace: Talk of thirsty armies marching to battle is surely overdone, but violence and drought can easily go together,” The Economist, 3 May 2008, p. 67.

Specialization depends on supply. The more specialization, the more the global economy depends on the reliability of supply. Since globalization integrates trade by disintegrating production and spreading it across the planet, our growing connectivity and efficiency in production makes us all more dependent on each others, and the logistical chains that link us.

Obviously that forces us to make those networks as resilient as possible, so the dominant security agenda of the globalization era is protecting those supply lines. That’s why I work for Enterra; I consider it a front-line player in global security. Done right, prosperity reigns. Done poorly, and yes, people die from all sorts of mishaps and purposeful attacks.

But even if done well, don’t we face all manner of security struggles over scarce resources?

The Economist says the “water wars” scenario remains, as I’ve long noted, completely unsupported by world history:

Researchers at Oregon state University say they have found evidence to the contrary, showing that the world’s 263 trans-boundary rivers (whose basins cover nearly half the land surface of the world) generate more co-operation than conflict. Over the past half-century, 400 treaties had been concluded over the use of rivers. Of the 37 incidents that involved violence, 30 occurred in the dry and bitterly contested region formed by Israel and its neighbors, where the upper end of the Jordan river was hotly disputed, and skirmished over, before Israel took control in the 1967 war. And some inter-state water treaties are very robust. The Indus river pact between India and Pakistan survived two wars and the deep crisis of 2002.

Where the argument holds more water involves regions suffering creeping desertification, but guess what? That civil strife typically unfolds in remote regions that already suffer limited or failed governments, so yeah, global climate change will bring more SysAdmin work, but hardly great power war. Wars tend to be fought over more fungible and therefore more theft-prone resources, like minerals and gems. Water is simply harder to steal and sell, says The Economist.

That’s not to say that water isn’t used by more powerful nations to exercise control over weaker states, but that hardly makes water unique. Power is power.