The Nightmare Scenario: Attacks that knock out the water
Andreas Cervenka
Reporter and economic commentator
This is a commentary text. Analysis and positions are those of the writer.
A man in Dubai fills a tanker truck with fresh water. Photo: Alamy Stock Photo
The war in the Middle East is not only affecting the flow of oil and gas but also goods such as fertilizer, which could drive up world food prices.
The countries in the region import almost all their food from abroad, and attacks on water facilities would quickly trigger chaos.
The law of unintended consequences. This is the name of a concept coined by the American sociologist Robert K Merton.
It is about the fact that political decisions and actions can result in consequences that were not planned or intended from the beginning.
The world is more complex than we often have the intelligence to understand.
War, as well as what is currently happening in the Middle East, are clear examples of this.
That missiles would rain down on Dubai, air traffic would be completely shut down and hundreds of thousands of people would be stranded in the region was hopefully not part of the US strategy.
That the price of oil and gas has risen is perhaps more expected, especially since the important Strait of Hormuz is now effectively closed.
But just as many people may not have had on their bingo card that the war could push up world food prices. It is not only oil that passes through Hormuz, but also as much as a third of the world's fertilizer. The countries in the area are also major producers of fertilizer and the world market price has already risen.
If there are problems with deliveries to agriculture, it could drastically reduce harvests.
In Sweden, Lantmännen and the company Yara have temporarily paused the sale of mineral fertilizer, reports the newspaper ATL.
The war in the Middle East is hitting hard on ter Gulf countries, which in recent years have invested heavily in tourism, but where the headlines are now about how tens of thousands of people are doing everything they can to get out of there.
The war has put the spotlight on how important the region is for the world's energy supply. But it has also exposed how vulnerable the countries are to various disruptions.
Countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia import around 85 to 90 percent of essential foods, such as grains.
"There is an imminent risk of a food crisis in the region. The Gulf states are extremely dependent on imported food," says Christian Henderson, a Middle East expert at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, to the Financial Times.
There are reports of how deliveries to the region are now stuck in other parts of the world.
According to the Times of India, 200 containers of grapes and bananas that were on their way to Dubai are still in the port of Mumbai.
However, the countries have built up stocks in preparation for times of crisis, according to the authorities in the United Arab Emirates, enough to last four to six months and people are urged not to hoard.
Iran, which was already experiencing rampant food inflation before the war, is being hit even harder, according to experts.
The BBC reports on how residents in Iran are worried about food shortages and that prices have begun to rise.
An even more sensitive issue is that of water supply. The entire region depends on giant desalination plants for access to drinking water. In total, there are about 400 of these in the countries around the Persian Gulf.
Bloomberg writes about how the Jubail plant on the coast of Saudi Arabia supplies the capital Riyadh with 90 percent of its drinking water.
According to leaked information in 2008, American diplomats warned that the entire city would have to be evacuated within a week if the plant or pipeline to Riyadh were knocked out. Although Saudi Arabia has since expanded its capacity, the vulnerability is great.
Dubai, in turn, depends on the giant Jebel Ali complex for both water and electricity. It is the world's largest seawater desalination plant and produces over 2.2 million cubic meters of water per day.
Iran has already attacked oil and gas refineries, which in several cases also have power plants that supply desalination plants with electricity.
If the war continues and the Iranian regime becomes even more desperate, attempts to knock out the water supply would mean a huge escalation with difficult-to-foresee consequences, such as refugee flows and social unrest.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Minister of Finance Elisabeth Svantesson presented different scenarios for how the war could affect the Swedish economy.
In the base scenario, where the war lasts for a few weeks and oil prices return to pre-war levels, the impact would be limited.
But they also point to the risk of a worse development where the war spreads and the price of oil rises from today's slightly more than $80 per barrel to $120 and remains there for a longer period of time. It would mean a significant blow to Sweden as well.
What are these different scenarios worth? Quite a bit. Besides the fact that we are in the middle of a war where visibility is very limited, there are so many other things that can happen that are not included in any calculations. Completely according to Robert K Merton's law.
With each passing week, the probability of such unintended consequences of the war will only increase.
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