Everything is About the "Basics"

By Rich Kozlovich

I've stated in the past when trying to understand geopolitics you need to understand three things.  Geographics, demographics and economics.   I need to add one more thing.  You need to pay attention to "the basics". 

When you think of the Middle East and the issues those nations what comes to mind as their most significant problem?  Terrorism, Islamic sectarian conflict, oil, Israel, America, or is it something more basic?   

Geopolitical Futures is a pay to read subscription site, and I think is well worth it. Great writers who stick to "the basics", because the "basics" are what churn events in the world's history, and Hilal Khashan, who I think is brilliant, and an absolute expert on the Middle East,is one of their writers, and he has the answer to that question.  It's Water!

While I'm linking his article, "Water Scarcity in the Arab World, It’s a problem with no solution in sight", you can't see the entire piece without subscribing, so I will cover some highlights.  

Western Asia and North Africa are among the most water scarce areas of the world, with a projected 2050 population of 670 million people.  Both Ethiopia with it's Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Israel's diversion of Jordan River tributaries and Turkey's "siphoning" water from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers represent problems for Middle East nations, and unless it really starts raining, a lot, there's no answer in sight.  

These nations make up about ten percent of the world's land mass, but one percent of the world's water surface runoff and about two percent of the total rainfall, and have no doubt, that impacts their economic potentials, and worse, growing sufficient food for their people.  They're already having to import food, and I want to emphasis the word, "having" to import food.  All of which is becoming more and more costly due to all the economic problems caused by this false pandemic folly. 

Egypt is expecting to see their population to grow to over 175 million by 2050 and gets almost all of it's water from the Nile.  That's a problem since the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be reducing Egypt's share by 20 billion....that's billion....cubic meters.  This has been a bone of contention for some time, throughout the region, so what's the solution? Will Egypt declare war? Egypt invaded Ethiopia twice in the last quarter of the 19th century and were mauled by the Ethiopians, so does it seem likely they'll do it again?  Those were different times, different capabilities, different social and governmental structures, and what happens when things become truly desperate? Desperation obviates caution.

Groundwater is being pumped extensively throughout the Middle East and North Africa, but that's not an easily renewable source.  Oil rich nations can desalinate sea water for their needs, and have done so, but that's not a solution for non-oil producing nations, they can't afford it.  

The problem of incompetent water management doesn't help either, but In the Western Sahara they're having a three year drought, how can that be fixed?  Population control? Or, population control via immigration!  

I think this will become a major impetus for mass migration out of the Middle East and into Europe, and possibly Eastern Asian nations.  The difference is Eastern Asian nations are not going to be readily agreeable to that.  They have their own population issues, and unlike Western nations, aren't going to buy into the diversity is our strength clabber.  That leaves Europe, North America, and potentially South American nations, but South America nations are not going to play this suicidal immigration diversity is our strength horsepucky either.  

At some point Western nations will either end this immigration insanity, or cease to exist.  Then what happens to the people of the Middle East?  That's not our problem, nor is it our responsibility.  Over population is problem, and its their problem!  A problem they export to the nations they migrate to disrupting the stability of those nations. They created this problem with their foundational Islamic societal social paradigms of lots of wives and lots of children, so let them fix it, or not. 

Will they?  They can't, because they won't.  That leaves asking Allah, the "most gracious and most merciful" to make it rain.  A lot.