The Houthis have shown little willingness or ability to accurately distinguish between the ships they target, leaving Washington and its partners with no choice but to doubt the group’s supposed “ceasefire” and keep up the pressure.
Despite the Houthi Pledge to Limit Attacks, the Red Sea Remains Highly Volatile
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Biodiversity is the foundation for security: myriad micro-organisms filter and purify fresh water, the most basic essential for survival; pollinators hold the front line of food production; complex interactions across ecosystems regulate pests and disease vectors; forests, lakes, and coral reefs sustain livelihoods and economic stability.
Gone Fishing: A Biodiversity Loss Security Scenario in the Lake Victoria Basin
Council on Strategic Risks
In 1984, a sea mines act of sabotage, whose attribution remains debated, disrupted navigation across the Red Sea’s gateways - the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. In response to regional requests, a U.S.-led coalition conducted countermeasure operations, restoring safe shipping in the strategic waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.
If the Gaza War Continues, Will the Houthis Mine the Gateways to the Red Sea?
Stimson Center
Oman is actively stepping up its coastal security in light of ongoing challenges from the "axis of resistance." The activities of Iran’s allies in its “axis of resistance” have brought into focus the major challenge that Oman has always faced in securing its 3,175 km coastline. Oman’s ability to effectively police its own territorial waters is one half of the problem.
Oman seeks improve its coastal security
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
In recent months, there has been a gradual thawing of hostilities among long-standing rivals in the Gulf. From the Chinese-brokered agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to normalize diplomatic relations to Saudi-Houthi peace talks over the war in Yemen and the subsided animosities within the Gulf Cooperation Council, concrete manifestations of detente abound.
Has Regional Detente Paved the Way for Collective Maritime Security in the Gulf?
The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington
Today we’re putting a special focus on water: sanitation, hygiene, health implications and dimensions of that. That covers a broad complex of issues: access to clean water, water production, desalination, management of human waste and garbage, and treatment. It brings forward questions of what available clean and safe water is available per person in the midst of this crisis, and at what quality.
Gazas Water Crisis-What Can Be Done
Center for Strategic International Studies
Climate change is one of the world’s most prominent challenges, with serious impacts on food systems around the world. These impacts include low agricultural productivity, food insecurity due to water scarcity, and desertification. North Africa is considered a hot spot for climate change. A combination of water scarcity and desertification is taking its toll on many countries in the region, leaving many communities under stress.
Ecological Security Threats in North Africa for 2040
Council on Strategic Risks
Desalinating sea water has the potential to meet the increasing water demand beyond conventional freshwater resources. Up until recent years, desalination projects were limited to a handful of countries given the associated high costs and energy consumption. However, technological advancements have paved the way for larger utilization of desalination projects.
Reading of the Week: The impact of desalination projects on the power grid. Insights from Gulf States
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
This report calls attention to the complex and interlinked relationships between sustainable water management, prosperity and peace, describing how progress in one dimension can have positive, often essential, repercussions on the others.
The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024: Water for prosperity and peace
UNESCO
Since the Houthis launched their assault on global shipping in November, the United States and its partners have scrambled for ways to restore calm and commerce to the Red Sea. First, on December 18, Washington assembled a maritime coalition designed to boost the U.S. presence in the area and promote regional security. Then, in January, the United States started intercepting Iranian military shipments bound for the Houthis and issued multiple warnings to the group. Finally, after nearly two months of continuous attacks in the Red Sea, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a barrage of strikes against the Houthis’ facilities.
How Washington Emboldened the Houthis
Foreign Affairs
Over the last decade, China has gradually expanded its presence in the Indian Ocean, combining its military modernization and cooperation with partners with active diplomacy towards the island and coastal states of the region. China’s presence and capabilities threaten the freedom and influence of other actors in the area, including India and the EU.
Reading of the Week: The battle for the Indian Ocean. How the EU and India can strengthen maritime security
European Council on Foreign Ralations
Comprising everything from small-scale, near-shore activity to industrial-scale, long-distance operations, the current IUU fishing threat has the potential to evolve significantly in a warming world. A global horizon scan explores the impacts of climate change on IUU fishing over the next 10 years and beyond. Illegal, IUU fishing is a multifaceted global threat, occurring worldwide in inland waters, exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and on the high seas.
Future Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Trends in a Warming World: A Global Horizon Scan
Royal United Services Institute
The fundamental role that water resources play in human development has been highlighted in multiple ways; the United Nations SDGs underline 17 different goals and over a hundred targets to be achieved by 2030. Out of 169 SDG targets, 59 were found to have direct links and synergies with the water goal SDG6 (UN Water, 2016). Careful policy making and interventions need to be implemented to avoid conflict among sectors and tradeoffs must be well established. The Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM – since 1992) was adopted by most countries and made significant strides in formulating a good foundation for policies and synergies between stakeholders.
Systems approach to water management
Policy Center for the New South
The Greater Lake Chad (GLC) region was identified as one of twelve transnational conflict geographies in which Search will focus its efforts over the coming ten years.
This summary lays out Search’s comprehensive strategy for the GLC region, composed of the countries bordering the Lake Chad Basin, including Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The multidimensional and transborder dimensions of conflict in the region demand a holistic, regional programmatic, and operational strategy.
Greater Lake Chad Strategy
Search for Common Ground
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - are among the world’s richest in oil and gas resources, but the poorest in terms of freshwater. The majority of these countries depend on their hydrocarbon resources to fuel their economies and produce necessities like potable water through seawater desalination. In fact, all GCC states are currently prioritizing energy and water security to assure the sustainability and reliability of access and productivity under normal and emergency circumstances.
Building Water and Energy Security in the GCC through an Integrated Policy Approach
Baker Institute for Public Policy
Water desalination is gradually emerging as the leading solution to cope with increasing water stress: i.e., the imbalance between water demand and quantities available. The United Nations estimates that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will be affected by such challenges. The causes of water scarcity are multiple, including climate change, intensive agriculture, and population growth. This requires states to rethink their water policies, which are central to preserving their stability, resilience and sovereignty.
The Geopolitics of Seawater Desalination
Policy Center
The MENA and Sahel regions are suffering from climate-induced phenomena that are accelerating societal tensions and translating into insecurity. These regions are safe havens for violent extremism and non-state actors, who easily recruit young men willing to engage in behavioural radicalisation to sustain their families. Whilst in Syria, ISIS has been weaponizing water and resources to intimidate populations and coerce their enemies, in the Lake Chad Basin Boko Haram is recruiting members of local communities deprived of their harvest and fishing due to climate unpredictability and the disruption of the water cycle.
The nexus between climate change and terrorism: An analysis of ISIS weaponization of water in Syria and Boko Haram activities in the Lake Chad Basin
Finabel - European Army Interoperability Centre
Following a record-breaking drought this summer, China is on the brink of a water catastrophe that could have devastating consequences for global food security, energy markets and supply chains. The 2022 drought, which mainly impacted China’s Sichuan province, offered an uncomfortable preview of what the future could bring if water supplies continue to run dry.
How Chinas Water Challenges Could Lead to a Global Food and Supply Chain Crisis
Baker Institute for Public Policy
International law provides the framework that determines rights and responsibilities in fishing, but there are still some gaps that are exploitable by malicious actors that have instrumentalized so-called Distant-Water Fishing.
Exclusive Economic Zone adjacent distant-water fishing as a global security challenge: An international law perspective
Hybrid Centre of Excellence
The Arab region is one of the most water scarce regions in the world with 19 States below the water scarcity threshold. This is further complicated by transboundary water resources, since two thirds of all water resources in the Arab region cross one or more borders. Other factors aggravating the water scarcity situation include pollution, inefficient use of water, high population growth rates and climate change and extreme weather events.Occupation and conflict further affect people’s ability to access water and sanitation services. More than half of the Arab states rely heavily on groundwater as the primary freshwater resource.
Groundwater in the Arab Region-ESCWA Water development Report
United Nations
Small island developing States (SIDS) are among the most water-scarce countries in the world, with seven in ten SIDS facing risks of water shortage, including nine in ten low-lying SIDS (UNESCO, UNEP, 2016). Water being an element of life, its scarcity undermines fundamental priorities, such as the human right to clean water and sanitation and the conservation of habitat and biodiversity. By extension, water scarcity constrains economic development in SIDS.
Aligning Economic Development and Water Policies in Small Island Developing States
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
FSO Safer is a vessel that was used to store and export oil from Yemen's inland oil fields around Marib. In 2015, the vessel fell under the control of the DFA.
READING OF THE WEEK: SO Safer: Overview impact assessment
ACAPS