The struggle for water
The vital blue gold is increasingly the raw material of the future — and yet even now wars are brewing because of it.
Securing resources has always underpinned conflict across human history. In the Old World it was gold, spices, oil; in modern Asia it is precisely no different. These days, we hear increasing reports of border disputes in the Himalayas. Three nuclear-armed powers of the continent — China, India and Pakistan — are involved and lodging mutual territorial claims. The disputed territories lie high in the alpine wastelands at four- and five-thousand-metre altitude: sheer rocky mountains, borderlines poorly defined, in territories that appear strategic only because of their remoteness.
But appearances deceive: this is no remote idyll. What’s at stake is fresh water — the single most indispensable resource in the age ahead. Because South and Southeast Asia’s water supply is tethered to Tibet and the Himalayas, the birth-place of the continent’s largest rivers. With glaciers melting rapidly under climate change, there’s growing uncertainty whether “enough” water will continue to flow. The rice harvests of billions depend on it. Rice is the staple of Asia, and for each kilogram of rice grown, some two thousand litres of water are required. Water is proving to be a strategic asset. The fight for the precious liquid stands, often unspoken, behind every military standoff among the three aforementioned powers.
A gigantic plan
The Brahmaputra is Asia’s most water-rich transnational river. It serves 130 million in India and 170 million in Bangladesh — yet it rises in China. And there is no binding treaty governing water-management or water-sharing, so China can build and act without formal consultation with downstream nations. It isn’t just drinking water: agriculture, industry, river-transport, fisheries, ecosystems — all these stake a claim.
And now China is planning a mammoth project upstream: in the 600-km long canyon of the Yarlung Tsangpo (the Brahmaputra’s name in Tibet), drops of 5,300 to 6,000 m depth, China proposes a hydropower complex of 70 gigawatts — the largest hydropower project on earth once completed. Its cost: $167 billion. Half the annual budget of petro-rich Saudi Arabia, spent on one water-catching scheme. Construction began in 2024. The dam isn’t just in Tibet; it lies just 30 km from Indian territory. Six million hectares of Indian farmland in Arunachal Pradesh depend on the Brahmaputra’s flow and the fertilising sediments it carries downstream.
China’s advantage? Control — the ability to determine how much water passes downstream. That’s not just power over energy, it’s power over livelihoods, food-security, the environment.
In the earthquake zone
If a dam breaks — compounded by seismic risk in this zone — the floodwave would sweep into India. The ecological cost is enormous: tunnels bored, water diverted, mountain ecosystems ravaged. We’ve seen the precedent: China’s Three Gorges dam displaced 1.2 million people and submerged 600 km² of land just to produce electricity.
This is not a remote battle. Downstream lives are being reshaped.
And the South Asia water-wars don’t only involve China vs India. India vs Pakistan also rides on the water axis: Pakistan accuses India of controlling the Indus waters, India used a terror-incident in Kashmir as a lever, water-agreements came under strain, and Pakistan responded with nuclear rhetoric. The stakes? Food, water, survival.
Two-plus billion people today lack reliable access to safe drinking water. Water scarcity, far from being some futuristic sci-fi scenario, is here. It’s happening. In the Himalayan rivers, in the Middle East, in Africa, in Europe. If we ignore this, we pay the price — not just environmentally, but socially, economically, politically.
So here’s our take: the Western world is mis-spending billions while the truly strategic investment lies elsewhere.
We waste money. Realpolitik, NGOs and donor conferences dutifully send billions in aid to prestigious causes: regime-change efforts, “democracy building”, arms deliveries, infrastructure in politically flashy capitals. Meanwhile, the foundation of everything — water infrastructure and treatment — is being neglected.
WE argue: instead of incremental humanitarian palliatives or political grand-standing, we should divert massive investment, serious science and engineering-know-how into water-storage systems, purification plants, watershed protection, infrastructure in vulnerable countries. The payoff? More than charity. It’s strategic: it reduces migration pressure, secures food security, stabilises states.
Here are some telling facts: The World Bank found that water deficits can account for ~10 % of the rise in internal migration. World Bank+2Pseau+2 Regions already facing “day-zero” events are among the largest migration sources. Without action, the humanitarian burden escalates. Meanwhile water scarcity can cut economic growth by up to 6 % in hard-hit regions. World Bank+1 Investments in water-resilience are among the most cost-effective, yet receive dwarfed funds. World Economic Forum+1
In plain language: If the West keeps handing out aid like a charity shop while ignoring the water systems that underpin survival, we’re fueling migration flows, instability and conflict. By contrast: build large-scale water infrastructure (especially in developing countries), fund smart storage, purification, watershed restoration — you reduce migration incentives, you stabilise regions, you safeguard global security.
Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s technically complex. Yes, geopolitics matter. But guess what: ignoring it costs far more.
So here’s our call:
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Redirect a portion of the huge sums spent on foreign-aid, “soft” development programs and military deployments into hard water infrastructure and treatment systems across vulnerable states.
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Pair that with knowledge-transfer: Western world science, engineering, institutional frameworks — make them exportable.
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Remember the migration angle: help the origin states stabilise, especially water-vulnerable rural regions — this is humanitarian and strategic.
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Push donor-agencies and governments to treat water not as a “nice to have” but as the backbone of everything: food-production, health, security.
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Recognise that conflict over water is no longer marginal — it is central. Projects like the Himalayan dam-complex are clarion calls: water-control = power.
If we do all this, we may not just prevent the next “water war” — we may help create a more stable global system, curtail forced migration, safeguard economies. But we must stop behaving as if water was a side-issue.
Here’s the bottom line: while bureaucrats debate endless “governance reforms” in far-away capitals, water is slipping through the cracks. The West must shift from being passive donors to strategic engineers of water-security. Because the battles of tomorrow won’t always be over oil — increasingly, they’ll be fought over rivers, lakes and aquifers. Let’s invest accordingly.
yours truly,
Adaptation-Guide
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