Episode 364: Emerging Normalisation of Water Weaponisation in Modern Conflict with Dr. Marcus King

Across Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and now the Gulf, water systems are no longer just collateral damage. They are becoming targets and tools of coercion. Dams, desalination plants, pumping stations, rivers, reservoirs, and electricity grids are being pulled into the battlespace, with civilians paying the highest price.

This matters far beyond the battlefield. When water infrastructure is attacked, the consequences ripple through food security, energy production, public health, migration, fertiliser markets, political stability, and the legitimacy of states themselves. In a world already shaped by climate stress, fragile governance and geopolitical escalation, attacks on water and our access to water are becoming yet another significant international risk.

Today on The International Risk Podcast, we are joined by Dr Marcus King, Professor of the Practice in Environment and International Affairs at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, Vice Chair of the Council on Strategic Risks, and one of the world’s leading experts on water weaponisation. Dr King is the author of Weaponizing Water: Water Stress and Islamist Extremist Violence in Africa and the Middle East, and his work has helped define how states and non-state actors use water as a weapon, a bargaining chip, and a tool of control.

The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime, to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.

Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe’s business leaders. 

This episode was produced by Anna Kummelstedt

Transcript

I do get this feeling, and I do have a fear, that deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, but particularly water, has been what you might call normalised. 

Welcome back to the International Risk Podcast, where we discuss the latest world news and significant events that impact businesses and organisations worldwide. What we're seeing in modern conflicts is how water can be weaponised much more strategically than previously imagined. 

Across Ukraine, where I am today, but also in Gaza, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and even across the Gulf states, water systems are not just collateral damage, but they're becoming deliberate targets and tools of coercion. We're seeing dams, desalination plants, pumping stations, rivers, reservoirs, and even electricity grids being pulled into the battle space with, as often is the case, civilians paying the highest price. And this matters beyond the battlefield as well, because when water infrastructure is attacked, the consequences ripple right across food security, energy production, public health, migration, political stability, and in a world that's being shaped by climate stress, by fragile governance and geopolitical escalation, attacks on water and access to water are becoming yet another significant international risk. 

So today on the International Podcast, we're joined by Dr. Marcus King. He's Professor of the Practise in Environment and International Affairs at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. He's the Vice Chair of the Council on Strategic Risks, and he's one of the world's leading experts on water weaponization. 

And his work has really helped define how states and non-state actors are using water as a weapon. Dr. King, welcome to the International Risk Podcast. Thanks for the opportunity to be here.

Dr. King, whereabouts in the world do we find you today? I'm in Washington DC on a nice spring day in my office here. Perfect. Perfect. 

Well, let's jump straight in. When you've written about water weaponization, and when you talk about water weaponization, I believe you've identified several distinguishing categories of when and how water can be used as a weapon. Can you talk us through what does this term mean to you and give us some examples so our listeners can really picture and understand how water is being used as a weapon today? Sure. 

So in my research, I really took a wide definition of the word weapon to begin with. I actually just went to the dictionary and found that a weapon can be a tool used to harm, injure or coerce. So with that wide definition, I did my work on the subnational level, looking at violent extremist organisations and other insurgents, participants in civil war. 

And what I did was I identified six ways that I think water has been weaponised over a historical period. You can see the flexibility in the definition, but the first that I would like to talk about is called strategic weaponization. So on the strategic level, something like blocking infrastructure. 

So for example, ISIS, during the war in Syria and Iraq, they actually blocked the Mosul Dam. And so what that did was it gave them virtual control of territory on the other side of the dam. It was an asymmetrical warfare strategy, because if they were able to blow up the dam, a wall of water would have been unleashed all the way down the Tigris, reaching Baghdad. 

And so threatening to destroy a dam can flood an entire city or entire region. And so what that does is it really threatens large military formations, it threatens cities. But then another way I thought of water being weaponised is more tactical. 

So water being used against targets, strictly military targets in a battle space. So it's narrower than strategic weaponization, and it's directed at them for the immediate military advantage. For example, in Somalia, where I looked at some of the tactics of al-Shabaab, and they were actually at one point able to divert a very narrow river called the Juba River in a way that flooded a formation of Kenyan and American special forces that were pursuing them. 

They woke up the next morning and they were inundated by water. And it actually caused some of the only casualties the US has had in the war on terror in Eastern Africa as well. My next categories are somewhat similar, but they have to do with coercive use of water.

So it's the provision of water or holding it back. For the project of statehood, which was something that ISIS actually aspired to during the war. And so what they were able to do then was try to build political legitimacy by providing water, but also to tax the population for revenue, you know, to buy weapons. 

And so that was one idea. But then also kind of close this coercive definition is the idea of water as an instrument of psychological terror. So what this would be is using threats to deny access to water, threats to contaminate water, or destroy infrastructure that is, you know, meant to create fear in the hearts of civilians.

And so it doesn't have to even be done. It's just this psychological threat. I think I heard you were in Ukraine and that there's an example of another type of weaponization, which I call unintentional weaponization. 

So what I mean by that is water is actually not, many times it's not an efficient weapon. You know, it's a very blunt weapon. I think we, you know, can all admit, although the Russians haven't, is that they blew the dam in Zaporizhia, actually as a strategy, as I would put it, of war. 

And so what this did was it wiped out some of their own military formations that were on each side of the river as well. And so it had an unintentional effect. And this happens, you know, quite a bit as well, whether it's being used as an instrument of extortion or incentivisation, whether it's being used on a strategic or tactical level. 

I've seen this happen across the case studies that I did, which at this point were Nigeria, Somalia, and ISIS's use of the water weapon in Iraq and Syria. So there's broader implications for other areas, but these were the ones that I did my individual case studies on. Yeah. 

Thanks for sharing that, Marcus. And as you said, you know, I'm in Ukraine right now and attacks by Russia on civilian infrastructure is visible in nearly every city that I've been travelling and working in. And the UN Human Rights Mission reported in January, so a few months ago, that attacks on Ukraine's energy and utility system has caused knock-on disruptions across the country, across heating and water services, especially to civilian apartment buildings. 

And just a month ago, officials in Kharkiv, the second major city in Ukraine, said Russian attacks had damaged at least 34 water supply objects and kilometres of water supply networks in the first three months of the year. That's just in one city. And this has been repeated across Ukraine by Russia. 

In June last year, Russia attacked the water pumping infiltration systems in Dnipro, beautiful and very large city on the coast, in Poltava, in November, in December, in Odessa. I mean, you know, this is something that we're seeing again and again. So I wonder, Marcus, when you hear these stories, do you feel that this is just the new Norman conflict? And when our listeners are hearing about these stories, and sadly, we're likely to hear more of them, how should they be thinking about these sort of attacks? Right. 

You know, sometimes I do believe it's a new norm and it has been increasing. But when I take a step back, there really is a historical basis for the use of water as a weapon in war. Some of the examples I give go all the way back to the Roman Empire, when Roman soldiers actually threw dead bodies down wells of villages that they had conquered.

On a higher level, I've also done some work and thought about the Anglo-Dutch wars back in the 15th century, where dykes and levees were breached to flood some of the Dutch soldiers, their formations out of existence. Something that is pretty well known also in the UK is the story of the dam busters in World War II. There were Allied bombings of German dams that were associated with the large aerial bombing campaign at that time. 

I think that there is a historical precedent. You know, there were times, even in, say, the Vietnam conflict, when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, of all people, really did believe that there should be a red line there, that it should be prohibited. So what I've seen, I believe, in things that you've alluded to, really, is that it is, I think, becoming more of a norm in warfare.

Something that's happened with warfare in general, and I think you're probably familiar with this, is the idea that civilian casualties have become more and more prominent in modern wars. And so part of that is this indiscriminate, deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure that is happening. And so the Russians have done it. 

They've targeted civilian infrastructure. I think another example has been the Israeli actions in Gaza, where they've targeted desalination plants and others. So I do get this feeling, and I do have a fear, that deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, but particularly water, has been what you might call normalised.

Something that an Australian scholar had referred to in her work, Gretchen Machin is her name, as something called the water taboo, where water had been prescribed as a target within war. But I think I am seeing a situation, and it is exemplified by Ukraine and Russia, but particularly Russian actions, as becoming more of a norm in international warfare. And I think that's really important when we talk about whether something's normalised and whether there are still taboos around certain actions. 

Because as you said, historically, attacks on water resources and infrastructure have occurred, but we're seeing record levels of water violence in countries affected by war today. I think it was the Pacific Institute's Water Conflict Chronology that said that records were broken in 2023 and 2024, which is further intensifying humanitarian crisis and further undermining any sort of prospects for peace in many different conflict zones. So I wonder, if we accept that we're entering an era where water systems themselves are increasingly becoming part of military strategy and warfare, is that something that we should be accepting? Because from an international law point of view, attacks on civilian infrastructure and collective punishment against civilians, these are still war crimes, but it doesn't seem to be making a difference at all in 2026.

So they are war crimes. And briefly, I would just cite some of the law. It's the Geneva Convention's Additional Protocol 2, which is the laws of wars does prescribe the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure. 

So humanitarian law, law of war, both prescribe it. There's another treaty that a lot of countries belong to called ENMOD, the Environmental Modification Treaty. And so what this does is, as it sounds, it prohibits the manipulation of the environment in order to wage war. 

So this is something that speaks, again, to the strategic use of water. I think there are approaches on the international level, particularly countries that belong to various conventions and treaties, to try to at least approach this issue. One thing that I've imagined that could be possible is remanding someone who perpetrates this, like, let's say, Putin, you know, to the International Criminal Court for war crimes that include water weaponization, many others, right? But water weaponization is being part of this.

But where the problem comes into play, in my opinion, is that so much of this water weaponization recently has been perpetrated really by subnational actors, right? So something I've said is violent extremist organisations in particular, they don't do diplomacy in any case. There's no way to appeal to them on humanitarian grounds. But there's certainly no way to appeal to them on the grounds of international law and what that prescribes. 

So there is a real tension here. There's a real problem here. And I'm not sure how to overcome it with legal regulation.

Yeah, that's really interesting, Marcus. And I'd like to come back to that. But if we can just turn to the Persian Gulf and the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. 

Now, if we actually go back to the 80s, I think it was 1983, the US intelligence warns that a disruption of desalination facilities in Arab countries could have the most serious consequences, more so than any other industry or commodity in the region. Now, of course, 40 years later, we're seeing a fragile ceasefire between Iran and the US. And I think every day we're back and forth as to if that's going to hold or if that's going to fall apart. 

But today, at the time we're recording this, Marcus, that fragile ceasefire is holding. But we've already seen some desalination facilities directly targeted. We've seen others that have been indirectly targeted or damaged or disrupted because of attacks nearby.

Now, the US struck Kharg Islands in Iran. Iran has struck facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates. Can you talk to us about why are desalination plants in the region, in the Gulf states and in Iran, such a strategically significant target in this particular context? Yeah, absolutely. 

And as you referred to over the last few months now of the conflict, desalinisation has been targeted both within Iran itself and also within the Persian Gulf states. So Iran, they rely on desalinated water for only about 5% of their water supply. So for them, it hasn't been as bad as some of the other water issues that we could talk about in a moment if you'd like to. 

But also what we're really seeing is that desalination plants are strategic targets within the Gulf countries themselves. And so why would that be? From an environmental security perspective, desalination plants have several characteristics that make them strategically significant. I mean, one is the concentration of supply of the water. 

A single plant may supply water for hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in these large cities, especially in the Emirates. And so arid states tend to rely on a few large facilities. So there's a limited redundancy in where their water supply comes from. 

Another one, perhaps even most significant, relates intrinsically to energy dependence because they require large energy inputs. Attacks on power infrastructure can disable the plants. Many times they're co-located. 

So if one is targeted, then the other is targeted. So while desalinisation takes a lot of energy as an input, also the power plants are destroyed. And of course, where are these located? Desalination plants are located very close to the coast. 

So they have coastal vulnerability from small boats, from naval attacks, and also from drones as well. So these exposed coastlines along with a concentrated supply of water and industry has been a real problem. And this gets back a little bit to my definitions of water weaponization on that psychological level. 

So the Iranians only need to hit one or two of these in order to really cast fear among the whole population of the Gulf. But they need to really think about a comprehensive policy that will enable them to diversify and conserve water. So what are some of the elements of this? I would say wastewater is going to be a very important aspect of it, reducing demand overall, protecting groundwater, and then also changes in agricultural supply. 

So treating wastewater as a major source of water. The World Bank did a study on the GCC countries and found that they could significantly expand wastewater reuse with regional experience. And they suggested that up to 90% of wastewater within the countries could potentially be recaptured. 

So this would be for agricultural, industrial, and domestic uses. And then in so many places, not just the Gulf, it's reducing water losses in urban systems. So Dubai has been a strong regional model for this.

They've been able to reduce losses by up to 50% of the urban water infrastructure. Another thing that has been important again globally is the idea of reforming water pricing and subsidies as well. So water pricing and subsidies for non-essential water use. 

So things like watering the lawns, some of the resorts, they could scale back or at least charge them more than domestic utility users. And then agriculture isn't a huge part of the economies of the Gulf, but they do do some indoor cultivation of plants, some hydroponic growing of plants. And so they should probably rely more on food imports from overseas, at least for the water intensive commodities.

And then obviously in a scenario where the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Hormuz isn't clogged up, they're able, at least in the future, to plan agricultural policies that are a little less water intensive. How concerned should we be when we think about broader climate change and environmental degradation globally about when we hear countries talk about day zero and potentially running out of water? Is it actually something that we need to be paying attention to in Europe and North America? So day zero is basically, as you stated, a situation of what's called water bankruptcy. And water bankruptcy, like it sounds, is basically when a large metropolis runs out of its municipal water supply and they get to that point. 

And so some places we've seen that possibility would be Mexico City, Karachi is getting close, Kabul is also getting close. So the scenario is a lot different though in places that are war-torn. And so if you look at what's happening in Iran, for example, the last three summers there have been particularly affected by drought. 

You know, we've seen temperatures of over 120 degrees Fahrenheit that have occurred there. And so I am very concerned about the underlying water issues that are happening in Iran that aren't exactly related to the war. But what's happening is, again, sort of the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure. 

I'm not intimately familiar with the target list of the Israelis and the United States, but I can really bet that water infrastructure is being interrupted or being destroyed. So whether that's water treatment facilities, irrigation pipes, reservoirs themselves, all of these things need to be taken into consideration. What could be done, of course, would be the implementation of more effective water policies, like integrated water resource management, but this can't be done in a conflict setting. 

You know, obviously the Iranian government is not at a point where they're able to implement better water solutions. No other countries have reached day zero. I think Cape Town came very close, but then some rains finally did come along. 

But what some of the solutions to the day zero problem, what could Gulf monarchies do to diversify their supply away from Dessau? A lot of these same measures, like wastewater, reducing losses in urban systems. I mean, just redoing the piping. Some of these places like Mexico City have municipal piping of water that goes back to the colonial era. 

So actually making some of these changes, including reforming water pricing and subsidies is something that I think might be able to avoid a day zero, but certainly a day zero in places that are more politically stable. Marcus, I really thought it was interesting what you were talking about before about that psychological dimension of water and also attacking water. Now here in Ukraine, it feels like every winter when Russia repeatedly attacks the energy infrastructure and the conditions get really, really tough in a variety of cities here, it seems like the civilian population gets stronger. 

It seems like their resilience actually builds despite the difficulty. Now that could be a cultural issue. It could be the way that Ukrainians as a society are dealing with this prolonged and illegal war. 

But I wonder if that's something you see because of course, water, it's not just essential for survival, but as well as dignity, public health, and social cohesion as well. We know that in Gaza and other parts of Palestine, up to 80% of the infrastructure has been deliberately targeted over the last couple of years. Gaza's water network has either been damaged, destroyed, or completely shut down in parts. 

What has been the psychological impact, but maybe even the other secondary and third order impacts from turning water off or deliberately targeting the infrastructure? First of all, it's great to hear from you about the resilience of the Ukrainian people, because there's two ways you can go, right? I mean, you can abandon all hope, or you can use it to increase your resolve. And it's really heartening to hear that the Ukrainians were able to do that. But I think in other ways, that goes probably back to my discussion a bit about water being an incentivisation. 

So for example, in Somalia has been in acute drought situations cyclically, probably two to three times in the last decade. And so where the government of Somalia has been thinking in terms of like their counterinsurgency policies, and then where Al-Shabaab was thinking was at one point, they cut off international aid, didn't allow anyone into the region. And they also blocked off the wells. 

And so what happened then, of course, was part of it was this unintentional weaponization. But what they did really is they alienated the people, right? And so that was a famine that occurred in about 2011 to 2015. But then subsequently, there was another famine from 2017 to 2019. 

And by this time, Al-Shabaab had learned their lesson. And so what they did is they went in and they were actually digging wells. They were in there handing out trucked in water to the population. 

And so what this really did was it allowed them to incentivise in a way that gained support, gained legitimacy, probably even provided a better atmosphere for recruitment. There's some evidence of that. So maybe these strategies could be turned on their head, right? I mean, maybe it would be more effective for Israel to actually leave these desalinisation plants intact, you know, in order to, again, you know, strategy to really incentivise and gain some of the support of the population. 

And I think that, as you said, I mean, water is just such an essential element to life that I think you need to really think twice about how you're going to approach deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure of water. Yeah, that's a really interesting case study, isn't it? So Al-Shabaab worked out that carrots work better than stick. It's better to use water as a positive tool. 

I wonder if any other governments are going to learn that as they're waging conflict around the world. But we've talked a lot about obviously what's happening in Ukraine, what's happening across the Gulf states and in Iran and touching on East Africa. And maybe while we're in that region, I'd love to hear about transboundary water disputes and whether that fits into your definition of the weaponization. 

We know that Ethiopia built the Grand Renaissance Dam, which of course impacted the Nile River, and Egypt and some other countries in the region were completely unhappy with that and even threatened to blow it up. But also even the Mekong River and China, the Chinese Mekong River Commission and its unilateral plans to build these massive hydropower dams. And we did an episode about that in 2025 on the International West podcast on the impacts in Tibet. 

But do you see the creation of dams and transboundary water disputes as falling within the definition of water weaponization? Well, you know, I have put a lot of thought into this. Most of the scholars who've studied water and conflict, including myself for quite a while, we really have been looking at transboundary conflict. And so transboundary water conflict usually happens on a river basin system. 

So you identified both the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is on the Nile River system. And then you also mentioned Chinese action on the Mekong as well. So I think the literature has been out there for a long time about transboundary water issues. 

This relates to a concept called hydro hegemony. So hydro hegemony is something that has been come up by a Palestinian scholar named Mark Zetoun and Naho Miramachi, who's a Japanese scholar. And so what I think they view this as, and I kind of do too, is that when an upstream riparian to a river system holds and impounds water, that's really a tool of power projection. 

It's a tool of influence. But to me, although it's a bit coercive, it doesn't quite fit my definition of weaponization. There are no casualties involved in it, which is something that I look at. 

Water's not being used as an instrument in the conduct of war itself, which is another part of the conflict spectrum where I look at it. But it's a very important issue. But in these situations, where does the military come in? An example that you raised would be the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is on the upper reaches of the White Nile, being constructed and finally finished by the Ethiopians in 2025.

And so what that's done is it's impounded enough water where Egypt, Sudan and Egypt being the downstream parties, what has happened is Egypt relies on the Nile for 96% of its water that's external to its territories. And so this has ginned up what I might refer to as bellicose rhetoric between the leaders of Ethiopia and Egypt to the point where the military-led government in Cairo has actually threatened to send fighter jets and bombers to bomb the dam before it was completely filled. So there hasn't really been a war over water, although water's played a part in some interstate conflicts. 

War related to water, war related to some of these behaviours on river systems is becoming increasingly plausible. But I think the idea of the upper upstream riparian, as they're called, holding back or impounding water doesn't quite meet my definition of weaponization at this point. It's more coercion, more political. 

Yeah, interesting. And one question that we ask all guests on the International Risk Podcast is when you look around the world and you look at all the things that are occurring across multiple different themes and geographies, what are the international risks that concern you the most? Yeah, so it wouldn't surprise you, but for me, I really think that the most existential global challenge is climate change. And so it's all of the physical impacts of climate change around the world. 

And when I think about climate change, there's been an evolution in my career. I was a climate negotiator for the United States several years ago when we were more engaged in the process. So I've thought about mitigation of climate change, of course, more efficient, more clean, renewable energy sources, thinking about mitigation.

But then we've shifted as things have gotten worse. And I've shifted in my personal research into climate adaptation. So now it's adaptation needs a lot of the funding, needs a lot of the attention in the international forum, climate finance, for example. 

But what I've seen now is there's really a third area of climate change and climate policy and scholarship, and that is the consequences of failure to adapt. So now that we're in this consequence management framework, and we really need to think that way because that's the emerging risk. I see impacts of climate change globally. 

But what I think is interesting and what's gotten me more into water research is the idea that I think the effects of climate change are felt first and most viscerally through water. So water in the broad sense. So water related to sea level rise, that threatens the very existence of small island nations. 

It's an existential threat. I refer to it as almost the same as a weapon of mass destruction. What is kind of scary is weapons of mass destruction always had some chance of being used, hopefully a diminishing, very minute chance. 

But there was always the bet that, hey, it's probably not going to happen. But with climate change, there is no bet. You know it's going to happen. 

So it's actually in some ways worse than even the nuclear spectre of nuclear war. So that's sea level rise. Another way that climate change manifests itself through water can be more extreme weather events. 

So cyclones, typhoons, flooding, the interruption of the monsoon cycles that's happening through climate change is also a bit felt through water itself. Another one might be deglaciation. So the water towers of Asia are the large glaciers that feed the Asian rivers like the Indus. 

So just understanding, you know, whatever that impact of climate change, be it deglaciation, be it changes in monsoon patterns, be it the most important for my scholarship and probably for our conversation, drought and desertification, really make it such that, to put it really simply in the way I describe it to my daughter, who's in middle school, is climate change is the shark, right? It's the shark. And then water scarcity is the teeth of that shark. Yeah. 

Well, thanks very much for explaining that, Marcus. And I think you're totally right. As drought continues to intensify, as water security, water scarcity just really worsens in a world where two billion people still lack access to safe drinking water. 

I think this really is a very significant international risk. And we really appreciate you coming on the International Risk Podcast today. Thank you so much. 

It's been a joy speaking to you. And I've got a little more optimism coming from your direction, which is great. Well, that's really good to hear. 

Well, the other side of risk is always opportunity.

Well that was a great conversation with Dr Marcus King. He's a Professor in Environment and International Affairs at Georgetown University and he's a leading expert in water weaponization and I really enjoyed our conversation and the insights he provided on the increasing use of water as a weapon in modern warfare and how we should be reframing water security and climate change as a national security concern. Today's podcast was produced and coordinated by Anna Kumulstead. I'm Dominic Bowen, your host. Thanks very much for listening to the International Biz Podcast, and we'll speak again in the next few days.