The world has seen numerous instances where differing interests have collided, giving rise to conflicts. As we enter a more globalised and interconnected world — divided along political, cultural, religious, economic, and environmental lines — the potential for new and more complex forms of conflict continues to grow.
The future of global security is inherently unpredictable. In an era characterised by complexity and uncertainty, the threat of future war hangs over the world.
Environmental security scholars have long cautioned about the “environment-conflict nexus,” warning that resource scarcity and environmental stress tend to become catalysts for conflict. Resource-based grievances can drive local turmoil, cross-border migration, and regional instability, particularly where state capacity is low.
The rapid growth in population, climate change, and accelerated industrial growth requires ever more resources, yet the supply of these resources — water, farmland, and energy — does not rise proportionally.
The United Nations has consistently made clear that global demand for freshwater may soon exceed sustainable supply within a few decades, especially in areas already experiencing water scarcity. As soon as a resource becomes too scarce to jeopardise the food, energy, or economic security of a particular country, that country treats access to the resource as a matter of national security rather than diplomacy.
Among minerals, gold has long been a conflict commodity, serving as the largest source of income for the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces. This rivalry over gold was an important factor in two major instances of mass violence: the October 2021 coup and the 2023 civil war.
Control over the gold mines of the Darfur region has become a war fund for militias, helping them buy weapons and giving them a motive to continue the conflict rather than make peace, which would require abandoning their gold.
More generally in the Middle East, oil performs a similar function, as Western countries’ military and diplomatic involvement in the region is driven by the imperative to safeguard access to oil resources.
South Asia may be another of the most obvious examples of such a pattern. The agreement signed in 1960 between India and Pakistan, known as the Indus Waters Treaty and brokered by the World Bank, has always been considered an unusual case of successful cooperation between nuclear rivals.
However, even this agreement has shown signs of tension recently, with India unilaterally withholding the treaty’s provisions. Pakistan’s agricultural economy heavily relies on the river basin, and any attempt to disrupt that flow is viewed by the government not as an environmental issue but as an existential threat.
An agreement meant to depoliticise water became a point of contention as the strategic importance of the resource increased.
A parallel case can be found in the Nile. Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has brought Egypt and Addis Ababa to the brink of conflict on several occasions, as Cairo heavily relies on the Nile for fresh water.
This is a result of demographic necessity, with tens of millions of people relying on a single river with no alternative. The dam is necessary for Ethiopia’s future and its energy security.
Both sides, within their own spheres, are acting rationally, in a situation where resource scarcity defines the core of the conflict rather than historical grievances or ideology.
An example of how resource scarcity can fuel great power conflict, even at sea, is found in the South China Sea. Underlying the disputed waters are some of the richest fishing grounds and largest oil and gas deposits, and the competition over them is not just about claiming the region but about securing access to its resources.
China’s construction of artificial islands and its vast territorial claims in the region have often led to confrontation with other countries in the area and increased the possibility of conflict with the US Navy.
As countries face rising pressures from climate change, demographic shifts, and competition for vital natural resources, conflict will increasingly be justified not as aggression but as an act of survival.
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This is not to say that ideology, nationalism, or religion will disappear as causes of conflict, but the point is that scarcity is becoming the substrate on which these older causes grow, capable of turning into an adequate cause of conflict in its own right.
Policymakers must therefore treat water-sharing accords, mineral supply chains, and agricultural resilience as integral parts of national security policy. The cost of doing this early and well, to ensure cooperation on rivers and minerals, is far less than the cost of the war that results from failing to do so.
The lesson from the Indus, the Nile, Sudan, and the South China Sea is one and the same: scarcity is not just a factor that makes conflict worse; it is a cause of conflict in itself.
