Hydro-Peace in the Middle East: Why No Water Wars? a Case Study of the Jordan River Basin

SAIS Review vol. XXII no. 2 (Summer–Fall 2002) Hydro-Peace in the Middle East: Why no Water Wars? A Case Study of the Jordan River Basin J.A. Allan The Middle East is very poorly endowed with freshwater: the region ran out of water resources to meet its strategic needs—for domestic and industrial use as well as for food production—in 1970. Despite depleted water resources and growing water demand pushed by population growth, international relations over water have, if anything, become less tense since 1970. The reason is that water has been available on the international market in the form of “virtual water.” Indeed, economies that can import grain avoid having to mobilize scarce freshwater from their own resource base to produce wheat themselves. By the year 2000, the Middle East and North Africa were importing fifty mil- lion tons of grain annually, satisfying the largest demand for water in the region—food production. The remaining 10 percent of water demand for drink- ing, domestic, and industrial use may soon be met through low-cost desalinated seawater. The global political economy of water use and trade has had important impacts on the way water is perceived in the Middle East. But at the same time, the impact of the global system has been perverse in that the availability of virtual water has slowed the pace of reforms intended to improve water ef- ficiency. he Middle East is the most water-challenged region in the Tworld, with little freshwater and negligible soil water.1 Water is therefore a key strategic natural resource, and realist theory, as J.A. Allan is based at King’s College and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He received his Ph.D. from the University of London in 1971, where he has been teaching since 1988. He researches and publishes on the water resources of the Middle East and North Africa as well as on global water and hydropolitics. His research group has pioneered the study of “virtual water.” He is currently researching water futures—integrating the sciences of global hydrology, international trade, and international politics. His most recent book is The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001). 255 256 SAIS Review Summer–FALL 2002 well as popular intuition, has it that the scarcity of water in the region will lead to water wars. Despite growing water demand, the Middle East has shown no signs of a water war since some minor military events in the northern Jordan Valley in the early 1960s.2 On the contrary, there is much evidence of cooperation over scarce water resources in the region, especially in the Jordan River Basin, where freshwater is scarcest.3 Water is too important to be left to the uncertainties of rapports de force.4 Many Middle Eastern economies must use fresh surface and groundwater resources for food production. In contrast, in tem- perate regions, up to 90 percent of the water used in food production comes from naturally occurring water in soil profiles, called soil water. Soil water differs from freshwater in that it can only be used in agriculture to produce crops. Freshwater can be used by all sectors (for domestic, industrial, and agricultural activities) and can be lifted, pumped, and transported. It can therefore be assigned an explicit value in commercial transactions. Although soil water can only physically be used in situ, it can also be “moved” and ex- ported through agricultural production and trade. Indeed, at the global level, soil water resources are in surplus. Fortunately for the water-short economies of the Middle East, this soil water can be made accessible via trade in staple food commodi- ties such as grain. Every year, farmers and traders in the Importing a ton of wheat Middle East move volumes of water equivalent to the therefore relieves a commu- flow of the Nile into Egypt, nity from having to harness or about 25 percent of the region’s total available fresh- one thousand tons of its water. The water “imported” own water resources. in this way can be called “virtual water.”5 To produce one ton of wheat requires one thousand tons (cubic meters) of water. Importing a ton of wheat therefore relieves a community from having to harness one thousand tons of its own water resources. The purpose of this analysis is to show, first, that the perceptions of water resources in the Middle East are constructed, namely that the notion of water scarcity is based on too narrow an interpretation of freshwater availability. Second, the reason this constructed perspective has endured thus far lies in the effective- ness of the international political economy, which has in fact HYDRO-PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST 257 solved the region’s water resource problems, albeit invisibly and silently. Finally, it is important to draw attention to the impact of the international political economy on the region, which has been perverse as well as favorable. Indeed, the global trade system has slowed the pace of water policy reform and has distorted international relations where shared freshwater resources are in contention. Constructed Knowledge and the “Sanctioned Discourse” on Water in the Middle East In the realm of international relations theory, the case of international shared waters in the Middle East can be understood within a nonrigorous, realist framework. In each river basin there is a he- gemon, such as Turkey in the Euphrates-Tigris river system, Egypt in the Nile river system, or Israel in the Jordan Basin. Within a realist framework, riparian relations can be explained in terms of each country’s capacity to project power.6 Functional approaches and regime theory have not provided a useful basis for analysis because there are no international structures that work in the region.7 Contentious issues arising over shared freshwater resources are also embedded in what Barry Buzan calls “security subcomplexes.” Securitization theory, well articulated in the case of the Middle East by Buzan, contrasts the high politics of extreme circumstances—“security politics”—with the “normal politics” that they interrupt, but finally confirms the realist analysis.8 Buzan identifies the Middle East and North Africa as a significant security complex containing three subsystems. Whereas in the Gulf and in North Africa water is only a peripheral issue, the competition over water resources is central to the eastern Mediterranean subcomplex, comprising Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. Yet, despite the importance of water as a source of tension, its significance is limited in negotiations between the Jordan Basin riparian states. Instead, symbolic issues have traditionally dominated negotiation agendas. Water is just one of many contentious issues with which neighboring political economies in the Middle East must contend. For example, the major issues between Jordan and Israel before their negotiated Peace Agreement in 1994 were peace, territorial boundaries, and water.9 In the case of Israel and Palestine, there have been five issues—Jerusalem, territorial boundaries, settlements, refugees, and water.10 When numerous issues are at stake, linkages in negotiation are unavoidable. However, the symbolic significance 258 SAIS Review Summer–FALL 2002 of some of the issues at hand, such as defining the status of Jerusa- lem, determining borders, and gaining a lasting peace will typically overwhelm other, economically significant disputes (e.g., joint water management, the right of return for refugees)—even when these are strategically profound. For example, in the 1994 Jordan-Israel Peace Agreement, gains in terms of symbolically charged issues such as suing for peace and obtaining favorable territorial boundaries came at the expense of losses on water claims for Jordan. In fact, in the Jordan Basin, water policy, including water allocation decisions and joint management of common freshwater resources, is typically formulated based on “constructed knowledge,” or the product of biased views toward water resource security. Indeed, important decisions regarding water resources depend on public perceptions of water security, which are manipulated and distorted—i.e., “constructed.” Policymakers purposefully downplay their economies’ water deficits because politically, such a risk-free approach to water policy is easier than to confront the seemingly intractable problems posed by acute water scarcity. What has sus- tained these distorted, “constructed” notions of water security thus far are the global trading system and access to virtual water.11 Throughout the past fifty years, Middle Eastern governments have leveraged the global political economy in order to implement oth- erwise unsustainable water allocation policies. Yet, instead of pub- licizing the contribution of international trade to solving the region’s growing water scarcity problem, policymakers have kept “virtual water” imports, in the form of grain and food commodi- ties, invisible economically and silent politically. Indeed, to discuss them publicly would contradict deeply held beliefs regarding water security (as well as each country’s independent national water policies), which would be politically destabilizing to say the least. As a result, the spectacularly successful benefits of international trade, conforming to classical notions of comparative ad- vantage, have been subordinated to the “sanctioned discourse” on water in the region.12 The “sanctioned discourse” on water is that Middle Eastern economies only need a little more water to be “se- cure.” Politicians, the agricultural sector—the single largest water consumer in local economies—and the media all reinforce the sanctioned discourse and advocate self-sufficiency in water and food production, without ever clearly defining these terms. These policy goals, highly charged politically, are rarely examined or challenged publicly. For politicians and policymakers, the importance of virtual water is that it allows the pretense, perhaps better described HYDRO-PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST 259 as the fantasy, of claiming that water deficit problems are being solved domestically and that their countries are achieving self-sufficiency in water and food production.

Load more