{"id":18476,"date":"2025-07-31T10:50:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/?p=18476"},"modified":"2025-07-31T10:50:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:50:47","slug":"world-war-iii-not-be-over-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/world-war-iii-not-be-over-territory\/18476\/","title":{"rendered":"World War III will not be over territory \u2014 This resource runs out and America is suffering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"wrapper\">Fo<\/span>r much of the 20th century, the world witnessed numerous bloody conflicts. We&#8217;re talking about invaded territories, overthrown regimes, and empires built on the strength of barrels. The signs of the 21st century are <strong>shaping another type of war:<\/strong> a silent one, invisible at first glance, but one that already <span class=\"wrapper\">moves billions,<\/span> changes the fate of nations, and pushes entire populations <span class=\"wrapper\">toward<\/span> collapse. We&#8217;re not talking about a distant theory; the alarm has already been sounded by world leaders, scientists, and institutions like the <span class=\"wrapper\">UN<\/span> and the World Bank.<\/p>\n<h2>Forget oil: the next global wars may flow from a faucet<\/h2>\n<p><em>&#8220;The next war in the Middle East will be fought over water, not politics,&#8221;<\/em> said Boutros Boutros-Ghali b<span class=\"wrapper\">ack in<\/span> 1985. And Kofi Annan reinforced in 2001 that competition for freshwater could be the spark for future conflicts. Ban Ki-moon, in 2007, got straight to the point:<em> &#8220;Water scarcity threatens social and economic progress\u2014and is a potent fuel for war.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>These statements may seem exaggerated at first glance, but the current scenario confirms the opposite, as these predictions are coming true. Studies by the European Commission have already mapped around <strong>300 areas at risk of water conflicts around the world. <\/strong>The most vulnerable regions include large basins shared between countries, such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Nile (Egypt and Ethiopia).<\/li>\n<li>The Indus (India and Pakistan).<\/li>\n<li>The Ganges-Brahmaputra (India and Bangladesh).<\/li>\n<li>And the Tigris-Euphrates (T\u00fcrkiye, Syria, and Iraq).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The U.S. is drying up: no one is ready for what comes next<\/h2>\n<p>We&#8217;re talking about freshwater, simply the vital resource that sustains everything: health, energy, agriculture, industry, and life itself. The problem is that <strong>only 2.5% of the planet&#8217;s water is drinkable<\/strong>, and much of that is frozen in glaciers. The population has grown, demand has exploded, and water systems have not kept up. The result is a progressive collapse that is already affecting millions.<\/p>\n<p>And in the US, the situation is cri<span class=\"wrapper\">tica<\/span>l. This is because almost <strong>half of the country&#8217;s watersheds may not be able to meet demand by 2071. <\/strong>We&#8217;re talking about regions like the Great Plateaus, the American Southwest, and parts of the Midwest, traditionally productive and populous places. And there&#8217;s no need to wait until 20<span class=\"wrapper\">71: 83 wa<\/span>tersheds have already faced short<span class=\"wrapper\">age<\/span>s since 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Well, water, that once-abundant resource, is no longer sufficient to supply all homes, crops, and cities. We can even cite some examples: the Colorado River, which for millennia flowed to the sea, now dies midstream. The Rio Grande River has recorded\u00a0its lowest levels in history. And underground aquifers, like California&#8217;s Central Valley, are being drained at an unsustainable rate\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/world-war-iii-wont-be-over-territory\/11114\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(which is why World War III may be just around the corner).<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>America\u2019s water crisis is boiling and global tensions are rising with it<\/h2>\n<p>And yet: <strong>the problem is multifactorial.<\/strong> On the one hand, rainfall is shifting: humid regions are wetter, whil<span class=\"wrapper\">e dr<\/span>y regions are facing historic droughts. On the other hand, temperatures are rising: by 2050, the US could be nearly 6\u00b0F hotter. And with more heat comes more evaporation, meaning less water in reservoirs, less snow to melt, and a reduced summer supply<span class=\"wrapper\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"wrapper\">And along with all this, we add an inescapable fact: the populatio<\/span>n is growing. By 2100, the U<span class=\"wrapper\">S could<\/span> have over 500 million inhabitants, w<span class=\"wrapper\">hi<\/span>ch means: more people, mo<span class=\"wrapper\">re consumption.<\/span> And we&#8217;re not talking about small amounts: each American consumes on average 80-100 gallons of water per day. The country uses over 345 billion gallons of water per day, enough to sink Rhode Island under a foot of water. And as if all these factors weren&#8217;t enough to trigger a new war, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/china-solar-panels-triggers-world-war\/15572\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">China, with its &#8220;self-destruct&#8221; button, could trigger another world war.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For much of the 20th century, the world witnessed numerous bloody conflicts. We&#8217;re talking about invaded territories, overthrown regimes, and &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"World War III will not be over territory \u2014 This resource runs out and America is suffering\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/world-war-iii-not-be-over-territory\/18476\/#more-18476\" aria-label=\"Read more about World War III will not be over territory \u2014 This resource runs out and America is suffering\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":18478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","resize-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}