Michael Wurz

But none of these are short-term fixes.

It is also important to recognize that this creates tremendous vulnerabilities.

We have seen that food has become a weapon of war in this conflict in Iran.

And we have also still seen the impacts of the weaponization of food by Russia from day one during the invasion in Ukraine.

The Russians have not only mined agricultural fields, attacked seed factories and infrastructure and blocked Odessa port and thus created a massive shortage of wheat, which probably has cost more lives in Eastern Africa due to food shortages than on the battlefield in Ukraine.

So we are seeing a new form of 21st century warfare where food, fertilizer and water with the attacks against desalination plants become targets of international warfare.

And that is utterly concerning and also requires us to rethink the way we think about military and national security.

No, there are a lot of initiatives that need to come together.

It is private-public partnerships, multilateral engagement, more investment by wealthy countries in longer-term development, climate and food strategies, but also regional coordination.

This is not something that will happen within the next decade.

year or two years.

Quite to the contrary, we are looking at the situation globally right now with the massive cuts in development aid by the Europeans, the dissolution of USAID here in the United States, that the development is actually going into the contrary direction.

And it is important to recognize that the fact that we are dramatically increasing our defense spending here in the United States and the war has cost over 11 billion dollars

In the first week alone, that's about one quarter of the annual USID budget previously.

And the Europeans, after the Ukraine invasion by Russia, have increased their defense spending in the last six years from roughly $380 to close to $700 billion.

So it is absolutely crucial to understand that

investments in security can't only be investments in military equipment and hardware.

It also needs to be a sustained investment in multilateral structures into climate, food, and sustainability.

Because if people are under the illusion that we create security just with military hardware, they are being taught right now in this conflict with Iran that they are severely mistaken.

I think it is time to really very basically revisit the direction of where our country's politics has gone here in the United States, where the Europeans stand with regard to international cooperation.