Wheat spikes,
modeling clay.
Hunger can be weaponized. It's always been: from "scorching the earth" by ancient armies to shuttering the Yemeni port at Hodeida to starve the Houthi rebels into submission. Destroying resources and controlling supply can be just as potent as guns, bombs, and tanks.
Unable to defeat militarily, an aggressor can deliberately shell elevators and warehouses, steal grain and equipment, mine and burn fields, kill and displace farmers to undermine the victim's economy and its army's capacity to resist.
Cutting supply lines, ruining food production infrastructure, preventing farmers from cultivating and sawing new crops is a tactic of depriving the civilian population of food to starve them into surrendering.
Using food insecurity and starvation as a method of war is nothing new. But triggering a global famine is taking hunger weaponization to the next level. The target is not the invaded nation yet the world.
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Ukraine is a critical supplier of wheat, barley, and maize to countries in North Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. By destroying the Ukrainian harvest, blocking ports, and mining sea routes, Russia threatened to unleash a food crisis and ignite unrest in the regions vulnerable to food shortages.
Russia victim blamed Ukraine for refusing to sell grain and shuttering its seaports. Simultaneously, the Kremlin promoted the narrative that the food crisis was provoked by the West's sanctions against Russia rather than by the blockade of Ukrainian grain.
Wreaking hunger havoc may have been a tactic for Russia to force Ukraine, whose economy highly depends on food exports, into concessions. Its purpose was also to get leverage on the West, fearing anti-western sentiments, and China seeking stability in the countries fueled by Chinese investments.
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In an ordinary sense, a weapon aims to murder, inflict harm, or threaten life. It is a practical thing — a physical object like a knife or a nuclear missile — used to attack or defend.
Food, water, and air are necessary to maintain life. Denying access to vital resources is also aimed at threatening and killing. Deliberate deprivation of food or water makes it a weapon with consequences just as disastrous as bombings.
What does stabbing someone with a knife and starving the entire country's population have in common? It's gaining an advantage over the opponent. The difference is in scale.
The shuttering of Ukrainian seaports and blocking its exports scaled it up to a global level. But Russia's famine weaponization is distinctive in being indirect. The Kremlin's actions forced Kyiv to suffer only economically. It was African, Middle East, and Asian nations that got threatened with actual starvation. It leads to insights into what can have the capacity to be a weapon in a globalized world.
