Yet such wars haven't quite happened. Aaron Wolf, an Oregon State University specialist in water conflicts, maintains that the last war over water was fought between the Mesopotamian city states of Lagash and Umma 4,500 years ago. Wolf has found that during the twentieth century only 7 minor skirmishes were fought over water while 145 water-related treaties were signed. He argues that one reason is strategic: in a conflict involving river water, the aggressor would have to be both downstream (since the upstream nation enjoys unhampered access to the river) and militarily superior. As Wolf puts it, "An upstream riparian would have no cause to launch an attack, and a weaker state would be foolhardy to do so." And if a powerful downstream nation retaliates against a water diversion by, say, destroying its weak upstream neighbor's dam, it still risks the consequences, in the form of flood or pollution or poison from upstream. So, until now, water conflicts have simmered but rarely boiled, perhaps because of the universality of the need for water. Almost two fifths of the world's people live in the 214 river basins shared by two or more countries; the Nile links ten countries, whose leaders are profoundly aware of one another's hydrologic behavior. Countries usually manage to cooperate about Water, even in unlikely circumstances. In 1957, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and South Vietnam formed the Mekong Committee, which exchanged information throughout the Vietnam War. Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, Israeli and Jordanian officials secretly met once or twice a year at a picnic table on the banks of the Yarmuk River to allocate the river's water supply; these so-called picnic-table summits occurred while the two nations disavowed formal diplomatic contact. Jerome Delli Priscoli, editor of a thoughtful trade journal called Water Policy and a social scientist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, believes the whole notion of water conflict is overemphasized: "Water irrigation helped build early communities and bring those communities together in larger functional arrangements. Such community networking was a primary impetus to the growth of civilization. Indeed, water may actually be one of humanity's great learning grounds for building community.... The thirst for water may be more persuasive than the impulse toward conflict."
Wolf, an Oregon State University specialist in water conflicts, maintains that the last war over water was fought between the Mesopotamian city states of Lagash and Umma 4,500 years ago. during the twentieth century only 7 minor skirmishes were fought over water while 145 water-related treaties were signed. He argues that one reason is strategic: in a conflict involving river water, the aggressor would have to be both downstream ) and militarily superior. As Wolf puts it, "An upstream riparian would have no cause to launch an attack, and a weaker state would be foolhardy to do so." And if a powerful downstream nation retaliates it still risks the consequences, in the form of flood or pollution or poison from upstream. the Nile links ten countries, whose leaders are profoundly aware of one another's hydrologic behavior. Countries usually manage to cooperate about Water, even in unlikely circumstances. , water may actually be one of humanity's great learning grounds for building community.... The thirst for water may be more persuasive than the impulse toward conflict."