June 5, 2026 • 33 mins
John Ellis talks with retired Brigadier General Russ Howard about the wars in Iran and Ukraine, why modern warfare is changing faster than most militaries can adapt, and a much bigger problem that could be coming down the road. Howard argues that food, fertilizer, water, and supply chains are becoming national security issues in their own right. They discuss the real-world effects of conflict on agriculture, growing concerns over global water shortages, and a project at Arizona State University that asks what the world might look like in 2040 if current trends continue. A conversation about the risks that sit just beneath the headlines.
Hosted by John Ellis
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the News Items Podcast.
I'm John Ellis.
I am the founder and editor oftwo Substack newsletters.
One is called News Items, theother is called Political News
Items.
You can find them both atnews-items.com.
My guest today is retiredBrigadier General Russ Howard.
(00:20):
Russ is a farmer in Minnesotaand the president of Howard's
Consulting Services.
He's also a distinguished seniorfellow at the Joint Special
Operations University.
Previously, Russ was thedirector of the Yepsen Center
for Counterterrorism Studies atthe Fletcher School in Medford,
Massachusetts.
He retired from the Army as headof the Department of Social
(00:40):
Sciences and the foundingdirector of the Combating
Terrorism Center at West Point.
His previous positions includeDeputy Department Head of the
Department of Social Sciences,Army Chief of Staff Fellow at
the Center for InternationalAffairs at Harvard University,
and commander of the FirstSpecial Forces Airborne Group at
Fort Lewis, Washington.
(01:01):
General Howard is the co-authorand editor of seven
counterterrorism books.
He holds a Bachelor of Sciencedegree in industrial management
from San Jose State University,a Bachelor of Arts in Asian
Studies from the University ofMaryland, a Master of Arts
degree in InternationalManagement from the Monterey
Institute of InternationalStudies, and a Master's of
(01:22):
Public Administration degreefrom Harvard University.
He was a Senior Service CollegeFellow at the Fletcher School of
Law and Diplomacy at TuftsUniversity, and a senior fellow
at the Weatherhead Center forInternational Affairs at
Harvard.
A warrior and an overeducatedone at that.
Russ, thank you for joining ustoday.
SPEAKER_01 (01:41):
Truth about overeducated.
Warrior, I'm not so sure, Josh.
SPEAKER_00 (01:45):
So before we get to talking about what you're now
doing, I want to just get yourassessment of where you think
things stand in the two warsgoing on in the world, one
obviously Iran, the otherUkraine.
And I'll present you with twoscenarios.
First, the Iran war is reachingsome kind of conflict.
Either the Iranian side criesuncle under the weight of U.S.
(02:08):
military pressure and domesticdisaster, meaning the food
supply, water supply, worthlesscurrency, unpaid wages, etc.,
etc.
Or Iran hangs on and the U.S.
side decides to go with thetwo-step deal, reopen the
strait, release money to theIranians, and negotiate the rest
down the road.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
Where do you think we are in the Iran war right
now?
I think both your examples aregood but problematic.
My take on the Iran war is theproblem is there's no one in
charge.
I mean, the president resignedyesterday.
And the problem is RGC, if theysurrender, and I'm not sure what
the mechanism is that they wouldsurrender, but if the thagosy
(02:51):
surrenders, their own people aregoing to kill them.
So there's no incentive for theRGC to to capitulate.
And I think they're just goingto hold on as long as they as
long as they can, or as long asthey still have oil storage on
Carg Island.
I think everybody was cheeringwhen they initially killed about
40 of the senior leaders inIran.
(03:12):
But the problem is it killed allthe people that could negotiate.
And I think we're stuck in alittle bit of a quagmire here.
I hesitate to say this, but Ihonestly think that renewed
military action may be maybe theonly alternative to the
stalemate that they have now,unless the president and the
administration can find a way tostart clearing the strait.
(03:35):
That's my take on the Iran war.
SPEAKER_00 (03:48):
And in the Ukraine war, I think we've we've sort of
lived.
I remember talking to you at theoutset, and and I remember I was
surprised to hear you say thatyou thought Ukraine could win
the war.
You were one of the few peoplethat I knew who said that.
And the narrative has been, youknow, inevitable Russian
victory, and that seems to havechanged, you know, in the last
(04:09):
three, four months to astalemate and maybe even major
political upheaval in Russia.
What's what's your take on wherethings are in in the Ukraine?
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
I think Ukraine wins by not losing.
unknown (04:21):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (04:22):
They you know they were supposed to fold in three
days, and look how long it'sbeen.
And the interesting thing aboutthis this war, and I'll talk
about both wars in a secondregarding agriculture, but the
Ukraine war, the Russia Ukrainewar has changed warfare.
The drone warfare now ispreeminent.
You can get a smaller countrythat can manufacture uh
(04:43):
combat-related items verycheaply to take on a major
power.
I mean, it we should be askingourselves all kinds of
questions.
You know, the the Gerald Ford,the aircraft carrier, cost$36
billion to build.
But you can take a missilethat's about$1.5 million and
make maybe 10 or 12 of them andtake out an aircraft carrier.
(05:06):
So I think all of us need to berethinking what types of
military hardware and at whatexpense we need to be fielding.
So I I'm I watched the Ukrainewar fairly carefully because I I
do think I I'll stick by myearlier saying that by not
losing, they win.
And I think my personal opinionis that within about six months,
(05:28):
things are going to startfalling apart in this in Russia
to the point where Putin can'tcontinue.
The technology that Ukrainiansare using to target Russian
industrial complexes, andparticularly their fuel lines
and their means of supply, isreally kind of brilliant.
And I th I think we should uhall take notice of that.
SPEAKER_00 (05:49):
So my idea is that we turn this into a kind of a
private equity deal where theU.S.
buys Ukraine so we we canadvance our military
capabilities in one fell swoop.
Are you are you in with theEllis program?
Yeah, I am.
SPEAKER_01 (06:05):
And I think other countries are too.
They're they're starting to selltheir technology.
Even the Israelis areinterested, and Israelis have
they're at the top of the linefor military hardware hardware
technology.
So I the the challenge for boththese wars, if you're in
agriculture, is that Ukraineproduces a lot of fertilizer, a
(06:26):
lot of wheat, too.
And so does Russia.
And so the cost of fertilizer inthe United States in Minnesota
farm country at the beginning ofthe Ukraine-Russia War was uh
went off the chart.
Yields reduced by about 30%because people couldn't afford
the fertilizer.
That somehow has rectifieditself because of U.S.
market.
But now with a straight close,you get you need liquid liquid
(06:49):
liquid nitrogen to makefertilizer.
And so the farmers, again inMinnesota, are having a
difficult time affordingfertilizer, and this is the time
we plant right now.
So both these wars havelong-term effects that you don't
think about in a militarycontext, but you should be
thinking about as far asmanufacturing food, supply line
(07:12):
distributions.
So there's a lot more of thesetwo wars than just military
conflict.
SPEAKER_00 (07:17):
We'll get to the work that you're doing now.
You've set up uh an institute onon this very subject in
partnership with Arizona StateUniversity.
Tell us how that how that cametogether.
SPEAKER_01 (07:28):
Aaron Powell Well, if you want the whole story,
I'll try and make a short storylong here.
So a friend of mine, actuallyyou may know him, Lieutenant
General retired CharlieCleveland, was supposed to give
a speech in Washington, D.C.
to Arizona State and MississippiState Universities about
agriculture and warfare orsomething, and the hurricane hit
(07:48):
his house, so he couldn't do it,so I did it.
And so I met a lot ofinteresting people.
They liked my speech, and so Istarted thinking, I read the
President Biden's or the Bidenadministration national security
strategy, thinking that theremight be something regarding
food security in there, andthere was.
And food security in the Bidenadministration held equal rank
(08:11):
with terrorism, Russia, China,you know, Iran, all the rogues,
all that.
That was a national securityproblem.
And I started thinking, andJohn, you remember when we
started the combating terrorismcenter at West Point, there
wasn't anybody really in theworld that had a center to
combat terrorism, right?
So I started thinking, well, whois looking at food security,
(08:32):
water security, who's looking atagriculture?
And so I did a little lit reviewor review, and the answer was
nobody.
So I thought I met a veryinteresting colleague at Arizona
State who has the same last nameas you, but no relation, Alicia
Ellis.
She was an Air Force officer,PhD, and just a real go-getter.
(08:53):
And so we had a chat over amartini, which shouldn't
surprise you.
And we said, you know, who'slooking at this?
And she said, Well, I've beenthinking about trying to do
something at Arizona State forsome time.
She is a farmer in her ownright, which raises cattle.
And so we decided to put alittle proposal together and
took it to the president of ASU,Michael Crow, who's a very
(09:17):
innovative, gets credit forbeing, I guess, the most
innovative college president inthe United States.
But anyway, he said, well, let'sdo it.
And he did it without anydonors.
Or and so he started it as aprogram.
And I think Arizona is going toArizona has an interest in the
Arizona government's educationdirectorate or whatever has to
(09:38):
approve all centers andinstitutes.
So I think ours is going to beapproved this week.
Yeah.
So we started off, got an earlycontract with the Institute for
Irregular Warfare, and uh acouple donors who you know have
ponied up some money.
And we're off to the races.
And we have a course that weboth teach.
(09:59):
We just published an articlethat thank you for news items
for featuring, and uh we'rewe're off the races.
And there's a lot of interest inwhat we're doing, both in
government and even the FBI isinterested.
So it's not as not as quite asexciting as the Combating
Terrorism Center.
You know, West Point is its owndraw, and and terrorism is
(10:22):
probably uh more important tomost people than agriculture and
water are, but we're making someprogress there.
SPEAKER_00 (10:29):
Aaron Ross Powell You now teach a course at ASU on
agriculture and nationalsecurity.
What how do you how did you Iguess what's the syllabus?
How do you walk the students upto uh a general better
understanding of the subjectmatter?
SPEAKER_01 (10:43):
Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, we it's kind of ag and
water 101, both teaching theimportance of agriculture and
the water and the shortages ofboth arable land and water and
what you can do about it.
And then sort of the history ofwater and agriculture, food, as
implements of war, uh both as uhoffense and defense.
(11:07):
And then this uh semester, we'realso going to add a module on
agriculture or terrorism.
So there's uh Alyssa uh Ellis isa one of the countries export on
supply chains, and she adds shehas a very interesting module on
supply chain dynamics inagriculture and how a simple
(11:29):
break in the supply chain canjust the excuse the vernacular
here, but screw everything up.
And so the notion is that youknow, one day, next day delivery
and global globalization is sortof in question now.
And and there's probably more ofthought that maybe countries,
(11:50):
nations like the United Statesshould have some resilience with
regards to agriculture and andwater.
And there's also a module ongreat power competition in
agriculture and notes that Chinais buying up a lot of or trying
to buy up a lot of U.S.
agriculture land.
Interestingly, the land they'rebuying often happens to be right
(12:12):
next to a military orintelligence installation.
Apropos of our earlierconversation, we look at the
impacts of the Russia-Ukrainewar on uh agriculture.
So it's uh it's kind of fun.
It's we have there are thestudents are from all over the
world.
This is an internet-basedcourse.
We I think we had fourcontinents uh last time we did
(12:33):
it.
This time I think we'll have thesame amount.
And it's uh a lot of fun.
And uh the major challenge is ifyou're a teacher these days, you
didn't ask me this question, butI'll answer it anyway.
All right.
Is that so back in the days whenI used to teach, back when I was
alive and taught at West Pointand and uh the Fletcher School
(12:54):
and the Monterey Institute, uh,we didn't have to worry about
AI.
But I can tell you that readingessays now is much easier than
in the past.
You know, the big question iswhat do you do about AI?
And I've come to the conclusionthat you just run with it.
You know, I mean you're notgonna be able to change it,
(13:15):
you're not gonna stop it, you'renot gonna be able to police it.
So you take advantage of it.
So we're we're sort of wrestlingfor that at ASU now and uh other
places.
But turnpapers have gotten muchbetter, John.
SPEAKER_00 (13:27):
Well, I bet they have so tell us about water
worldwide.
I remember in the book The BigShort that Michael Lewis wrote
about the great financialcrisis.
One of the, you know, principalcharacters was a man named
Michael Burry, who was widelyscorned for betting that the
housing market would collapse.
(13:48):
And of course it did collapse,and Michael Burry made a great
deal of money for his investorsand for himself.
And he was asked what he wasgonna do after that, having made
the greatest call, arguably, inin the history of financial
markets, and he said he wasgonna focus on water.
And I I thought that was sort ofinstructive that he saw the next
big crisis building in water.
(14:10):
He's right.
Can you explain why you shouldthink that or why he thought
that way so long ago?
SPEAKER_01 (14:15):
Aaron Ross Powell Because the world's running out
of water.
In this 2040 project that I I'msure I think we'll talk about a
little bit later.
There are going to be 63countries in the world that
won't have enough potable water,potable water for their
population.
The aquifers are being drained.
The Agalala aquifer thatsupports most of the Midwest is
being depleted at a a rapidrate.
(14:37):
In fact, this two days ago inNewsweek.
Actually, you covered this thewater shortages pretty well in
news items, but just two daysago in Newsweek, they had an
amazing article, easy to read onAgalala aquifer.
So, you know, without water, youyou can't grow anything.
unknown (14:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (14:56):
So kind of essential.
People say, well, food shortagesor uh agriculture, the arable
land and all that, but it reallyat the end of the day, the water
is a problem.
So back when we were bothgraduate students, which was a
long time ago, but you know, ifyou recall, the world was going
to run out of water.
(15:16):
I mean, one run out of oil about2013.
Well, it didn't happen.
And now we got more oil than youjust find new finds all the
time.
And with oil, it's kind ofinteresting because there are a
lot of substitutes for oil,right?
You got hydro, you've got wind,you've got solar, you've got all
kinds of alternatives for foroil.
(15:38):
But Don, what is the alternativefor water?
What's the substitute for water?
Yeah.
Having a hard time coming upwith an answer for that?
SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
Well, they got the technology uh out there that's
being touted is that you can uh,you know, that there are
machines, I guess you would callthem, that take uh water out of
the air.
Well, that's producing water.
Which which strikes me asunlikely, but there you are.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
Yeah, you can you can make water, but there's
really no substitute for water.
I did a TED talk here about fouryears ago, and in the audience I
said, you know, I go throughthis routine about substitutes.
There's about 11 substitutes foroil.
I go through that, and then Isay, so who can tell me what the
substitute for water is?
And a guy in the third row says,beer.
(16:29):
And uh I think maybe he had beenconsuming some before he came
there.
But so water is important, andwe're running out, draining
aquifers all over the world,using too much water.
Now there are remedies.
Uh we go into them in the coursewe teach.
We go, what are the remedies forsaving water, using water more
(16:50):
efficiently, doing all that.
But still the prognosis forwater consumption in the world
is not good.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00 (16:58):
So you could have a chart and it just at some point
in 2040, let's say, just thechart just says it no longer
works, right?
Right.
Then where is the water crisismost acute?
I mean, is it is it I mean,obviously we have here in the
U.S.
you look at the pictures of theHoover Dam and you look at the
you know the pictures all aroundAfrica.
SPEAKER_01 (17:21):
I mean the d the the the desert there is is d
desertification in Africa, thethis desert there, I mean, i it
it it i it it's incre goes southabout thirteen kilometers a
year.
And so people think thatNigeria, for example, that the
terrorism and all the problemsthere are religious related.
(17:43):
Talk to Nigerians, that's nottrue.
I mean, it's partially true.
But the real problem is thatMuslims are mostly nomads,
right?
They raise I mean, they raisegoats and they and they need
forage.
And so they follow where thewater is.
And so the Christians in Nigeriaare mostly agricultural people.
(18:06):
And so they call it the beltacross Nigeria.
It's where the desertificationis pushed down to the point
where Muslims herders arejuxtaposed against uh Christians
who are agriculturalists, andthat's the point of friction.
It's land use, it's a land andwater use problem, not primarily
more so than it is a religiousproblem.
(18:28):
And those events are going tohappen all over the world.
And if you have a minute, I willread you of ten places where
it's gonna happen.
Do you have time?
SPEAKER_00 (18:37):
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (18:38):
So the Indus Basin, Mekong Delta, Nile River Basin,
the Amazon Basin, the AguilalaAquifer, California Central
Valley, the North China Plain,Great European Plain, the Chad
Basin, and the Fertile Crescent.
And it's all gonna happen aboutthe same time in 2040.
SPEAKER_00 (18:59):
Yeah, I want to get to uh what's uh called a TTX.
And uh, out of your partnershipwith ASU and the setting up of
this enterprise comes what isknown as a tabletop exercise,
and it's entitled 2040Agriculture, Water, and Systems
Apocalypse, which by the way isright up the news items uh
(19:20):
subject matter alley.
The general idea is thatparticipants in the tabletop
exercise start at the end, theapocalypse, and work backwards
to the present to identify thequote, critical intervention
windows where the outcome couldstill be rewritten.
Tell us about the TTX.
SPEAKER_01 (19:40):
Well, the background is a fellow by the name of Jay
Forrester, a PhD at MIT in 1972,put a lot of data into a
computer.
The computer was probably thesize of your house, but he put
the data in the computer anddetermined in 2040 the world as
(20:00):
we know it will not be the samebecause of the overuse of
resources.
And he the I don't know if youremember, John, I think I
remember this, but it was calledthe the Club of Rome in the day.
Right.
And it it was, I guess, like abig think tank, and they they
commissioned studies and so theClub of Rome commissioned this,
(20:24):
and Dr.
Forrester came up with theprognosis that by 2040 we're
gonna run out of food and runout of water, social systems are
gonna be overwhelmed, and therefor a lot of reasons the world
as we know it was gonna end.
And he was sort of laughed at.
He'd go around and he'd andpeople said, yeah, conspiracy
theorists and all that.
Well, interestingly enough, in2020, MIT ran a the same study,
(20:48):
looked at the same data when uhcollaboration with the
University of Melbourne inAustralia.
And guess what?
Old Dr.
Forrester was pretty spot on.
So what he had predicted hadpretty much come true by 2020,
moving on to 2040.
So I grabbed a hold of this andstill thought it was conspiracy
theory stuff, and I did a littlelit review and a little
(21:10):
research, and some interestingorganizations like the Bank of
America and Chase and others hadbeen looking at this too.
So I thought what we might wantto do is have a war game that
showed the world at 2040 like itwas going to be, particularly
with regards to water, food,agriculture, and supply chains,
(21:35):
and sort of paint the picture ofthe world in 2040 and then work
backwards, backstaging they callit, to see if smart people could
come up with remedies ormitigating actions that could
forestall a 2040 event.
And so I didn't I I didn'tactually believe that I was
really onto something until Igot into it and I found out that
(21:58):
I am really onto something.
So we're going to alpha testthis in July at a a major
plastics function meeting withplastics executives.
And we're going to use theOgallala and the Central
California two examples to teststudents' abilities to come up
(22:19):
with remedies and sort ofmitigating actions to forestall
what would happen in 2040.
They're going to beta test thisuh in my class at Arizona State,
and we're going to probably runthe first iteration of the TTX
perhaps at West Point in in thefall.
The the long term, uh thetraining TTX, the tabletop
(22:42):
exercise, is sort of theforerunner of the idea for a
major uh war game on this,complete with uh white cells and
competing teams.
And so we're taking little babysteps, but the baby steps are
actually quite important.
And we can tailor this 2040tabletop exercise to almost now
(23:02):
any industry that has uh a wateror I mean it actually any
industry that is going to beinvolved in commerce in 2040.
So it's it's kind of fun.
I've had a lot of fun doing it.
I've just shipped off the firstdraft to people are gonna use it
in July, and I'm getting prettypositive results.
So uh that's the the originalstudy determined that there had
(23:26):
to be limits to growth.
The 1972 study, their bottomline was there had to be limits
to growth.
You're gonna face this in 2040.
I'm most interested in water.
As you know, I was a horserancher in California for a
while, and water was veryimportant.
And I was getting my well was300 feet deep, I was getting
(23:47):
water at 120 feet, but the waterwas going down 10 feet a year
because all the wineries aroundme.
Now, to drill a new well inCalifornia now at$76 a foot.
That's pretty expensive.
So I saw, you know, I'm not amath major, but I could do the
math there, and I figured outmore years I had.
Well, now I'm a now I'm a hobbyfarmer in Minnesota, and we
(24:09):
don't have any trouble withwater here.
But uh 10,000 lakes, one rightoutside, not not too far from my
house.
We're we're okay.
But the my ha I've had thisinterest in water ever since I
uh I had depended on it in uhCalifornia.
SPEAKER_00 (24:22):
So what are you know critical intervention points?
What are the what are the whatare the windows you see in the
next 15 years where a coursecorrection, if you will, could
take place?
SPEAKER_01 (24:35):
Well there are are several, and it really depends
on on the area you're talkingabout.
In the Indus, it's the thetreaty that was uh actually
worked for for many years untilabout a year and a half ago.
And and now India and Pakistanare fighting over the Indus
water.
In China, it's uh overuse andand the the and lack of
(24:57):
conservation for the Great ChinaPlain.
And of course, China uh theycontrol a lot of the water that
far goes south, so there'streaty obligations there too.
A lot of it has to do withinternational relations and
treaties, and some work, somehave worked, and some are sort
of falling apart.
The major problem I see is thisthe depletion of the aquifers
(25:20):
all over the world.
You can just just pump water.
You don't have to worry aboutrainfall, you just keep pumping
water, and pretty soon there'snot going to be any water to
pump.
And then not just in theAguilala, but in several
different parts of the world.
Uh, another thing is the overuseof water for growing crops.
This is one of the good newsitems is that uh a lot of work
(25:41):
now, particularly in rice andother cereals, about use uh
reducing the amount of water youneed to grow grain.
Yeah, I don't think did you knowthat pineapple is a grass?
SPEAKER_00 (25:52):
I did not know that.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
Yeah, pineapple is a grass, and in South America, uh
forget which country, theyfigure out a way to grow
pineapples using a third ofwater that they normally would
use.
So there are actually some goodnews there.
There are replacements as youtalked about, uh, so
desalinization is a is anoption.
But we have to be a littlecareful here.
(26:14):
Have you ever have you ever hada saltwater fish tank?
SPEAKER_00 (26:17):
No, I have never had a salt saltwater fish tank.
SPEAKER_01 (26:19):
So I had to lived in American Samoa for a while, and
I took care of uh some folks,they were gone for the summer.
I took care of their fish tank,saltwater fish tank.
I'm telling you, this thing washuge, the biggest swimming pool.
And there's all kinds of fish inthere, and it was great fun.
And about two, three days beforethey were to come home, all the
fish were bumping into the siteof the aquarium.
(26:40):
And I thought, holy cow, what'sgoing on here?
These fish are all gonna die.
So I asked someone what's goingon.
He said, Well, you got too muchsalt in the tank.
Put some fresh water in there,and the fish were fine.
So if you take it to theextreme, if you take too much
salt out of the water, what doyou do with it?
I mean, you can't I guess youcan what do you do with it?
(27:01):
There's too much to use, and ifyou put it back in the water,
you have the opportunity offouling seawater.
I mean, that's a real stretch,but still, desalinization is
expensive.
And then what do you do with thesalt?
So there are remedies, there aremitigating things you can do,
and we teach those.
It's kind of fun.
Aqua gardening, you just use uhthe same water over and over
(27:24):
again.
You can use, I mean, they canpurify sewage, believe it or
not, use it for agriculture.
So there are many the problem isthat getting water out of the
ground is just too easy.
And then that's what peoplethat's what people are doing.
It's not cost efficient.
The other thing is, I do this inmy TED Talk.
So we I don't know if you'veever seen John or been
(27:46):
interested in, but we havenatural gas and oil pipelines
all over this, all over theUnited States.
I mean, they run from west toeast and south to north, and we
don't have any water pipelinesthat do that.
But we have areas in the UnitedStates like the Pacific
Northwest that have an abundanceof water almost always.
And we have areas in the in thesoutheast that lately have had
(28:10):
some problems, but generally,usually they have an abundance
of water.
Well, what's stopping shippingthat water to the west or from
the north uh northwest down tothe south?
Now it's it's it's costprohibitive.
It's too expensive.
But my guess is uh if mypredictions that the 24
predictions are true, thenperhaps there will be robust
(28:34):
water pipelines in the UnitedStates to take advantage of
areas that have an abundance ofwater to areas that don't.
SPEAKER_00 (28:42):
Yeah, you would think that given the pipeline
infrastructure that exists fornatural gas and and other
things, that you could rightnext to it, you could build
pipelines for water.
SPEAKER_01 (28:53):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
And you wouldn't, you know, the the approval
process, I'm sure, would behundreds of years, but in theory
you could do it very quickly.
unknown (29:02):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (29:02):
Aaron Powell Well it's it'll all be supply and
demand.
I mean you know, I am not a conyou know me, I'm not a
conspiracy theorist, but and Iprobably have invested too much
time in this 2040 project.
I'm I'm s I'm having so much funwith it that I it it's become
part of my life.
But uh and it's uh created quitea bit of interest, actually, and
I'm glad for that.
So we'll see.
SPEAKER_00 (29:22):
Aaron Powell Do you I mean in in doing this you'd be
a lot of I would think that notvery many people you know would
know about it or would, youknow, say that they're
interested in it, and thensuddenly it would seem to me
that a whole lot of people wouldknow about it, and a whole lot
of people would put be callingyou up and saying this is a real
(29:44):
problem.
You know, what do we do?
Has that begun to happen?
SPEAKER_01 (29:47):
I think so.
I mean, I think doing podcastslike this help.
We have some there's some DODinterest, there's uh some Senate
interest in the Senate forfunding.
You know, it's but it's neveryou know, 9-11 was was a sort of
there is no agriculture or water9-11.
(30:08):
There's nothing that's gonnagrab the attention like planes
flying into the twin towns.
SPEAKER_00 (30:14):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (30:14):
So you really have, but I I will tell you, and I
encourage you to do this whenyou don't have anything else to
do.
Google 2040 world ends orsomething like that.
Or anything that has to do with2040 and water or supply chains
or and you will be amazed abouthow many articles, some good,
(30:35):
some bad, some really, reallybad, but you would be surprised
how many people or authors andand and folks, some serious
folks, are actually writingabout it.
So for every one of those tenregions or areas that I I I'm
listening in the T I'm using inthe TTX, there is at least one
(30:56):
2040 article, easy-to-readarticle, that actually specifies
2040 as a time when there it'sgoing to be that is gonna be a
serious problem in that, I meana may maybe life-ending problem
in that part of the world.
So there's a lot of informationout there, but no one other
than, I guess, Alyssa Ellisonand and myself at SU have
(31:18):
decided to, you know, make it uhnational security interest uh
program for us.
SPEAKER_00 (31:24):
Aaron Ross Powell And are you uh you know, are you
taking this show on the road, soto speak?
Or are you doing TED Talks andand uh presentations to DOD or
stage?
SPEAKER_01 (31:34):
Our first one will the first real test of this will
be in July.
And then we hope to have anotherone in in October.
But yes, the idea is is to takeit on the road, but I want to
have I don't want to take it onthe road until at least I have
an alpha test.
But as I I see this happening,it's really anybody in an
industry that wants theirexecutives or their aspiring
(31:56):
executives to think about whatcould happen in the future.
And the the beauty is that wehave a pretty good 2040 scenario
that I didn't come up withmyself.
I mean, there are a lot ofpeople that are talking about
it.
So, but they have theopportunity now to work
backwards to to mitigate the theproblem.
So eventually, this now is justa two-move game.
(32:20):
Eventually it'll be a three-movegame, and that you come in and
you're you're play your playerand it's 2040 and you come up
with all these good ideas, andthen the white cell determines
which ideas are good and whichare bad or whatever, and then it
becomes 2030, and you failed.
You you succeeded in some, butyou failed in others.
(32:41):
So you have to go back and thenrecalibrate.
And then, oh, by the way, oncethe war game is uh matures,
we'll have injects that screw upyour whole day with the with the
solution that you had, so itmakes it a real challenge.
So it'll be group dynamicsinvolved, team playing, team
(33:02):
building, there are all kinds ofside advantages to 2040.
It's just not coming up with theright answer in the game.
SPEAKER_00 (33:10):
So if someone listening to this podcast wanted
to get in touch with you, howwould they do that?
SPEAKER_01 (33:16):
Our center, the agriculture and national
security, it's listed as aprogram, is readily available on
the Arizona State Universitywebsite.
All you gotta do is is GoogleArizona State University,
Agriculture and NationalSecurity Program, contact
information and all that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:37):
Terrific.
I would urge our listeners to dojust that.
And Russ, we've taken uh a fairamount of your time.
We appreciate it very much.
And we will talk again soon, Ihope.
SPEAKER_01 (33:47):
I I do too.
Good to good to see you, John.
It's been a while.
SPEAKER_00 (33:50):
Good to see you.
SPEAKER_01 (33:51):
And Dale, thanks for your help here, sir.
Hello and welcome back to the News Items Podcast.
I'm John Ellis.
I am the founder and editor oftwo Substack newsletters.
One is called News Items, theother is called Political News
Items.
You can find them both atnews-items.com.
My guest today is retiredBrigadier General Russ Howard.
(00:20):
Russ is a farmer in Minnesotaand the president of Howard's
Consulting Services.
He's also a distinguished seniorfellow at the Joint Special
Operations University.
Previously, Russ was thedirector of the Yepsen Center
for Counterterrorism Studies atthe Fletcher School in Medford,
Massachusetts.
He retired from the Army as headof the Department of Social
(00:40):
Sciences and the foundingdirector of the Combating
Terrorism Center at West Point.
His previous positions includeDeputy Department Head of the
Department of Social Sciences,Army Chief of Staff Fellow at
the Center for InternationalAffairs at Harvard University,
and commander of the FirstSpecial Forces Airborne Group at
Fort Lewis, Washington.
(01:01):
General Howard is the co-authorand editor of seven
counterterrorism books.
He holds a Bachelor of Sciencedegree in industrial management
from San Jose State University,a Bachelor of Arts in Asian
Studies from the University ofMaryland, a Master of Arts
degree in InternationalManagement from the Monterey
Institute of InternationalStudies, and a Master's of
(01:22):
Public Administration degreefrom Harvard University.
He was a Senior Service CollegeFellow at the Fletcher School of
Law and Diplomacy at TuftsUniversity, and a senior fellow
at the Weatherhead Center forInternational Affairs at
Harvard.
A warrior and an overeducatedone at that.
Russ, thank you for joining ustoday.
SPEAKER_01 (01:41):
Truth about overeducated.
Warrior, I'm not so sure, Josh.
SPEAKER_00 (01:45):
So before we get to talking about what you're now
doing, I want to just get yourassessment of where you think
things stand in the two warsgoing on in the world, one
obviously Iran, the otherUkraine.
And I'll present you with twoscenarios.
First, the Iran war is reachingsome kind of conflict.
Either the Iranian side criesuncle under the weight of U.S.
(02:08):
military pressure and domesticdisaster, meaning the food
supply, water supply, worthlesscurrency, unpaid wages, etc.,
etc.
Or Iran hangs on and the U.S.
side decides to go with thetwo-step deal, reopen the
strait, release money to theIranians, and negotiate the rest
down the road.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
Where do you think we are in the Iran war right
now?
I think both your examples aregood but problematic.
My take on the Iran war is theproblem is there's no one in
charge.
I mean, the president resignedyesterday.
And the problem is RGC, if theysurrender, and I'm not sure what
the mechanism is that they wouldsurrender, but if the thagosy
(02:51):
surrenders, their own people aregoing to kill them.
So there's no incentive for theRGC to to capitulate.
And I think they're just goingto hold on as long as they as
long as they can, or as long asthey still have oil storage on
Carg Island.
I think everybody was cheeringwhen they initially killed about
40 of the senior leaders inIran.
(03:12):
But the problem is it killed allthe people that could negotiate.
And I think we're stuck in alittle bit of a quagmire here.
I hesitate to say this, but Ihonestly think that renewed
military action may be maybe theonly alternative to the
stalemate that they have now,unless the president and the
administration can find a way tostart clearing the strait.
(03:35):
That's my take on the Iran war.
SPEAKER_00 (03:48):
And in the Ukraine war, I think we've we've sort of
lived.
I remember talking to you at theoutset, and and I remember I was
surprised to hear you say thatyou thought Ukraine could win
the war.
You were one of the few peoplethat I knew who said that.
And the narrative has been, youknow, inevitable Russian
victory, and that seems to havechanged, you know, in the last
(04:09):
three, four months to astalemate and maybe even major
political upheaval in Russia.
What's what's your take on wherethings are in in the Ukraine?
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
I think Ukraine wins by not losing.
unknown (04:21):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (04:22):
They you know they were supposed to fold in three
days, and look how long it'sbeen.
And the interesting thing aboutthis this war, and I'll talk
about both wars in a secondregarding agriculture, but the
Ukraine war, the Russia Ukrainewar has changed warfare.
The drone warfare now ispreeminent.
You can get a smaller countrythat can manufacture uh
(04:43):
combat-related items verycheaply to take on a major
power.
I mean, it we should be askingourselves all kinds of
questions.
You know, the the Gerald Ford,the aircraft carrier, cost$36
billion to build.
But you can take a missilethat's about$1.5 million and
make maybe 10 or 12 of them andtake out an aircraft carrier.
(05:06):
So I think all of us need to berethinking what types of
military hardware and at whatexpense we need to be fielding.
So I I'm I watched the Ukrainewar fairly carefully because I I
do think I I'll stick by myearlier saying that by not
losing, they win.
And I think my personal opinionis that within about six months,
(05:28):
things are going to startfalling apart in this in Russia
to the point where Putin can'tcontinue.
The technology that Ukrainiansare using to target Russian
industrial complexes, andparticularly their fuel lines
and their means of supply, isreally kind of brilliant.
And I th I think we should uhall take notice of that.
SPEAKER_00 (05:49):
So my idea is that we turn this into a kind of a
private equity deal where theU.S.
buys Ukraine so we we canadvance our military
capabilities in one fell swoop.
Are you are you in with theEllis program?
Yeah, I am.
SPEAKER_01 (06:05):
And I think other countries are too.
They're they're starting to selltheir technology.
Even the Israelis areinterested, and Israelis have
they're at the top of the linefor military hardware hardware
technology.
So I the the challenge for boththese wars, if you're in
agriculture, is that Ukraineproduces a lot of fertilizer, a
(06:26):
lot of wheat, too.
And so does Russia.
And so the cost of fertilizer inthe United States in Minnesota
farm country at the beginning ofthe Ukraine-Russia War was uh
went off the chart.
Yields reduced by about 30%because people couldn't afford
the fertilizer.
That somehow has rectifieditself because of U.S.
market.
But now with a straight close,you get you need liquid liquid
(06:49):
liquid nitrogen to makefertilizer.
And so the farmers, again inMinnesota, are having a
difficult time affordingfertilizer, and this is the time
we plant right now.
So both these wars havelong-term effects that you don't
think about in a militarycontext, but you should be
thinking about as far asmanufacturing food, supply line
(07:12):
distributions.
So there's a lot more of thesetwo wars than just military
conflict.
SPEAKER_00 (07:17):
We'll get to the work that you're doing now.
You've set up uh an institute onon this very subject in
partnership with Arizona StateUniversity.
Tell us how that how that cametogether.
SPEAKER_01 (07:28):
Aaron Powell Well, if you want the whole story,
I'll try and make a short storylong here.
So a friend of mine, actuallyyou may know him, Lieutenant
General retired CharlieCleveland, was supposed to give
a speech in Washington, D.C.
to Arizona State and MississippiState Universities about
agriculture and warfare orsomething, and the hurricane hit
(07:48):
his house, so he couldn't do it,so I did it.
And so I met a lot ofinteresting people.
They liked my speech, and so Istarted thinking, I read the
President Biden's or the Bidenadministration national security
strategy, thinking that theremight be something regarding
food security in there, andthere was.
And food security in the Bidenadministration held equal rank
(08:11):
with terrorism, Russia, China,you know, Iran, all the rogues,
all that.
That was a national securityproblem.
And I started thinking, andJohn, you remember when we
started the combating terrorismcenter at West Point, there
wasn't anybody really in theworld that had a center to
combat terrorism, right?
So I started thinking, well, whois looking at food security,
(08:32):
water security, who's looking atagriculture?
And so I did a little lit reviewor review, and the answer was
nobody.
So I thought I met a veryinteresting colleague at Arizona
State who has the same last nameas you, but no relation, Alicia
Ellis.
She was an Air Force officer,PhD, and just a real go-getter.
(08:53):
And so we had a chat over amartini, which shouldn't
surprise you.
And we said, you know, who'slooking at this?
And she said, Well, I've beenthinking about trying to do
something at Arizona State forsome time.
She is a farmer in her ownright, which raises cattle.
And so we decided to put alittle proposal together and
took it to the president of ASU,Michael Crow, who's a very
(09:17):
innovative, gets credit forbeing, I guess, the most
innovative college president inthe United States.
But anyway, he said, well, let'sdo it.
And he did it without anydonors.
Or and so he started it as aprogram.
And I think Arizona is going toArizona has an interest in the
Arizona government's educationdirectorate or whatever has to
(09:38):
approve all centers andinstitutes.
So I think ours is going to beapproved this week.
Yeah.
So we started off, got an earlycontract with the Institute for
Irregular Warfare, and uh acouple donors who you know have
ponied up some money.
And we're off to the races.
And we have a course that weboth teach.
(09:59):
We just published an articlethat thank you for news items
for featuring, and uh we'rewe're off the races.
And there's a lot of interest inwhat we're doing, both in
government and even the FBI isinterested.
So it's not as not as quite asexciting as the Combating
Terrorism Center.
You know, West Point is its owndraw, and and terrorism is
(10:22):
probably uh more important tomost people than agriculture and
water are, but we're making someprogress there.
SPEAKER_00 (10:29):
Aaron Ross Powell You now teach a course at ASU on
agriculture and nationalsecurity.
What how do you how did you Iguess what's the syllabus?
How do you walk the students upto uh a general better
understanding of the subjectmatter?
SPEAKER_01 (10:43):
Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, we it's kind of ag and
water 101, both teaching theimportance of agriculture and
the water and the shortages ofboth arable land and water and
what you can do about it.
And then sort of the history ofwater and agriculture, food, as
implements of war, uh both as uhoffense and defense.
(11:07):
And then this uh semester, we'realso going to add a module on
agriculture or terrorism.
So there's uh Alyssa uh Ellis isa one of the countries export on
supply chains, and she adds shehas a very interesting module on
supply chain dynamics inagriculture and how a simple
(11:29):
break in the supply chain canjust the excuse the vernacular
here, but screw everything up.
And so the notion is that youknow, one day, next day delivery
and global globalization is sortof in question now.
And and there's probably more ofthought that maybe countries,
(11:50):
nations like the United Statesshould have some resilience with
regards to agriculture and andwater.
And there's also a module ongreat power competition in
agriculture and notes that Chinais buying up a lot of or trying
to buy up a lot of U.S.
agriculture land.
Interestingly, the land they'rebuying often happens to be right
(12:12):
next to a military orintelligence installation.
Apropos of our earlierconversation, we look at the
impacts of the Russia-Ukrainewar on uh agriculture.
So it's uh it's kind of fun.
It's we have there are thestudents are from all over the
world.
This is an internet-basedcourse.
We I think we had fourcontinents uh last time we did
(12:33):
it.
This time I think we'll have thesame amount.
And it's uh a lot of fun.
And uh the major challenge is ifyou're a teacher these days, you
didn't ask me this question, butI'll answer it anyway.
All right.
Is that so back in the days whenI used to teach, back when I was
alive and taught at West Pointand and uh the Fletcher School
(12:54):
and the Monterey Institute, uh,we didn't have to worry about
AI.
But I can tell you that readingessays now is much easier than
in the past.
You know, the big question iswhat do you do about AI?
And I've come to the conclusionthat you just run with it.
You know, I mean you're notgonna be able to change it,
(13:15):
you're not gonna stop it, you'renot gonna be able to police it.
So you take advantage of it.
So we're we're sort of wrestlingfor that at ASU now and uh other
places.
But turnpapers have gotten muchbetter, John.
SPEAKER_00 (13:27):
Well, I bet they have so tell us about water
worldwide.
I remember in the book The BigShort that Michael Lewis wrote
about the great financialcrisis.
One of the, you know, principalcharacters was a man named
Michael Burry, who was widelyscorned for betting that the
housing market would collapse.
(13:48):
And of course it did collapse,and Michael Burry made a great
deal of money for his investorsand for himself.
And he was asked what he wasgonna do after that, having made
the greatest call, arguably, inin the history of financial
markets, and he said he wasgonna focus on water.
And I I thought that was sort ofinstructive that he saw the next
big crisis building in water.
(14:10):
He's right.
Can you explain why you shouldthink that or why he thought
that way so long ago?
SPEAKER_01 (14:15):
Aaron Ross Powell Because the world's running out
of water.
In this 2040 project that I I'msure I think we'll talk about a
little bit later.
There are going to be 63countries in the world that
won't have enough potable water,potable water for their
population.
The aquifers are being drained.
The Agalala aquifer thatsupports most of the Midwest is
being depleted at a a rapidrate.
(14:37):
In fact, this two days ago inNewsweek.
Actually, you covered this thewater shortages pretty well in
news items, but just two daysago in Newsweek, they had an
amazing article, easy to read onAgalala aquifer.
So, you know, without water, youyou can't grow anything.
unknown (14:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (14:56):
So kind of essential.
People say, well, food shortagesor uh agriculture, the arable
land and all that, but it reallyat the end of the day, the water
is a problem.
So back when we were bothgraduate students, which was a
long time ago, but you know, ifyou recall, the world was going
to run out of water.
(15:16):
I mean, one run out of oil about2013.
Well, it didn't happen.
And now we got more oil than youjust find new finds all the
time.
And with oil, it's kind ofinteresting because there are a
lot of substitutes for oil,right?
You got hydro, you've got wind,you've got solar, you've got all
kinds of alternatives for foroil.
(15:38):
But Don, what is the alternativefor water?
What's the substitute for water?
Yeah.
Having a hard time coming upwith an answer for that?
SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
Well, they got the technology uh out there that's
being touted is that you can uh,you know, that there are
machines, I guess you would callthem, that take uh water out of
the air.
Well, that's producing water.
Which which strikes me asunlikely, but there you are.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
Yeah, you can you can make water, but there's
really no substitute for water.
I did a TED talk here about fouryears ago, and in the audience I
said, you know, I go throughthis routine about substitutes.
There's about 11 substitutes foroil.
I go through that, and then Isay, so who can tell me what the
substitute for water is?
And a guy in the third row says,beer.
(16:29):
And uh I think maybe he had beenconsuming some before he came
there.
But so water is important, andwe're running out, draining
aquifers all over the world,using too much water.
Now there are remedies.
Uh we go into them in the coursewe teach.
We go, what are the remedies forsaving water, using water more
(16:50):
efficiently, doing all that.
But still the prognosis forwater consumption in the world
is not good.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00 (16:58):
So you could have a chart and it just at some point
in 2040, let's say, just thechart just says it no longer
works, right?
Right.
Then where is the water crisismost acute?
I mean, is it is it I mean,obviously we have here in the
U.S.
you look at the pictures of theHoover Dam and you look at the
you know the pictures all aroundAfrica.
SPEAKER_01 (17:21):
I mean the d the the the desert there is is d
desertification in Africa, thethis desert there, I mean, i it
it it i it it's incre goes southabout thirteen kilometers a
year.
And so people think thatNigeria, for example, that the
terrorism and all the problemsthere are religious related.
(17:43):
Talk to Nigerians, that's nottrue.
I mean, it's partially true.
But the real problem is thatMuslims are mostly nomads,
right?
They raise I mean, they raisegoats and they and they need
forage.
And so they follow where thewater is.
And so the Christians in Nigeriaare mostly agricultural people.
(18:06):
And so they call it the beltacross Nigeria.
It's where the desertificationis pushed down to the point
where Muslims herders arejuxtaposed against uh Christians
who are agriculturalists, andthat's the point of friction.
It's land use, it's a land andwater use problem, not primarily
more so than it is a religiousproblem.
(18:28):
And those events are going tohappen all over the world.
And if you have a minute, I willread you of ten places where
it's gonna happen.
Do you have time?
SPEAKER_00 (18:37):
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (18:38):
So the Indus Basin, Mekong Delta, Nile River Basin,
the Amazon Basin, the AguilalaAquifer, California Central
Valley, the North China Plain,Great European Plain, the Chad
Basin, and the Fertile Crescent.
And it's all gonna happen aboutthe same time in 2040.
SPEAKER_00 (18:59):
Yeah, I want to get to uh what's uh called a TTX.
And uh, out of your partnershipwith ASU and the setting up of
this enterprise comes what isknown as a tabletop exercise,
and it's entitled 2040Agriculture, Water, and Systems
Apocalypse, which by the way isright up the news items uh
(19:20):
subject matter alley.
The general idea is thatparticipants in the tabletop
exercise start at the end, theapocalypse, and work backwards
to the present to identify thequote, critical intervention
windows where the outcome couldstill be rewritten.
Tell us about the TTX.
SPEAKER_01 (19:40):
Well, the background is a fellow by the name of Jay
Forrester, a PhD at MIT in 1972,put a lot of data into a
computer.
The computer was probably thesize of your house, but he put
the data in the computer anddetermined in 2040 the world as
(20:00):
we know it will not be the samebecause of the overuse of
resources.
And he the I don't know if youremember, John, I think I
remember this, but it was calledthe the Club of Rome in the day.
Right.
And it it was, I guess, like abig think tank, and they they
commissioned studies and so theClub of Rome commissioned this,
(20:24):
and Dr.
Forrester came up with theprognosis that by 2040 we're
gonna run out of food and runout of water, social systems are
gonna be overwhelmed, and therefor a lot of reasons the world
as we know it was gonna end.
And he was sort of laughed at.
He'd go around and he'd andpeople said, yeah, conspiracy
theorists and all that.
Well, interestingly enough, in2020, MIT ran a the same study,
(20:48):
looked at the same data when uhcollaboration with the
University of Melbourne inAustralia.
And guess what?
Old Dr.
Forrester was pretty spot on.
So what he had predicted hadpretty much come true by 2020,
moving on to 2040.
So I grabbed a hold of this andstill thought it was conspiracy
theory stuff, and I did a littlelit review and a little
(21:10):
research, and some interestingorganizations like the Bank of
America and Chase and others hadbeen looking at this too.
So I thought what we might wantto do is have a war game that
showed the world at 2040 like itwas going to be, particularly
with regards to water, food,agriculture, and supply chains,
(21:35):
and sort of paint the picture ofthe world in 2040 and then work
backwards, backstaging they callit, to see if smart people could
come up with remedies ormitigating actions that could
forestall a 2040 event.
And so I didn't I I didn'tactually believe that I was
really onto something until Igot into it and I found out that
(21:58):
I am really onto something.
So we're going to alpha testthis in July at a a major
plastics function meeting withplastics executives.
And we're going to use theOgallala and the Central
California two examples to teststudents' abilities to come up
(22:19):
with remedies and sort ofmitigating actions to forestall
what would happen in 2040.
They're going to beta test thisuh in my class at Arizona State,
and we're going to probably runthe first iteration of the TTX
perhaps at West Point in in thefall.
The the long term, uh thetraining TTX, the tabletop
(22:42):
exercise, is sort of theforerunner of the idea for a
major uh war game on this,complete with uh white cells and
competing teams.
And so we're taking little babysteps, but the baby steps are
actually quite important.
And we can tailor this 2040tabletop exercise to almost now
(23:02):
any industry that has uh a wateror I mean it actually any
industry that is going to beinvolved in commerce in 2040.
So it's it's kind of fun.
I've had a lot of fun doing it.
I've just shipped off the firstdraft to people are gonna use it
in July, and I'm getting prettypositive results.
So uh that's the the originalstudy determined that there had
(23:26):
to be limits to growth.
The 1972 study, their bottomline was there had to be limits
to growth.
You're gonna face this in 2040.
I'm most interested in water.
As you know, I was a horserancher in California for a
while, and water was veryimportant.
And I was getting my well was300 feet deep, I was getting
(23:47):
water at 120 feet, but the waterwas going down 10 feet a year
because all the wineries aroundme.
Now, to drill a new well inCalifornia now at$76 a foot.
That's pretty expensive.
So I saw, you know, I'm not amath major, but I could do the
math there, and I figured outmore years I had.
Well, now I'm a now I'm a hobbyfarmer in Minnesota, and we
(24:09):
don't have any trouble withwater here.
But uh 10,000 lakes, one rightoutside, not not too far from my
house.
We're we're okay.
But the my ha I've had thisinterest in water ever since I
uh I had depended on it in uhCalifornia.
SPEAKER_00 (24:22):
So what are you know critical intervention points?
What are the what are the whatare the windows you see in the
next 15 years where a coursecorrection, if you will, could
take place?
SPEAKER_01 (24:35):
Well there are are several, and it really depends
on on the area you're talkingabout.
In the Indus, it's the thetreaty that was uh actually
worked for for many years untilabout a year and a half ago.
And and now India and Pakistanare fighting over the Indus
water.
In China, it's uh overuse andand the the and lack of
(24:57):
conservation for the Great ChinaPlain.
And of course, China uh theycontrol a lot of the water that
far goes south, so there'streaty obligations there too.
A lot of it has to do withinternational relations and
treaties, and some work, somehave worked, and some are sort
of falling apart.
The major problem I see is thisthe depletion of the aquifers
(25:20):
all over the world.
You can just just pump water.
You don't have to worry aboutrainfall, you just keep pumping
water, and pretty soon there'snot going to be any water to
pump.
And then not just in theAguilala, but in several
different parts of the world.
Uh, another thing is the overuseof water for growing crops.
This is one of the good newsitems is that uh a lot of work
(25:41):
now, particularly in rice andother cereals, about use uh
reducing the amount of water youneed to grow grain.
Yeah, I don't think did you knowthat pineapple is a grass?
SPEAKER_00 (25:52):
I did not know that.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
Yeah, pineapple is a grass, and in South America, uh
forget which country, theyfigure out a way to grow
pineapples using a third ofwater that they normally would
use.
So there are actually some goodnews there.
There are replacements as youtalked about, uh, so
desalinization is a is anoption.
But we have to be a littlecareful here.
(26:14):
Have you ever have you ever hada saltwater fish tank?
SPEAKER_00 (26:17):
No, I have never had a salt saltwater fish tank.
SPEAKER_01 (26:19):
So I had to lived in American Samoa for a while, and
I took care of uh some folks,they were gone for the summer.
I took care of their fish tank,saltwater fish tank.
I'm telling you, this thing washuge, the biggest swimming pool.
And there's all kinds of fish inthere, and it was great fun.
And about two, three days beforethey were to come home, all the
fish were bumping into the siteof the aquarium.
(26:40):
And I thought, holy cow, what'sgoing on here?
These fish are all gonna die.
So I asked someone what's goingon.
He said, Well, you got too muchsalt in the tank.
Put some fresh water in there,and the fish were fine.
So if you take it to theextreme, if you take too much
salt out of the water, what doyou do with it?
I mean, you can't I guess youcan what do you do with it?
(27:01):
There's too much to use, and ifyou put it back in the water,
you have the opportunity offouling seawater.
I mean, that's a real stretch,but still, desalinization is
expensive.
And then what do you do with thesalt?
So there are remedies, there aremitigating things you can do,
and we teach those.
It's kind of fun.
Aqua gardening, you just use uhthe same water over and over
(27:24):
again.
You can use, I mean, they canpurify sewage, believe it or
not, use it for agriculture.
So there are many the problem isthat getting water out of the
ground is just too easy.
And then that's what peoplethat's what people are doing.
It's not cost efficient.
The other thing is, I do this inmy TED Talk.
So we I don't know if you'veever seen John or been
(27:46):
interested in, but we havenatural gas and oil pipelines
all over this, all over theUnited States.
I mean, they run from west toeast and south to north, and we
don't have any water pipelinesthat do that.
But we have areas in the UnitedStates like the Pacific
Northwest that have an abundanceof water almost always.
And we have areas in the in thesoutheast that lately have had
(28:10):
some problems, but generally,usually they have an abundance
of water.
Well, what's stopping shippingthat water to the west or from
the north uh northwest down tothe south?
Now it's it's it's costprohibitive.
It's too expensive.
But my guess is uh if mypredictions that the 24
predictions are true, thenperhaps there will be robust
(28:34):
water pipelines in the UnitedStates to take advantage of
areas that have an abundance ofwater to areas that don't.
SPEAKER_00 (28:42):
Yeah, you would think that given the pipeline
infrastructure that exists fornatural gas and and other
things, that you could rightnext to it, you could build
pipelines for water.
SPEAKER_01 (28:53):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
And you wouldn't, you know, the the approval
process, I'm sure, would behundreds of years, but in theory
you could do it very quickly.
unknown (29:02):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (29:02):
Aaron Powell Well it's it'll all be supply and
demand.
I mean you know, I am not a conyou know me, I'm not a
conspiracy theorist, but and Iprobably have invested too much
time in this 2040 project.
I'm I'm s I'm having so much funwith it that I it it's become
part of my life.
But uh and it's uh created quitea bit of interest, actually, and
I'm glad for that.
So we'll see.
SPEAKER_00 (29:22):
Aaron Powell Do you I mean in in doing this you'd be
a lot of I would think that notvery many people you know would
know about it or would, youknow, say that they're
interested in it, and thensuddenly it would seem to me
that a whole lot of people wouldknow about it, and a whole lot
of people would put be callingyou up and saying this is a real
(29:44):
problem.
You know, what do we do?
Has that begun to happen?
SPEAKER_01 (29:47):
I think so.
I mean, I think doing podcastslike this help.
We have some there's some DODinterest, there's uh some Senate
interest in the Senate forfunding.
You know, it's but it's neveryou know, 9-11 was was a sort of
there is no agriculture or water9-11.
(30:08):
There's nothing that's gonnagrab the attention like planes
flying into the twin towns.
SPEAKER_00 (30:14):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (30:14):
So you really have, but I I will tell you, and I
encourage you to do this whenyou don't have anything else to
do.
Google 2040 world ends orsomething like that.
Or anything that has to do with2040 and water or supply chains
or and you will be amazed abouthow many articles, some good,
(30:35):
some bad, some really, reallybad, but you would be surprised
how many people or authors andand and folks, some serious
folks, are actually writingabout it.
So for every one of those tenregions or areas that I I I'm
listening in the T I'm using inthe TTX, there is at least one
(30:56):
2040 article, easy-to-readarticle, that actually specifies
2040 as a time when there it'sgoing to be that is gonna be a
serious problem in that, I meana may maybe life-ending problem
in that part of the world.
So there's a lot of informationout there, but no one other
than, I guess, Alyssa Ellisonand and myself at SU have
(31:18):
decided to, you know, make it uhnational security interest uh
program for us.
SPEAKER_00 (31:24):
Aaron Ross Powell And are you uh you know, are you
taking this show on the road, soto speak?
Or are you doing TED Talks andand uh presentations to DOD or
stage?
SPEAKER_01 (31:34):
Our first one will the first real test of this will
be in July.
And then we hope to have anotherone in in October.
But yes, the idea is is to takeit on the road, but I want to
have I don't want to take it onthe road until at least I have
an alpha test.
But as I I see this happening,it's really anybody in an
industry that wants theirexecutives or their aspiring
(31:56):
executives to think about whatcould happen in the future.
And the the beauty is that wehave a pretty good 2040 scenario
that I didn't come up withmyself.
I mean, there are a lot ofpeople that are talking about
it.
So, but they have theopportunity now to work
backwards to to mitigate the theproblem.
So eventually, this now is justa two-move game.
(32:20):
Eventually it'll be a three-movegame, and that you come in and
you're you're play your playerand it's 2040 and you come up
with all these good ideas, andthen the white cell determines
which ideas are good and whichare bad or whatever, and then it
becomes 2030, and you failed.
You you succeeded in some, butyou failed in others.
(32:41):
So you have to go back and thenrecalibrate.
And then, oh, by the way, oncethe war game is uh matures,
we'll have injects that screw upyour whole day with the with the
solution that you had, so itmakes it a real challenge.
So it'll be group dynamicsinvolved, team playing, team
(33:02):
building, there are all kinds ofside advantages to 2040.
It's just not coming up with theright answer in the game.
SPEAKER_00 (33:10):
So if someone listening to this podcast wanted
to get in touch with you, howwould they do that?
SPEAKER_01 (33:16):
Our center, the agriculture and national
security, it's listed as aprogram, is readily available on
the Arizona State Universitywebsite.
All you gotta do is is GoogleArizona State University,
Agriculture and NationalSecurity Program, contact
information and all that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:37):
Terrific.
I would urge our listeners to dojust that.
And Russ, we've taken uh a fairamount of your time.
We appreciate it very much.
And we will talk again soon, Ihope.
SPEAKER_01 (33:47):
I I do too.
Good to good to see you, John.
It's been a while.
SPEAKER_00 (33:50):
Good to see you.
SPEAKER_01 (33:51):
And Dale, thanks for your help here, sir.
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