The Center for International Studies at MIT presents

“The New Famines of the Middle East and Horn of Africa: War economies and the normalization of starvation”

Alex de Waal

Executive Director

World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School, Tufts University

This lecture locates the return of famines in geo-strategic, economic and normative changes that have their sharpest manifestation in a cluster of countries in the Middle East and Horn of Africa. The most severe and widespread starvation in the contemporary world has struck Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and most recently Gaza, with neighboring countries also afflicted. All these countries are located in the “Red Sea Arena,” a zone of contestation consisting of the littoral countries of the Red Sea and their immediate neighbors. The lecture posits that this cluster of calamities have a common explanatory thread, namely the lens of “new war economies”. The demise of the liberal Pax Americana and the rise of Middle Eastern middle powers and the BRICS has led to new rivalries, organized around access to dollar reserves and alternative currency arrangements backed by resources including gold, oil, land, and strategic real estate. The Gulf monarchies and Israel have strategies and instruments designed to finance current and anticipated conflicts. They seek key resources in Africa and control of strategic locations at the crossroads of maritime commerce. They wage economic warfare that render their adversaries ungovernable. Most damagingly, the new war economies are associated with illiberal norms, including reviving sovereign privileges, undermining liberal multilateral institutions, and adopting a permissive ethos of tolerating mass starvation.

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

4:30-6:00pm

E51-145

Zoom Livestream available

The Bustani Seminar series celebrates its 40^th anniversary this year!

Information on the Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar

Information on the Spring 2025 Bustani Seminar Series

Sponsored by the MIT Center for International Studies

For more information or any questions, contact:

Dayana Mercier | dayan379@mit.edu