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It is unfortunate that food and war make such good bedfellows. History is replete with instances of food being used as a weapon of siege or as a tool of control. In our globalized world, the domination of food trade has become an integral part of the modern arsenal. Henry Kissinger's alleged quote, "Control oil and you control nations, control food and you control the people," adequately captures this approach to what might be called "breadboat diplomacy," which was deployed effectively in Iraq's oil-for-food program (Arnove, 2003).
Food is also a major mover of people and, while no one knows if Marie Antoinette really did suggest that the people of France replace bread with cake on the eve of the French Revolution, the message here is quite clear: beware of the hungry masses. As many researchers have suggested (see "Let them eat baklava," 2012), the wave of popular uprisings that continue to shake the Arab world is interwoven with increased world food prices and chronic food insecurity. Food has also been associated with mass displacement and even with genocides. The "scorched earth" strategy essentially implies the removal of the capacity to produce food in order to destroy the fabric of society. One of the earliest such instances comes to us from the Romans, who reputedly plowed salt into the fertile land of Carthage after the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC. Unable to produce crops, Carthage was abandoned.
Food shortages can also be the result of conflicts and wars. Messer and Cohen argue convincingly that "most modern wars...are 'food wars,' meaning that food is used as a weapon, food systems are destroyed in the course of conflict, and food insecurity persists as a legacy of conflict" (2006, p. 1). In their analysis they refer to the work of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who links conflicts with food insecurity through the destruction of human entitlements such as access to food and to the resources necessary to produce food, the environment, welfare, health care, education, and other social infrastructure. It therefore is not by coincidence that 20 out of the 36 countries listed by the FAO as requiring external assistance in food (FAO, 2013) are either in the midst of conflicts or have...