Whatever happened to the water wars?

THE FORECAST that future wars will be fought over water has been made long enough for it to become both a platitude and subject to doubt. Demand for water has surged because populations have grown and rising prosperity has enabled them to live more water-intensive lives. But supply of the wet stuff is already coming under ever greater pressure, as climate change, crudely put, makes dry places drier.

Yet the great water-based conflicts that were feared—India v Pakistan, Ethiopia v Egypt, Brazil v Paraguay, China v any of the countries downstream from the Himalayas—have not come to pass. Maybe, argue optimists, the world is better at sharing this resource than is often assumed.