El agua como arma: la tecnología de desalinización en el Golfo Pérsico

The NATO bombing of Serbian electrical grids in 1999, Iraqi infrastructure in 2003.

But water is different.

It's a more primal pressure point.

Es que el agua es la base de todo.

Water is the foundation of everything.

Una ciudad sin electricidad es muy difícil.

A city without electricity is very difficult.

Una ciudad sin agua es imposible.

A city without water is impossible.

La gente puede vivir tres semanas sin comida.

People can live three weeks without food.

Sin agua, solo tres días.

Without water, only three days.

Es biología básica.

That is basic biology.

And here's what gets me about the legal dimension of this.

Under international humanitarian law, attacks on infrastructure essential to civilian survival are supposed to be protected.

Article 54 of the Geneva Conventions, additional protocol.

Explicitly covers water and food infrastructure.

But the record of actually enforcing that is, let's say, mixed.

La verdad es que las reglas internacionales existen en papel, pero en la práctica, los países hacen lo que quieren en una guerra.

The truth is that international rules exist on paper, but in practice, countries do what they want in a war.

Yemen perdió muchas plantas de agua durante el conflicto.

Yemen lost many water plants during the conflict.

Nadie fue al tribunal internacional.

Nobody went to the international court.

Es una situación muy frustrante.

It is a very frustrating situation.

Yemen is exactly the right comparison.

The Saudi-led coalition hit water systems in Yemen repeatedly.

Those attacks contributed to cholera outbreaks that killed thousands.

And you're right, no accountability.

So Iran knows the precedent.

Bueno, y hay que pensar también en el mensaje político.

Well, and we also have to think about the political message.

Kuwait no está en guerra con Irán directamente.

Kuwait is not at war with Iran directly.

Pero Kuwait es un aliado de Estados Unidos.

But Kuwait is an ally of the United States.

Tiene bases militares americanas.

It has American military bases.

Irán quiere comunicar que todos en la región van a sufrir las consecuencias.

Iran wants to communicate that everyone in the region is going to suffer the consequences.

Right, so the technology is the means but the message is the point.

And that's classic coercive signaling.

You don't have to destroy everything.

You just have to demonstrate that you can reach anything.

That's how you create pressure on governments to stay out of a conflict.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y la tecnología de los misiles también cambió mucho.

And missile technology has also changed a lot.

Antes era muy difícil atacar un objetivo específico a muchos kilómetros de distancia.

Before, it was very difficult to attack a specific target from many kilometers away.

Ahora Irán tiene misiles y drones con mucha precisión.

Now Iran has missiles and drones with a lot of precision.

Pueden elegir qué atacar.

They can choose what to attack.

Eso es nuevo y es muy peligroso.

That is new and it is very dangerous.

The extraordinary thing is that fifteen years ago, Iran's precision strike capability was quite limited.

They had quantity but not quality.

Now they've developed, partly through necessity, partly through help from Russia and China, a genuinely sophisticated arsenal.

And they know how to pick targets that hurt without triggering an automatic escalation.

Mira, también hay otro ángulo tecnológico importante.

Look, there is also another important technological angle.

La desalinización moderna usa mucha energía, como dijimos antes.

Modern desalination uses a lot of energy, as we said before.

Pero las plantas más antiguas usaban un método diferente, la destilación.

But the older plants used a different method, distillation.

Calentaban el agua del mar hasta crear vapor y después recogían el agua pura.

They heated the seawater until it created steam and then collected the pure water.

Era muy ineficiente.

It was very inefficient.

So there's been a genuine technological evolution in how this is done.

Which is interesting because some of those older plants are still running in the Gulf.

They were built in the seventies and eighties during the oil boom.

And I imagine they're considerably more vulnerable to disruption than the newer facilities.

Sí, y son más difíciles de reparar.

Yes, and they are harder to repair.

Si una planta moderna de ósmosis inversa tiene un problema, puedes cambiar las membranas en días o semanas.

If a modern reverse osmosis plant has a problem, you can replace the membranes in days or weeks.

Pero una planta antigua de destilación necesita reparaciones más complicadas.

But an old distillation plant needs more complicated repairs.

El tiempo de recuperación es mucho más largo.

The recovery time is much longer.

Which brings us to resilience.

Or the lack of it.

The thing is, and I remember writing about this in a different context years ago, critical infrastructure in the Gulf was never really designed with wartime vulnerability in mind.

It was designed for efficiency and growth.

Not for defense.

Es verdad.

That is true.

Y ahora todos los países del Golfo están mirando sus plantas y pensando: somos muy vulnerables.

And now all the Gulf countries are looking at their plants and thinking: we are very vulnerable.

Arabia Saudí, los Emiratos, Bahréin, Qatar...

Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar...

todos dependen de la desalinización.

all depend on desalination.

Todos son posibles objetivos en un conflicto regional.

All are possible targets in a regional conflict.

And Qatar is interesting because it hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East, Al Udeid.

So you have this situation where a country that is essentially a protectorate of American military power is also existentially dependent on infrastructure that Iran could theoretically reach.

That's an incredibly uncomfortable position to be in.

A ver, y hay algo más.

Right, and there is something else.

La planta en Kuwait que atacaron Irán también producía electricidad.

The plant in Kuwait that Iran attacked also produced electricity.

Y cuando no hay electricidad, los hospitales, los semáforos, los sistemas de comunicación, todo falla.

And when there is no electricity, hospitals, traffic lights, communication systems, everything fails.

Es un efecto dominó.

It is a domino effect.

Un ataque, muchas consecuencias.

One attack, many consequences.

The cascading failure problem.

Yeah.

I've seen this play out.

In Beirut after the port explosion, the infrastructure collapses weren't just about what was directly destroyed.

The secondary and tertiary failures were devastating.

A hospital running on a generator that then runs out of fuel because supply chains are broken.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y en Kuwait hay un factor adicional.

And in Kuwait there is an additional factor.

El clima es extremo.

The climate is extreme.

En verano la temperatura llega a cincuenta grados.

In summer the temperature reaches fifty degrees.

Sin agua, la situación se convierte en una emergencia muy rápido.

Without water, the situation becomes an emergency very quickly.

No es como en un país con clima templado donde tienes más tiempo para reaccionar.

It is not like in a country with a mild climate where you have more time to react.

Fifty degrees Celsius.

That's a hundred and twenty-two Fahrenheit for American listeners.

At that temperature, dehydration kills faster than three days.

So the usual estimates of human survival without water collapse in that climate.

This isn't academic, it's existential.

La verdad es que hay también otro tema importante aquí.

The truth is that there is also another important issue here.

El trabajador que murió en Kuwait era indio.

The worker who died in Kuwait was Indian.

En Kuwait, la mayoría de los trabajadores en las plantas industriales son inmigrantes de la India, Bangladesh, Pakistán, Nepal.

In Kuwait, the majority of workers in industrial plants are immigrants from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal.

Ellos son los que operan esta tecnología esencial.

They are the ones who operate this essential technology.

No, you're absolutely right about that.

The human cost of this conflict is falling disproportionately on migrant workers.

They operate the infrastructure, they live near the infrastructure, and they have the fewest options to leave when things go wrong.

This man was killed doing his job at a plant that keeps millions of people alive.

Es que hay casi 3 millones de trabajadores extranjeros en Kuwait, de una población total de cuatro millones.

There are almost 3 million foreign workers in Kuwait, out of a total population of four million.

Es una proporción enorme.

That is an enormous proportion.

El setenta y cinco por ciento de la fuerza laboral es extranjera.

Seventy-five percent of the labor force is foreign.

Estas personas son invisibles en los debates geopolíticos pero son esenciales.

These people are invisible in geopolitical debates but they are essential.

So let me bring this back to technology for a moment, because I think there's a forward-looking question here.

The Gulf states are investing heavily in renewable energy, particularly solar, to power future desalination plants.

Saudi Arabia has massive projects.

The UAE launched the Barakah nuclear plant partly with this in mind.

Is that a realistic path to reducing this vulnerability?

Bueno, la energía solar es perfecta para el Golfo en teoría.

Well, solar energy is perfect for the Gulf in theory.

Hay mucho sol, claro.

There is a lot of sun, of course.

Arabia Saudí construyó una de las plantas solares más grandes del mundo.

Saudi Arabia built one of the largest solar plants in the world.

Y si usas energía solar para la desalinización, el costo baja mucho.

And if you use solar energy for desalination, the cost drops a lot.

Pero el problema de seguridad no desaparece.

But the security problem does not disappear.

Los paneles solares también son vulnerables a los ataques.

Solar panels are also vulnerable to attacks.

Right.

You can't armor-plate a solar farm.

And this is the fundamental tension in critical infrastructure planning.

You optimize for one thing and create vulnerability in another.

The distributed nature of solar could actually be an advantage in that sense, but the distribution also creates a larger attack surface.

Mira, Israel tiene un sistema de desalinización muy avanzado.

Look, Israel has a very advanced desalination system.

El país produce casi ochenta y cinco por ciento de su agua potable con este sistema.

The country produces almost eighty-five percent of its drinking water with this system.

Y Israel invirtió mucho en la protección de esas plantas.

And Israel invested a lot in the protection of those plants.

Están diseñadas para resistir ataques.

They are designed to resist attacks.

Pero es muy caro.

But it is very expensive.

The extraordinary thing is that Israel became a world leader in desalination technology precisely because of its security situation.

Necessity drove innovation.

And now that technology is exported globally.

There are Israeli-designed desalination systems in India, China, the United States.

The security imperative created a commercial product.

Es una paradoja interesante.

It is an interesting paradox.

Israel desarrolló la mejor tecnología para sobrevivir en el desierto y ahora, en una guerra contra Irán, esa tecnología es también su punto de vulnerabilidad.

Israel developed the best technology to survive in the desert and now, in a war against Iran, that technology is also its point of vulnerability.

Haifa, la ciudad que atacaron también con misiles, tiene una planta de desalinización muy importante.

Haifa, the city they also attacked with missiles, has a very important desalination plant.

So Haifa got hit twice in a sense.

The BAZAN oil refinery fire we saw reported, and the desalination infrastructure nearby at risk.

And here's what I keep coming back to.

The conflict is reshaping who has leverage.

Iran can't match the US or Israel in conventional military power.

But it can reach the thing that keeps cities alive.

Es una estrategia muy antigua en realidad.

It is actually a very old strategy.

En las guerras medievales, los ejércitos destruían los pozos de agua del enemigo.

In medieval wars, armies destroyed the enemy's water wells.

Hoy hacen lo mismo pero con tecnología del siglo veintiuno.

Today they do the same thing but with twenty-first century technology.

La lógica es la misma: si controlas el agua, controlas a las personas.

The logic is the same: if you control the water, you control the people.

And here's the thing about climate change making all of this worse.

Water stress in the Middle East is increasing.

The region is getting hotter and drier.

The demand for desalination is going to grow regardless of any conflict.

So you end up with more infrastructure, greater dependency, and more potential targets, all at the same time.

La verdad es que el problema del agua no es solo del Golfo.

The truth is that the water problem is not only in the Gulf.

España también tiene regiones con poca agua, como Murcia o Almería.

Spain also has regions with little water, like Murcia or Almería.

Y hay debates políticos muy intensos sobre la construcción de nuevas plantas de desalinización en el Mediterráneo.

And there are very intense political debates about building new desalination plants in the Mediterranean.

El agua es política en todas partes.

Water is politics everywhere.

I mean, Spain closing its airspace to US military aircraft yesterday because of this same Iran conflict.

There's a direct thread connecting what happened in Kuwait to what's happening in European politics.

The war isn't contained.

It's pulling on everything.

Bueno, y para terminar con el tema tecnológico.

Well, and to finish on the technological theme.

Creo que el ataque en Kuwait nos muestra algo muy claro.

I think the attack in Kuwait shows us something very clear.

La tecnología avanzada que usamos para resolver problemas fundamentales, como el agua, también crea nuevas vulnerabilidades.

The advanced technology we use to solve fundamental problems, like water, also creates new vulnerabilities.

No existe la solución perfecta.

There is no perfect solution.

Cada sistema complejo tiene un punto débil.

Every complex system has a weak point.

That's a good place to leave it.

One Indian worker died doing a job that most people in Kuwait will never think about, keeping the water running.

And that invisibility, of the work, of the workers, of the infrastructure itself, is part of how these systems become so fragile.

We don't see them until they break.