Left to right: Will Todman, Caitlin Welsh, Emily Harding, and Mona Yacoubian

 

Humanitarian Costs of War Analyzed by State of Play

By Elaine Pasquini

  

Washington, DC: As the joint US-Israeli military campaign against Iran entered its fifth week, the conflict spread to at least 14 countries, key infrastructure was hit across the region, millions of people were displaced, and the near closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted vital trade and shipping.

On the March 24, 2026, episode of State of Play at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), host Will Todman, chief of staff of the organization’s Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department, discussed the costs of the war along with the knock-on effects that haven’t seen as much attention in the media.

Mona Yacoubian, director of the CSIS Middle East program, pointed out that the Strait of Hormuz, a major maritime shipping route, has really become the center of gravity in this conflict, affecting countries around the globe and preventing the delivery of oil, liquid natural gas and especially much-needed humanitarian aid.

Nations with low incomes such as Egypt, Jordan and also Syria, which has just emerged from years of conflict, are particularly affected in the short-term by the war. “We’re already seeing the effects with respect to rising food and fuel prices in Egypt,” she said. “As a coping mechanism, Egypt is already rationing power,” with curfews of 9 pm on restaurants, cafes and shops having been imposed. “In that part of the world, especially as it gets hotter, that’s exactly when people want to be out and about.”

Remittances are also an important segment of the economy which will be impacted the longer the conflict drags on. “If this war continues and this economic slowdown continues, you could see workers returning to their countries of origin,” she noted. This affects countries in South Asia and the Middle East, particularly Lebanon which receives “30 percent of its GDP from remittances and of that half comes from the Gulf.”

Data centers, which Iran intentionally targeted at the beginning of the war, are extremely important, Emily Harding, vice president of the Defense and Security Department and director of the Intelligence National Security and Technology program at CSIS, said. “If data centers are hit, paychecks can’t be issued.” Tech company facilities affected by attacks include IBM, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, among others.

“If you’re going to have access to information in real time, you need data centers,” Harding said. “Data is a critically important part of war. Lockheed Martin understands what it means to be involved in a war-fighting enterprise, but Microsoft does not. It’s a new world for them.”

As these strikes cause damage, the US must figure out how to redirect its resources so the companies can stay up and running, she said.

At the time the war broke out, the price of energy and its correlation with the cost of food was the main concern for her, said Caitlin Welsh, director of the Global Food and Water Security Program at CSIS. “When I think about the short, medium and long-term impacts of this war on agricultural markets and food prices, the vector through which agriculture markets and food prices will be most immediately impacted is energy prices.”

The high correlation between energy and food prices is because energy is used in all aspects of food production – planting, irrigation, transportation, food marketing and refrigeration, she explained. “So, when energy costs more, ultimately food prices rise.”

She also pointed out the degree to which the Strait of Hormuz is a critical artery for the global fertilizer trade because not only the ingredients for fertilizer pass through it, but also the final products.

“Some countries think they might be able to insulate themselves by producing their own fertilizer or sourcing from other countries but, like oil prices, fertilizer prices are global, so all farmers are effectively impacted,” she said.

With respect to the impact on water, “beyond the physical impact of hitting water infrastructure there is a psychological impact as well, which may be the main impact,” she emphasized.

Noting there are over 3,400 desalination facilities across the entire Gulf region, Welsh said the “threat of attacks is enough to have impacts politically, to decrease the appetite of countries in the region to continue to support the war.”

Welsh ended by noting the conflict underscores the extent to which markets generally – and agricultural markets specifically – are interconnected. “When shocks happen in one part of the world that have global ramifications, what I see as an effort of many countries is to insulate themselves from those shocks,” she said. “But at the end of the day, that is not possible to do. So, reliance on other countries is necessary and there is no way around it right now.”

(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)