Why the Status Quo in Societies Around the World Could be Upended

Earth is facing a catastrophic climate emergency, according to 14,000 scientists from 153 countries. Six years ago, most nations of the world agreed in Paris to collaborate on fighting the most urgent threat to our way of life and take action to limit the Earth’s average global temperature to 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels. Today, as North America is still reeling from an unprecedented Heat wave, China experiences catastrophic floods, Europe suffers from both floods as major rivers burst from unexpected rain and drought-facilitated wildfires from Portugal to Turkey; Pakistan declares some populated regions to become uninhabitable for humans within the next 5 years and one solemn truth is undeniable: We have entered the age when the catastrophic scenarios of past predictive models are becoming reality around the globe. And yet the debate remains politicized and tangible action timid.

Climate change is a frequently used, but often misunderstood, term. Climate change through global warming, essentially refers to the rapid rise in global temperature and its effects on the environment and the future habitability of the planet. According to NASA, surface temperature has risen about 1.18 Celsius since the late 19th century, and 2020 and 2016 were tied for the warmest years on record. The vast majority of scientists believe that the dramatic rate of global warming is caused by the increase in the concentration of CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) in the atmosphere. CO2 is emitted naturally, and the earth has the ability to absorb a lot of it through forests (Plants convert CO2 back into Oxygen, Oceans capture CO2, etc). CO2 is only one of multiple greenhouse gases (another one is Methane), all of which contribute to global warming in different ways. CO2 is the most talked about of the greenhouse gases because it stays around the longest and since we have begun emitting dramatically more CO2 since the industrial revolution, it has built up in the atmosphere. CO2 absorbs energy at a variety of wavelengths between 2,000 and 15,000 nanometers — a range that overlaps with that of infrared energy. As CO2 soaks up this infrared energy, it vibrates and re-emits the infrared energy back in all directions. About half of that energy goes out into space, and about half of it returns to Earth as heat, contributing to the ‘greenhouse effect.’

The idea of climate change through a “greenhouse effect” was first theorized in 1824. The scientific community broadly agreed on the theory of man-made climate change in the 1970s, but was publicly eclipsed by the individualization of responsibility pushed by the industries most responsible for it. During this time, the famous “Sad Native” commericial pushed individual responsibility onto citizens, while corporations rid themselves of theirs.

As long as people have been talking and thinking about modern man-made climate change, there have been people obfuscating the discussion by downplaying the human role (“the climate had always changed”) or denying that the earth was warming at all: As recently as 2015, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma brought a snowball into the US Senate declaring “…since we keep hearing that 2014 was the warmest year on record, well you know what this is? A snowball, from right outside here, so it is very cold out, very unseasonable”. Yet every year since, the dramatic effects of climate change severely impacts more countries around the world.

We sometimes hear people say that, “the climate has always changed”, that “this is part of Nature” and that “we should not worry”. Indeed, the climate goes through natural changes; however, this has been a source of worry for the humans that went through it. The Little Ice Age of 17th century Europe, exemplified in the graph above, shows how the slight change (within 1 degree of difference) of the climate managed to have a great effect on the stability of social orders. Within this little ice age, feudal agricultural practices that sustained the Middle Ages collapsed, social tensions rose, and monarchs (specifically the French) lost their heads. Today we face triple the temperature variation within a tenth of the time. That is why most intelligence agencies warn of the multiple and compounding threats that lay on the road ahead. The instability of the climate as it warms and falls out of the comfortable range humans have been thriving in, opens a pandora’s box of compounding issues: a rise in atmospheric temperature will lead to both droughts in already dry areas but heavy rains and flooding in already water rich regions impacting long and short-term habitability for humans. A rise in the temperature of the oceans will both flood coastal areas and threatening oceanic ecosystems and humans benefiting from it, such as phenomena like the ocean snot in Turkey or toxic bacteria overgrowth in US beaches.

No part of life on this planet will be unaffected by these changes. The instability to the environment and humans’ ability to make a living in it, will trigger movement: Movement away from coastlines, affecting directly the 40% of the world population that live within 100km (62 miles) of a coastal line. Movement away from now arable land as it dries or becomes entirely inhospitable to humans. We have already lost 25% of arable land globally now. Crucially these losses have disproportionately affected regions reliant on subsistence agriculture.

The evidence continuously provided by the scientific community in intangible data may have been clear on paper but increasingly, it has become an experience for the general public as well. Curiously, outlets once denying the existence of climate change, now moved on to distracting from its urgency by debating how “alarmist” the rhetoric is. The pundits who used to deny climate change now deny that the climate catastrophe has begun, because there still is money in stalling action, action that could cause short term losses to wealthy industries. These industries used to deny that their emissions caused the warming and now hide behind greenwashing to stall meaningful changes even further.

Meanwhile 2021, the warmest year on record so far, saw the US Government declare, for the first time, a water shortage. Across the globe in Iran, also going through a severe drought and water shortages exacerbated by poor management, protests have turned violent. Wildfires have ravaged Canada, California, Oregon, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Siberia. Simultaneously, 20 different countries in Northern Europe, Asia and Africa saw unprecedented flooding events and landslides.

On the road ahead, the well governed countries will differ from the poorly managed ones only in their response, but not in the threats they face. The climate emergency is global and the time for timid steps has elapsed. Humanity's willingness to take action and pressure our governments to realize our shared global long-term interest to maintain the planet for ourselves and generations to come as a livable place, will determine how we will cope in the new reality. The environmental decisions of today will define nothing less than the fate of the world.

Since the United States became a country, its foreign policy has been split between two paradigms, one that is isolationist in nature and one that is more globalist. The question of American responsibility and its own self-interest in intervening in the affairs of other countries, both diplomatically and/or militarily, was a debate that continued to dominate American foreign policy in defining its view of its role in the world.

In the beginning of the 19th century, the Monroe doctrine emphasized to European nations that the US wouldn't tolerate interference in its affairs or new colonies in its periphery, essentially telling the Europeans "Mind your own business and we’ll mind ours." Later American administrations took a more globalist and interventionist approach to foreign policy, but by the beginning of the 20th century, American foreign policy was defined by its isolationist mentality and its reluctance to become entangled in the First World War. The US even restrained itself from declaring war after the sinking of the Lusitania, which killed around 1,200 Americans. The US only joined the allies after the German government began unrestricted warfare on American shipping and the discovery of the Zimmerman telegram, a German diplomatic telegram which proposed a military alliance with Mexico against the US.

Following the conclusion of the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson pushed for American participation in the League of Nations. However, Congress pushed back against his initiative, fearing that the US would get dragged into another European war. With the onset of World War II, America maintained its neutrality in the face of Nazi aggression (although the lend lease program enacted by President Roosevelt defined the US as more of a non-belligerent) and despite isolationism having failed in preventing American participation in World War I, it remained the underpinning of American foreign policy up to, and during the early parts of World War II.

Following Pearl Harbor and the conclusion of World War II, there was a shift towards a more interventionist and globalist foreign policy, because Pearl Harbor had showed the failure of isolationism as a dominant paradigm, because in both World Wars, events in the rest of the world, proved their interconnectedness with American security interests directly, despite American attempts to stay out of both conflicts. The following decades proved that military interventionism (indicated by the containment policy towards the USSR) had its drawbacks as well, with humiliating wars in Korea and Vietnam.

The recent American withdrawal from Afghanistan and looming withdrawal plans in Iraq harken back to this debate between isolationism and interventionism. Certainly, Afghanistan has been a brutal and costly conflict for the US and the conclusion of the American involvement in the conflict marks the end of America’s longest war. It is also a fair question to ask why American troops should maintain a presence there, in a conflict that seems practically unwinnable, for a cause that seems less certain with every passing year.

While Biden recently hosted President Ghani and pledged that America would stand by Afghanistan, claiming that America was confident in the Afghan Government's ability to protect itself, the nature of the American withdrawal, conducted in the middle of the night and with large amount of supplies left behind , and without telling their Afghani allies, doesn’t exactly demonstrate confidence in the Aghan government. This lack of confidence isn’t without reason. About half of the country is now controlled by the Taliban, which has stepped up its fight and captured a key city in the last week.

The return of the Taliban as a governing force for Afghan people would be a disaster for Afghan secularists and any Afghan supporters of US interests, as well as a potential safe haven for other jihadist groups. (The fact that the Taliban gave sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden was the very reason America sent troops there in the first place.) It would also be a major blow to overall American security interests.

This doesn’t mean that America should keep its troops on the ground there - particularly due to the geographic makeup of Afghanistan, which is a guerrilla fighter’s dream - but if the Afghani government is going to win this war, the US needs to give all possible aid (diplomatic, financial, and militarily, with heavy airstrikes) to President Ghani and his troops, to push back an enemy on the rise.

The US hasn’t only been scaling back its military’s commitments with Afghanistan; it has also reduced its financial aid as well. In 2019, US aid to Afghanistan was 4.9 billion dollars, in 2020 it was 1 billion, and 2021 it has been 139 million. This is a potentially disastrous mistake. The Afghan government will need American money to a greater and not lesser degree if it is to have a reasonable chance at avoiding collapse. Withdrawing American money and troops is the strategic equivalent of taking a patient off life support (and running out of the room), all the while stating your confidence in the patient’s ability to make a full recovery.

It is crucial that the United States learns the relevant lessons not only from its foreign policy mistakes in Afghanistan, but also from the last century. The flaws of Isolationism, as a foreign policy philosophy, have been shown time and time again. Interventionism isn't risk-free, and the US must weigh any military commitments carefully and attempt to pursue other means, if possible. However, American foreign policy is at its best when it can’t be defined easily by either isolationism or interventionism, but uses its muscle when it has a strong and relevant reason to do so. America’s might isn’t only a result of its wielding of the most powerful military in the world, but in its economy, technologies, influence, values, and people. If we neglect giving our Afghan allies the necessary financial aid that they need to wage an effective war against the jihadists, we may be reminded painfully in the future of the very reason we entered Afghanistan in the first place, when jihadists found a safe haven with the Taliban to plan attacks on US interests.

In today's agitated political environment in Chile, fueled by the rapid polarization of ideas, division of classes and resentment, we find an increasing trend towards discontent with current political and economic establishments which has given fuel to populist ideas and movements. To understand this socio-economic tension, we must consider the evolution of Chile from the years of radical communism where land expropriation was a common practice, to the period of military government where companies were re-privatized and the subsequent transition to democracy. The current situation is the result of a growing resentment coming from a general feeling that capitalism was not chosen but imposed upon them by the military government of General Pinochet. Although this may be true, Chile’s capitalism has created economic progress that enabled it to stand out as one of the region's most developed and advanced economies.

The major problems began when a small group of politically motivated students initiated a movement whose central purpose was to blame the government for the lack of quality in public education. This movement touched a larger cord of socio-economic grievances of people who took to the streets to protest the inequality created by the neoliberal order. At this point, a new constitution is to be written that would seek to fundamentally restructure Chile and the popular mood of Chileans still bends toward political outsiders. Despite the fact that their discontent with the government was justified, these developments threaten to upend the neoliberal model entirely without comprehending the benefits it has bestowed to Chilean society.

It is clear that there is no flawless economic or political system, and when a group centers its efforts in bringing down a system, instead of fixing the issues through reasonable discussion, no positive change can occur. Instead, the feelings of anger and hate that spawn these movements are strongly related to an underlying historical resentment, which in the case of Chile, originates from the times of colonial oppression. Through this destructive political agenda and in an attempt to trigger and grow resentment, topics such as inequality became common weapons against the neoliberal model, a model that had reduced poverty from over 36% to 8.6% in Chile only from 2000 to 2017 and created more social mobility than any country in the region had ever experienced. But these advances had been long forgotten in the race to discredit the system and replace the government with a small group of frustrated students, motivated by personal ambitions, hatred and resentment, who were able to disarm the whole system and convince the masses to rewrite the rules in a way that the people naively believed would be for their benefit. However, history has proven that such promises to end corrupt governments throughout South and Central America end up creating governments that are more controlled by a small political elite that fixates on growing government through awarding special group privileges rather than actually fixing the system. We have seen this phenomena happen over and over again in countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Argentina.

Unfortunately this trend has been spreading at uncontrollable rates throughout the South American continent, from Colombia, to Chile and Peru. South America has become an extremely unstable region once again, while illusions and promises that the continent would someday host developed societies and economies fade away in the eyes of a disappointed world. Such cycles serve to remind us about the nature of people and the importance of developing a strong culture that aims towards progress and individual responsibility and the inevitable reality that new generations forget about history and unless structural cultural changes occur, they will fall into the same trap as their grandparents did and pay the same or even a worse price. Although it's unfortunate to watch the region fall in such an abrupt way, historically, the southern hemisphere of the American continent has always been perceived as unstable and politically volatile area, therefore the world is unsurprised when it witnesses its collapse. What is unusual, is that in the past three years, we have seen this trend growing in the northern countries, with the US and Canada becoming more and more unstable through policies such as reducing police authority, excessive fiscal spending, language regulation and excessive gender legislation.

Irrespective of the way each government applies populist policies, the pattern always follows the same result, a larger government that takes over more roles and stronger involvement in citizens´ personal lives by taking responsibility away, in exchange for an easier life in the short term, but an unavoidable loss of freedom in the long term. Eventually the concentration of power arrives to a point where citizens fully depend on the government to meet their needs, an inflection point that allows the political elites to reveal their true intentions, to exercise full authority over the country's resources in benefit of their own personal ambitions. In absolute daze the citizens experience a betrayal that is too late to overturn, without realizing that throughout the whole process of providing temporary relief from the burden of their personal responsibilities, it was simply taking the power away from their hands to finally use it against their interests.

Such political patterns are no surprise to the seasoned human race nor their devastating consequences, thus the true question is why do societies keep repeating proven paths to disaster and even within the same time period when neighboring societies within the same regions are experiencing such calamities. The pattern begins with promises, then providing some aid to the people and becoming their main source of support to finally exercising full control over the people to the extent they have no more choice but to meet the demands of the ruling elite in order to survive.

The answer to this question has to do with the blinding tendency that are characteristic of emotions and the birth of new generations that turn their backs to history in hopes that “this time will be different”. However, the true reason has to do with the challenge of dealing with the responsibilities that freedom carries.

In this way the issue becomes a matter of individual responsibilities and the choice whether one as an individual must accept and bear the consequences of the decisions we make for our lives or pass that responsibility to a third party (the government) hoping they will do a better job than us, which is naturally impossible. This has two implications, one physical and one psychological. On the physical aspect, if we delegate this responsibility to a third party, we would be allowing another entity to do with our lives as they please as they would be in complete control. Regarding psychological consequences, giving responsibility away inevitably creates fundamental dependency, and so dependency, limits our freedom. When we individuals feel powerless, they begin to blame the external factors that affect their lives as it is no longer up to them to change their circumstances, therefore expecting their patron “Big Brother” to solve their difficulties, giving a gateway to the next political elite that will certainly promise to solve the totality of difficulties (which of course are never and will ever be the government) to amass power and control the nation's resources.

This phenomenon can be seen by analyzing Chilean political history once again. During the period of 1970-1973, after a decade of gradual expropriations under the slogan of “agrarian reform” and an expanding government taking larger roles in the distribution of resources, an abrupt surge in corruption came forth as power began to concentrate around the political elites of the communist party. While regular citizens had to wait in line for endless hours in the heat of the day and cold of the night to get a kilogram of flour or liter of milk, a new market was born to serve the political elites and other affluent actors, the black market. At some point the black market reached greater trade volumes than the regulated market for certain products. The appearance of black markets was inevitable as corruption grew within the system and governmental distribution channels for basic goods became too inefficient to serve the totality of the population, especially when the population had to manage with the leftovers after serving privileged communist related organizations.

Ironically, communism becomes just an excuse for aspiring politicians to amass power while the population starves to death as it has been happening in Venezuela for the past decade.On this note, we can conclude that societies and citizens must always protect their freedom by all means through the full acceptance of responsibility for their personal wellbeing and avoid falling into the trap of relying on “Big Brother" as an omnipotent entity that will take care of their needs. As such it's crucial to always remember what governments truly are, they are not omnipresent and omnipotent entities, they simply are mere groups of people that must work towards a specific goal; to serve the citizens and therefore every public official is inherently a servant of the people.

In the wake of the 2021 elections for the Knesset, Israel’s legislative body, a new government was formed that ousted Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest serving Israeli prime minister, from power by a narrow margin of one vote. Yet, Netanyahu, now head of the opposition, is not out of the political game, even though he is going to face a leadership contest in his own party and has failed to move the date of the primary to his benefit. This new ruling coalition, headed by Naftali Bennett of the religious right-wing Yamina party and Yair Lapid of the secular, centrist Yesh Atid party, is a motley lot comprised of anti-Netanyahu right wingers to secular leftists to Islamists. While the credo of being against Netanyahu bound them together, it remains to be seen how they can form a long-lived stable government given their diverse and conflicting interests. The new government’s ability to implement its domestic and foreign policy agenda therefore serves as a key measure of its continued viability. In other words, the ability of a government to set an agenda and pass laws or act effectively on the world stage to advance this agenda are yardsticks to judge whether the coalition will be stable.

The domestic situation for the new government, which was formed on the 13th of June, has not been an easy one. Member of Knesset Amichai Chikli, who belongs to the Yamina party, has gone rogue. Chikli voted against proposed legislation and declared that he is considering joining Netanyahu’s Likud party, when the next election happens. The net effect of Chikli’s act of defiance, as well as the abstention of two members of the United Arab List party, which is also a part of the governing coalition, was that a key piece of legislation did not muster enough votes in the parliament to pass. The opposition went beyond shooting down the bill in presenting a motion of no confidence in the government. The motion ultimately fell short of the necessary votes. A further insult to injury is that the proposed law would have ordinarily united the support of right wing parties, yet none of the right wing opposition parties voted in favor of it, out of spite for the new government. According to the current Interior Minister, the bill will be reintroduced at some point.

Similar concerns about legislative dysfunction have been raised about another key item of legislation revolving around extending the Haredi draft law passage, which would typically have the support of most if not all right wing parties given that it exempts many from the ultra-Orthodox community from the draft. Yet another further headache to the new government is the recent power play by the United Arab List party (also known as Ra’am), which is an Islamist party. It was announced that the party will no longer vote with the coalition or participate in Knesset meetings, until further notice. This political maneuver was in protest to Bennett attempting to garner support for his state budget bill. A member of the Islamist party went so far as to say that this “will not be the last coalition crisis.” All of these early crises which have upset the coalition’s legislative agenda do not bode well for the post-Netanyahu government and there is every indication that legislative gridlock will continue for some time.

While the government does not have much freedom of action in domestic affairs, it does have greater control over foreign policy. Yet, the government seems to be divided on whether this foreign policy will be more conciliatory than the previous administration or more hawkish in the realm of national security. This split can be crudely personified in the two leading men of the government, Bennett and Lapid.

Bennett is an advocate for a more aggressive pro-national security foreign policy, while Lapid appears to be in favor of a more cautious and conciliatory foreign policy. From its inception, the new government has, in general, attempted to position itself as more aggressive in defending Israel than Netanyahu. For instance, Bennett has adopted a policy of automatic retaliatory air strikes to Hamas’s arson balloon launches, in comparison to Netanyahu, who was more selective in what launches merited airstrikes. Additionally, Bennett did not change course when the United States condemned the demolition of the home of a Palestinian-American accused of killing an Israeli student, despite alternative coalition opinions. Bennett has also berated Netanyahu as being all talk and no action towards Iran.

In contrast, Lapid has advocated a rapprochement with the Democrats in the United States and with the European Union. For instance, Lapid critiqued Netanyahu for exacerbating the gulf between Democrats and Israel and for Netanyahu's penchant for making public his disagreements with the United States over how to deal with Iran rather than discussing these things in what Lapid deems is a direct and professional manner. Lapid therefore sees his new government as an opportunity to reset relations between the Democrats and Israel. To this end, Israel is prepared for the United States to reenter the Iran nuclear deal, but is lobbying the White House to continue Trump’s sanctions on Iran, given Israel’s concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile program and the Islamic Republic’s expansionist policy. Lapid has also attempted to conduct a charm offensive in Europe and was the first Israeli foreign minister to address the European Foreign Affairs Council in over 12 years. In his address to his European peers, he backed the idea of a two state solution. In summary, Israeli foreign policy appears to have contrasts of its own between the taking of an aggressive line when it comes to matters of national security and denouncements of the previous administration of being soft on Iran, while there have been gestures of a potential rapprochement with a Democratic-led American government and the European Union.

In conclusion, the new government faces its fair share of challenges. It appears to move from crisis to crisis with an inability to pass key pieces of legislation. Indeed, attempts to reach out the opposition through trying to pass right wing legislation and govern from the right have found no success. If the government cannot look to the right wing to save it from a domestic logjam, it will have to turn leftwards and appeal to the Arab parties to set and pass a legislative agenda. The United Arab List therefore sees a chance where they can gain a more powerful position within the government and have been threatening further logjams if they do not get their way.

Yet, Israel is a Jewish state with a Jewish majority and attempts to fundamentally revise the current political order are unlikely to be popular. Such a state of government, paralyzed by contradictory divides within its own coalition, is unlikely to win the next election, let alone survive a full term in office. The opposition is only trying to encourage such a divide and ensure a deadlock as Netanyahu (or his successor) will capitalize on his opponents’ weaknesses to make a case for his return to power.

The consequences of either policy emerging triumphant are clear: if the government appears more dovish on foreign policy than Netanyahu and with a leftward-leaning domestic agenda, especially given Bennett’s rhetoric, it will strengthen the hand of the opposition. If it is more aggressive in foreign affairs and more right-wing in domestic legislation than Netanyahu, it risks the ire of foreign powers like the United States and the European Union, whom Lapid wants to cozy up to, and it increases the likelihood of the Arab and leftist parties abandoning the coalition. In effect, a perfect storm of events that forces the government to clarify what its dominant ideology is might also lead to the derailment of the nascent government.

Political tensions have been escalating between Ethiopia and Egypt in a conflict over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the largest hydropower plant on the continent. Egyptian dependence on water from the Nile has caused it to view recent actions with the dam taken by Ethiopia, as an existential threat. Since the Nile runs through Ethiopia, downstream into Egypt, the Egyptian government won't tolerate any Ethiopian moves which affect the Egyptian share of the river’s water. For millennia, the Nile River has been the main source of water for various purposes including drinking, household uses, agriculture and fishing. Even today, more than 96% of Egypt's freshwater resources come from the Nile. The GERD project is very important for Ethiopia's economy, because the dam will provide huge amounts of electric power to its population of 115 million people (two-thirds of whom are without electric power) and will even allow it to export power to neighboring countries. Ethiopia has responded to Egypt’s complaints by insisting it will not affect the Egyptian share of the Nile's waters.

Although Ethiopia began construction of the GERD project in 2011, tensions over the Nile originated long before then. The 1959 bilateral agreement between Egypt and Sudan essentially gave Egypt veto power over any projects affecting its share of the Nile (55.5 billion cubic meters) further upstream. Ethiopia has tried to change this treaty for a while, because 85% of the Nile’s water is derived from Ethiopia’s highlands. When Ethiopia was laying the groundwork for the dam's construction, leaked diplomatic correspondence showed Mubarak considered military action against Ethiopia. Later, in 2013, Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi told a crowd, “If it (the Nile) loses one drop, our blood is the alternative ''. The reaction of these Egyptian leaders shows the importance of this issue for Egypt’s economy. In 2015, the three countries signed an ambiguous deal to end a long-running dispute over sharing of the Nile’s waters, which attempted to placate Egyptian concerns over the potential impact of the Dam on the Nile's water within Egypt, pledging that Ethiopia wouldn't make any unilateral moves to affect the river’s water without an agreement with Egypt. Now that about 80 percent of the dam has been completed and Ethiopia has begun filling its reservoir, Egypt has experienced a dramatic change in its share of the Nile, and is on pace to only be able to extract roughly half of its usual share (27.9 billion cubic meters).

This dispute has led to a situation where both sides are caught between a rock and a hard place. Ethiopia is still in the midst of an ongoing conflict (that it is currently losing) with Tigaray separatists and Egypt is also uninterested in a large-scale conflict, however both countries have strong interest in not backing down. Ethiopia will need to invest about 4 billion dollars in the GERD and, as mentioned earlier, will see tremendous economic benefit from this project, while Egypt’s economy can’t afford to tolerate any dramatic reduction in their share of the Nile. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has assured the population that millions of troops could be mobilized to defend the dam, if necessary, while Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has warned that Egypt’s water is “a red line” and that, if the dispute is not resolved, “all options are on the table”. Currently the African Union has been working to mediate the crisis and talks are ongoing. The US has warned Ethiopia that it will withhold aid to Ethiopia (1 billion US dollars, the largest recipient of US aid in Africa), until this crisis is resolved. The Ethiopian minister Seleshi Bekele has created a catchy slogan (“It’s My Dam”) to galvanize the Ethiopian population to support the project, and this could be an indication that Ethiopia has no plans to back down anytime soon. The eyes of Ethiopian and Egyptian citizens now turn to the mediation efforts underway in the African Union, to prevent a war that nobody really wants but will not hesitate to engage in, should these efforts fail.