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Rewind and Reconnoiter: Elevating Hunger as a National Security Priority with Kelly McFarland

May 30, 2024
Rewind and Reconnoiter: Elevating Hunger as a National Security Priority with Kelly McFarland
Rewind and Reconnoiter: Elevating Hunger as a National Security Priority with Kelly McFarland

Rewind and Reconnoiter: Elevating Hunger as a National Security Priority with Kelly McFarland

Kelly McFarland and Freddie Mallinson
May 30, 2024
Welcome to Rewind & Reconnoiter. Each week, we’ll ask one of our authors to look back at an article they’ve written for War on the Rocks in light of a current news event. Did their argument hold up? Read more below to find out.***In 2021, Kelly McFarland co-authored “To Tackle Instability and Conflict, It’s Time to Elevate Hunger as a National Security Priority,” in which he argued that, “conflict and food are intricately related” and that, “[t]he Biden administration and future U.S. administrations will have to deal with food security and hunger as a national security issue whether they want to or not.” Three years on, with questions of food security central to the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, we asked him to look back on his article and recommendations.Read more below.Photo by Global Crop Diversity TrustIn your article “To Tackle Instability and Conflict, It’s Time to Elevate Hunger as a National Security Priority,” written in 2021, you argued that the United States should greater emphasis on food supply chain resilience and treat food security as a national security issue. Over the past three years, how has the international food security situation changed, and how has the United States adapted policy to tackle food security challenges? Unfortunately, the food security situation has deteriorated since late 2021. In particular, ongoing and more recent conflicts, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and wars in Sudan and Gaza, have increased food insecurity for those in the conflict zones, as well as those farther afield. Global hunger remains well above pre-pandemic levels, and with each passing year, the goal of eliminating hunger by 2030 slips further out of reach. In concentrated hotspots, especially central and west Africa, food insecurity is correlated with recent attempted and successful coups including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,

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Welcome to Rewind & Reconnoiter. Each week, we’ll ask one of our authors to look back at an article they’ve written for War on the Rocks in light of a current news event. Did their argument hold up? Read more below to find out.***In 2021, Kelly McFarland co-authored “To Tackle Instability and Conflict, It’s Time to Elevate Hunger as a National Security Priority,” in which he argued that, “conflict and food are intricately related” and that, “[t]he Biden administration and future U.S. administrations will have to deal with food security and hunger as a national security issue whether they want

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