SITE World Water Day Discussion – A conversation across oceans on “The Geopolitics of Resource Acquisition — How Is It Different Today from What It Used to Be?” 🌊 🌊 💧
From the small coastal village of Vizhunthamavadi in India, I connected with Prof. Robert Orttung in Washington D.C., USA, on March 22, 2026 to have a dialogue. Podcast: https://lnkd.in/g8Cz6_PF
We discussed seven questions:
1. What are the scarce resources of today over which there are international conflicts?
2. What is the model of resource acquisition that is being followed by the USA?
3. An ecosystem of international institutions was created in the post WWII period to work towards the collective mission of shared prosperity across the world. What is the legitimacy of the global development agenda created by these institutions today?
4, Besides the state, at the international level, which economic actor is the main obstructer of sustainable development under the current context?
5. Coming back to Water – is the Middle East conflict having any impact on the region’s water insecurity?
6. Is there any way out of this conundrum?
7. How should the Global South develop resilience given the current strategies of USA, the nations at conflict and China?
And somehow, we also got to talking about whether technology remains the primary engine of societal evolution reshaping the composition and hierarchy of power, à la Marx.
Now, here’s our invitation to educators and students:
Use this conversation as a teaching tool. Have students engage with these questions independently, form their own analyses and then compare their thinking with Prof. Orttung’s responses. What did they anticipate? What surprised them? Where do they push back?
What would you add to this conversation? We welcome your perspective.
