Not just the Middle East either. The author does note this later in piece ("Zaporizhzhia") where Russia has been bombing Ukrainian power-plants, in a war-crime way which is much more about freezing civilians to death in the winter than measured military goals.

> “Riyadh would have to evacuate within a week if the plant, its pipelines, or associated power infrastructure were seriously damaged or destroyed,” according to a 2008 memo from the US embassy in the kingdom released by Wikileaks.

To make another, odder connection: Hong Kong. Once or twice back during the PRC crackdown on free speech, I've seen people wonder about local independence, but the region is entirely dependent on fresh water piped in from across the border, so all an enraged PRC would need to do is start closing some valves. The large flow needed would be difficult to ship by tanker (and easy to blockade) and any desalinization system (bringing us back to this topic) would be somewhere the top-5 largest in the world... and probably require a nuclear-reactor to power it locally too.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. We are talking about Israel here folks. International Law doesn't apply to them, and humanitarian concerns is not something they like caring about.

Relatively inexpensive (as in a months wages for a typical ‘middle class’ person, as much as such a person exists in India!) reverse osmosis setups for household use exist, and frankly are pretty necessary to avoid all sorts of problems.

I took a dissolved solids measurement out of my household tap in Hyderabad once, for instance, and it read over 750!

The maximum you might find in ‘acceptable’, but still very hard, water in the US is 150ish.