The weaponization of food includes creating deliberate food shortages, restricting access to food, and using food as a political bargaining chip. CFR expert and Nexus²⁵ Co-director Michael Werz points to Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip, and how, in places such as Nigeria, that weaponization manifests as a recruitment and retention tool for insurgent groups. Perhaps the most frightening evolution, Werz says, is that food has become a long-range weapon in the war in Ukraine. As a result, he says that more people could die away from the Ukrainian battlefield than in the military conflict itself.

Michelle Gavin, David Scheffer and Michael Werz, Council on Foreign Relations, 3 October 2025.