An international food crisis is currently unfolding on a scale not seen since World War II. More than 20 million people in Somalia, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Yemen are in danger of famine. UN Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien said in March, “We are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations.”

President Trump seems to conceive of domestic counter-terrorism efforts as analogous to a police roadblock. Potential terrorists, like vehicles, wait in single file, pull up to the checkpoint, are evaluated, and either stopped or allowed to proceed depending on whether they pose a threat. If only our vetting can be made “extreme” enough, we can apprehend those intending us harm.

The effects of climate change combined with breakdowns in governance are leading to food insecurity “on a scale that we’ve rarely seen,” said Alex de Sherbinin, associate director of Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network, at the Wilson Center on January 26.

In 2004 I was honored to be interviewed for The Lancet medical journal’s “Lifeline” series. I had just come away from a disastrous short tenure as the interim minister of health in Iraq following the 2003 war. I had support from former Secretary of State Colin Powell to rapidly mitigate and recover the war-related destruction of essential public health infrastructure and protections required as occupiers under Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Conventions that follow every war.