Why the world’s richest country can’t defend vital infrastructure

WATER IS A strategic vulnerability, a fact that is not news to military commanders. When the Ostrogoths wanted to cripple Rome in 537, they destroyed its aqueducts. More recently, water infrastructure has been an important target in America’s conflict with Iran, despite international laws classifying such attacks as potential war crimes. In March Donald Trump threatened to “completely obliterate…possibly all” of Iran’s desalination facilities, which are essential to life in the country’s arid southern provinces. Iran says that one such facility was bombed on Qeshm island. Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have had their own water plants struck by missiles, presumed to be from Iran.It was therefore noteworthy, but should have come as no surprise, when America’s own water faciliti