The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on May 24th, 2018, denouncing the exploitation of food poverty and famine as a military tactic. The threat to the lives of tens of millions of people was acknowledged for the first time in the Council’s history. The resolution urges all parties to maintain the integrity of food supplies, farms, markets, and other distribution systems and is directed at nations presently enmeshed in civil or international hostilities. It asks that parties to a conflict give aid workers unhindered access to people in need and declares that "using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare may constitute a war crime."

The United Nations approved its Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. One of those goals is to eradicate extreme hunger and food insecurity. The number of people who are hungry and undernourished has been decreasing for at least two decades, but after 2015, it started to rise. The primary causes of this setback, according to experts, are conflicts and wars as well as climate change-related weather occurrences. 60% of the 815 million individuals who had chronic malnutrition in 2016 were in war-torn regions.

Although resource destruction can occasionally cause more catastrophic devastation than bombs and bullets, wars are fundamentally violent and deadly. An enemy’s food supply may be looted by combatants, who may also purposefully destroy farms, cattle, and other civilian infrastructure. Conflict can result in significant economic upheaval and food shortages, endangering the ability of entire people to survive. Additionally, mass population displacement brought on by war frequently isolates individuals from their sources of food and income. Refugees are frequently at risk for both severe food insecurity and sickness.

It must also be mentioned that mass population displacement brought on by war frequently isolates individuals from their sources of food and income. Both severe food insecurity and illness are the two aspects that most often affect refugees. If individuals stay inside their homes, the surrounding armies can encircle a town, city, or neighborhood, trapping them within, and deny them access to food, medicine, and other essential supplies until they submit. Humanitarian aid is vitally needed in many conflict zones, but increasingly, one or both sides of a conflict may prevent relief efforts from reaching starving civilians or even launch attacks against aid agencies.

There is no doubt that armed conflict may result in dangerous food insecurity, but some academics contend that the opposite is also true: food insecurity can lead to violent political strife. The majority of the time, it is just one of many contributing elements, but a sudden change in the cost or availability of staple foods can set off a social unrest avalanche. The French Revolution of 1789 is a well-known example, which was largely sparked by inadequate grain harvests and economic pressures that resulted in substantial increases in the price of bread. More recently, the Middle East and North Africa had historically high food prices in 2011, which coincided with the Arab Spring upheavals.

There are several instances of military strategies being utilized on purpose to starve opposing troops or civilian populations throughout the history of conflict. The Lieber Code, a set of rules of engagement used by Union forces during the American Civil War, permitted them to "starve the hostile belligerent, armed or unarmed." During World War II, Nazi Germany devised a "Hunger Plan" that, if carried out, might have led to the starving of at least 20 million people in areas governed by the Soviet Union. During the German occupation of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Soviet Union, between 1941 and 1944, hundreds of thousands of people did starve to death.

The youngest country in the world, which proclaimed its independence from Sudan in 2011, might also be the poorest. 2013 saw the start of a civil conflict in South Sudan. Four million people were driven from their homes and food sources, and the battle resulted in 400 000 deaths. In 2017, there was a hunger crisis brought on by conflict and subpar harvests. An economic crisis that crippled markets and raised food prices above what most people could afford made the situation worse. Armed groups harassed the populace by robbing marketplaces, stealing food, stealing livestock, and setting fire to livestock.

In a 2018 assessment, the UN’s globe Food Programme (WFP) called Yemen’s situation "the worst human-made disaster in modern history of the world," emphasizing how it "starkly demonstrated the unequivocal link between conflict and hunger." In 2014, the Houthis rebel group took control of the nation’s capital and overthrew the ruling party. To reinstate the overthrown government, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) intervened.The principal entrance route for the population’s essential food imports and humanitarian aid, the Red Sea port of Hodeida, was virtually shut off by the Saudi-Emirati coalition.

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