The Iran War's Devastating Butterfly Effect

What It Covers

NYT correspondent Peter Goodman reports from Somalia on how the Iran war's disruption of the Strait of Hormuz — carrying one-fifth of global oil and one-third of fertilizer supplies — combines with simultaneous cuts to international humanitarian aid to push tens of millions toward famine.

Key Questions Answered

• •Aid collapse scale: Global humanitarian relief funding dropped from $43 billion in 2022 to $28 billion last year and continues falling. When Russia invaded Ukraine, a $43B response prevented famine across Sudan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Somalia. That same safety net no longer exists, meaning equivalent shocks now go unmitigated and populations face starvation without intervention.
• •Somalia food system fragility: Somalia imports 70% of its food and 90% of its energy. Since the Strait of Hormuz disruption, food and fuel prices have more than doubled. The World Food Programme, previously serving 2 million Somalis monthly, had funding for only 300,000 per month by late April — with that supply exhausted by end of June.
• •Healthcare infrastructure dismantled: UNICEF closed 205 health and nutrition centers across Somalia due to budget cuts. Doctors at a Mogadishu malnutrition ward — which saw case numbers double since the war began — estimate one-third of severe child malnutrition cases could have been prevented with earlier intervention at those now-shuttered community centers.
• •Cascading logistics failure: Higher diesel prices create compounding breakdowns: fishing boats stay in shallow waters reducing catch, UNICEF trucks less water to drought zones, displaced populations move to aid camps that have already closed. In Sudan, trucking companies refuse to enter famine zones fearing they will run out of fuel and become stranded mid-route.
• •Strategic cost of cutting aid: Reducing humanitarian aid increases migration pressure, strengthens militant recruitment — Al-Shabaab actively recruits in famine-affected Horn of Africa regions — and accelerates state failure. Historically, aid has functioned as foreign policy and national security infrastructure, not discretionary charity, making cuts strategically counterproductive beyond the immediate humanitarian consequences.