A brief glimpse at COVID through a National Security Lens Dr John Battersby argues that a myopic focus on the pandemic’s impact, as well the growing social and economic fault-lines it is opening up, will generate risks in an environment in which we are less able to mitigate them. Covid-19 has produced an environment not anticipated when news of the Covid pandemic broke. Driven by fear of the unknown, predictions were for economic downturn, unemployment, and property market decline. While some sectors have been devastated and national debt has risen dramatically, the doomsayers were mistaken….at least for now.
Dr John Battersby is a Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies (CDSS), Massey University, specialising in terrorism and counter terrorism. He is also Managing Editor of the CDSS-published National Security Journal.
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The question of the impact of Covid on New Zealand’s national security is not one that is easily answered. It is not known how long the pandemic will last, how many times the virus will mutate and how effective vaccination and treatment will be in the long term. It could be a mistake to presume there will be a ‘back to normal endpoint’, but historically – entirely without vaccination or treatments, global pandemics have always eventually ended. The question remains, if an endpoint is inevitable, how far away is it? New ways of thinking about human security as a national security concept means Covid is clearly a major consideration. The maintenance of the health and well-being of New Zealanders, the accessibility of vaccination and treatment, the information/mis-information clash, and the need for health infrastructure – not just for Covid – are all factors in the human security of New Zealanders.
Can our business communities outlast the disruptions of lockdowns, the traffic-light system, closed borders and interruptions in commodity supply chains? These are big economic security questions and satisfactory answers are elusive. Has the government’s approach been dominated by an illusory imminent ‘back to normal endpoint’ based on a hope that the globe gets the virus under control in the not too distant future? The Omicron variant suggests this could be an illusion, with subsequent variants a possibility. In the meantime, national security considered in the traditional sense of existential threat to the state, and the state’s ability to mitigate it, is a worthwhile question to ponder. New Zealanders have for a long time now considered their geographical isolation as an insulator from threat, and in closing our borders against Covid we have banked on it. Domestically, New Zealand was not in the best of shape before the pandemic struck. Lulled by long periods of low inflation, low interest and high employment levels we thought our ship was on a steady course. We could see a housing crisis looming, but we seemed unwilling or unable to positively address it. A parliament wellendowed with multi-house owners was insufficiently motivated to resolve it, and social housing, a short-term remedy at best, has seen the proliferation of crime, drug and gang activity. Our cost February/March 2022
