A New Normal

Strategic Vision vol. 9, no. 45 (March, 2020)

Global pandemic threatens to rewrite the rules in security-related fields

Richard J. Hu

The US Military and China’s People’s Liberation Army hold meetings on health exchange in September 2018 in Xian, China.

photo: Richard Ebensberger

Fresh security threats normally call for new security countermeasures. With the sudden outbreak and swift spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders around the world still cannot see the big picture, nor will the final contours of the danger it poses in a variety of policy areas be made clear anytime soon. Nonetheless, from recent observations and analytical reports, while more cautious consideration and in-depth research are a definite necessity, at least seven immediate security and strategic implications may be quickly identified in the ongoing fight against COVID-19.

First, the pandemic is already being viewed as a watershed event by scholars and practitioners of both conventional and non-conventional security. It therefore carries new challenges to academics, policymakers, and other professionals. Conspiracy theories can be just as lethal as the viral disease itself. Whether the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak was due to disorganized mismanagement at the P4 lab at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, or a “masterstroke” by America’s clandestine special operations while Wuhan was hosting the 2019 Military World Games, or simply a pandemic that made the jump to humans from animals such as bats and pangolins, there is still a lack of concrete scientific evidence to conclusively determine the origins of the virus. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic will have rapid, broad, and profound repercussions over a variety of policy areas ranging from human interactions, domestic quarantines, and effective medical actions to international economic supply chain disruptions, travel bans, future warfare, and even legal endeavors, to name but a few. All of these areas have opened themselves up for innovative thinking and a creative reimagining of ways to better manage human security, biological threats, fifth-generation warfare, and urgent transnational cooperation and conflict critical to dealing with future security issues.

Second, the outbreak and rapid spread of COVID-19 has illuminated the dominant status of sovereign states while spotlighting vulnerabilities of security safeguarding systems of many governments, the United States in particular, in protecting their own people. Crisis management preparations and resources that entail painstaking logistical planning such as having an appropriate amount of face masks, negative pressure isolation wards, and other personal protective equipment are surely vital lessons that need to be learned immediately.

According to media reports, the United States is facing a shortage of specialized masks (N95 respirators) and ventilators. The shortage has prompted federal health officials to loosen their recommendations on the face protection that frontline medical doctors and health workers should use to prevent infection from the highly contagious disease. Therefore, states need to prepare their healthcare systems for what is to come. While the rumors that went out and created chaotic conditions such as panic buying and stockpiling daily necessities like toilet paper, timely strategic communication to convince people to stay calm is of great importance.

From a variety of perspectives, sovereign states still play the most significant role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, no matter whether it’s those who stay on high alert and take urgent and proper actions, or others who underestimate viral impacts and even try to cover up the truth with lies. Governments tend to make decisions based on the most cost-effective option, though.

Litmus test

Third, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a unique and timely litmus test for China’s National General Security Perspectives (NGSP), released by the National Security Commission of the Communist Party of China in 2016. The NGSP has comprehensive coverage in 12 policy areas, including security perspectives in the realms of political, homeland, military, economic, cultural, societal, technological, cyber, ecological, resources, nuclear, and overseas interests. However, it has apparently ignored the possibility that a health-related infectious disease or pandemic might prove to be an important national security issue. Given that SARS-CoV strongly impacted China just 17 years ago, this inadvertent neglect serves as a reminder of the importance of thinking outside the box, and being prepared to encounter the unknown unknowns.

Furthermore, the outbreak and wildfire-like spread of the COVID-19 virus must serve as an object lesson to all governments—especially the Chinese Communist government—that people’s health and human security are a great imperative for responsible leaders operating within modern governance systems. Ignoring this will bring unexpected consequences and thus could inflict tremendous harm to national and international security.

The Wuhan Railway Station stands nearly empty as the city is locked down as a consequence of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

photo: Tauno Tohk

Fourth, with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and other technological and digital technologies have played a significant role in China, Taiwan, and other countries. While China uses robots, primarily in the form of unmanned aerial vehicles, and closed-circuit television to control and monitor its own people to enforce quarantines, Taiwan employs big data, QR codes, and Internet websites for tracking down asymptomatic carriers, showing where to buy face masks, and to provide the necessary services within a reasonable time. For better or worse, technology will play a bigger role in security issues in the future.

Fifth, COVID-19 provides an unexpected chance to accurately re-examine the status of existing international relationships and the complex interdependences that emerged during the era of globalization. In particular, the many functions of such international institutions as the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO) and economic interdependence like interstate trade are the products of neoliberal thinking as a facilitator of global security. The institutions operating within what is inherently an anarchic world system have been shown to be inexcusably weak when it comes to dealing with global catastrophe. This weakness was made especially evident in how the WHO has dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whereas building border walls might have some positive effects on preventing illegal migrants entering specific countries, potential super-spreaders, or spreaders with visas and passports, can still easily infiltrate through customs gates before they have shown any significant symptoms or been confirmed as viral cases, at least in the first few weeks. Places like airports, shopping malls, restaurants, buses, cruise ships, schools, offices, and workplaces are now recognized as hubs to transmit infectious diseases.

Fear has also fostered a new wave of xenophobia and promoted racism to a higher level. The COVID-19 pandemic is severely disrupting the world’s manufacturing supply chains and major financial activities, which are key elements of the neoliberal approach to international security. The pandemic and its rapid spread across multiple continents within just two to three months, and security measures like initiating travel bans and border controls adopted by certain countries, have shed light on the need to reassess the merits of globalization and of neoliberal assumptions on international relations.

Fragility of networks

Sixth, as the COVID-19 pandemic has vividly demonstrated, the sensitivity, vulnerability, and fragility of our networked world reveals a need for stronger cooperation mechanisms for managing common threats that are critical to national and international security. Multilateral actions, honest and accurate reporting of infectious viral outbreaks and confirmed cases, collaborative actions on medical solutions, such as effective test kits and effective vaccines, have brought serious challenges to governments and international organizations. These new policy priorities need to be pragmatically addressed and responded to in effective and collective ways.

Finally, the mammoth worldwide impact and startling velocity of COVID-19 transmission has demonstrated just how terrible the potential fallout of weapons of mass destruction, particularly the destruction triggered by biological weapons, would be. Whereas the atomic bomb was instrumental in ending the Pacific War in the Second World War, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a larger influence over a variety of policy sectors and geographical areas around the world. The coronavirus pandemic has spurred the cancellation of the 2019-2020 basketball season and decimated the airline and travel industries. Furthermore, China has imposed quarantines on the entire country for weeks, and America has issued a ban on travel from Europe for 30 days.

From the estimates provided by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the pandemic could kill 100,000 to 200,000 Americans. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan warned that “To put that in perspective, that would mean more American deaths than the Vietnam War and the Korean War added together.”

This is an estimation emerging from the world’s superpower. All of these images epitomize what is happening, and what could happen again in the future. Most people have never witnessed a phenomenon like this in their lifetime. As previously mentioned, the destructive impact created by biological weapons, either deployed by state actors or non-state actors, has long been underestimated. Thus, new illustrations of the power of biological weapons might spur creative, if unethical, strategies for future warfare.

On 11 March, 2020, as the coronavirus was quickly spreading across the globe, the WHO finally declared a global pandemic. Although its director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated, “We’re deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity,” he did not hesitate to point out alarming levels of inaction at the same time.

The COVID-19 pandemic, in a somewhat ironic way, has revealed the weaknesses and limitations of human modernization and civilization. Both brains and brawn are still necessary to shorten the painful learning curve on enhancing national and international security as well.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States has cancelled the entire basketball season due to COVID-19.

photo: Wikipedia

Dr. Richard J. Hu is a retired ROC Army general and a professor at Shi-shin University in Taipei, Taiwan. He can be reached at jrichardhu@hotmail.com