President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
COVID-19 is an understated watershed moment in U.S. national security, whereby a naturally-occurring virus has thrown individual citizens and the highest levels of leadership into disarray. The COVID-19 pandemic is driving perceptions of U.S. susceptibility to immensely disruptive biological threats and increases the likelihood of an artificial attack. This monumental shift in threat perception creates appealing circumstances for U.S. adversaries to experiment with emergent biotechnology.
Biowarfare is among the many infectious threats to human well-being. In modern times, infections kill about 20% of the world’s population annually. But despite advancing diagnostics and treatments we remain vulnerable. The Ebola outbreak (2013–2015) killed more than 11,000 people, infected almost 30,000, cost several billions of dollars, and exposed ambiguity of authority, assigned roles and accountability as public, private, and non-profit bodies gathered to end a chaotic humanitarian tragedy. Though eventually successful, the global outbreak response was disorderly. The questions before us now are these: How could the Ebola response help us examine our bioterrorism readiness? What were the big lessons? How might we apply these findings to improve our military preparedness exercises?
The fact that our “global health security agenda” focuses on future pandemics and deliberate bioterror threats is laughable in the face of reemerging infectious diseases and slaughtered immunization workers. True health insecurity is present globally, and it should not require a mystery test tube and ill intent to be perceived as valid and pressing threat.
