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The American diplomat George Kennan, in 1948, defined national security as “the continued ability of the country to pursue the development of its internal life without serious interference, or threat of interference, from foreign powers.”
Today, we need to adjust this definition, with national security as “the continued ability of the country to pursue the development of its internal life without serious interference, or threat of interference, from foreign powers or other diverse threats,” a formulation that covers the challenges posed by non-state actors, such as al Qaeda’s attack on 9/11– and the coronavirus today.
This pandemic has profoundly interfered with the life of our nation and we must treat it as one of the most significant threats to our national security in decades. At this writing, more than 70,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the US, and the number of known cases is doubling about every four weeks; currently there are more than 1.2 million.
America’s economy has shed more than 30 million jobs. Indeed, the coronavirus crisis is shaping up to be a “hinge event” in American history, like the Great Depression or 9/11.
It is reshaping the world, politically, socially and economically and it is also revealing major structural weaknesses in American society and undermining already fraying trust in the capacity of the US government to respond effectively to core security challenges.
Already, in these early stages of the crisis, we have seen how quickly a pandemic can transform our daily lives. How many of us realized, at the start of this year — only four months ago — that entire industries would be brought to their knees, that unemployment would reach levels not seen in more than 80 years. Who knew that the most basic social activities — going to work, attending school, visiting friends and family — could be so utterly upended?
Globally, that economic collapse also played a key role in the rise of fascism and the Nazi Party, whose aggressive political vision led to World War II and the death of an estimated 60 million people.
Yet, out of the ashes of that devastating conflict arose the “rules-based international order” and the creation of new organizations, such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and NATO, a new alliance of mutual protection.
These all played a role in reducing interstate war and created the “long peace.” They ushered in a period in history that, however flawed, allowed hundreds of millions of people to benefit from a vast global reduction in poverty and unprecedented improvements in health and education.
Now we face what is likely a new hinge event. We can define it as: Before the Coronavirus, or BC, and After the Coronavirus, or AC.
Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff to President Barack Obama (and former Chicago mayor), once famously counseled. “Never allow a good crisis go to waste. It’s an opportunity to do the things you once thought were impossible.” In other words, for all the dislocation, uncertainty, stress and suffering they bring, crises are also opportunities for reimagining and rebuilding our social order.
WHAT THE FUTURE SHOULD BRING
Reframing how we think about and pay for “national security”
As we rethink the meaning of national security, the US must change the way it manages its resources and money. Already Covid-19 has killed 20 times more Americans than the 9/11 hijackers. The pandemic is the greatest threat to our collective security since World War II.
Investigating how the government responded
New futures of work
In the AC-era, we will likely see huge increases in distance working and distance services, such as telemedicine, in nearly every field, from basic health care to psychiatry.
The death of the office
The commercial real estate sector will likely suffer badly as companies look to save money on leases and office workers reject long commutes.
Many of those who work outside of the service sector can work from anywhere. This in turn will also affect real estate — particularly in densely packed cities like New York. It’s hard to imagine that there will be a great demand in the AC-era for the chance to live in crowded apartment buildings with cramped elevators.
Paid family leave as a right and Medicare for those who want to opt into it
Ideally, the crisis will improve basic labor and health rights and deepen formal protections for lower-wage workers, who are essential to the service economy, agriculture, and home health care and have become the “essential” frontline forces in the battle against the pandemic.
A better Internet
For all the suffering, stress and dislocation created for society by the coronavirus, our ability to manage it without the Internet is almost unimaginable.
The AC-era, then, will highlight, with even greater clarity, our fundamental dependence — in nearly every facet of life — on an effective and highly functional Internet. So, the pandemic will ideally yield affordable broadband for all and will be based on cloud-based platforms that are connected to 5G networks.
Redefinition of higher education
Before the pandemic, the US faced key structural problems regarding higher education, such as ballooning student debt and inequality.
Add to these, now, one of the most striking, rapid changes brought on by the pandemic: the shift from in-person higher education to online courses. In the AC-era, it is likely, if not inevitable, that a significant amount of college instruction will move to permanent online or semi-online offerings.
This has many advantages — allowing students to pursue degrees while working full or part time and raising families, for example. Yet, American institutions of higher learning face a profound challenge: how to massively increase online education while maintaining a commitment to high-quality teaching, student mentorship and academic integrity — all while providing some semblance of a traditional college experience.
Addressing climate change
The coronavirus has demonstrated that profound risks to our safety and well-being are often fundamentally global. Ideally, the AC-era will reframe the debate about climate change and inspire states around the world to clarify global commitments to reduce human-produced global warming through agreements and mechanisms that have clear, enforceable provisions. And ideally this effort would be led by the US, China and other powerful nations.
The process will surely be tentative and imperfect, but the scope of the climate crisis will become even more apparent and in need of a serious response in the wake of the coronavirus.
Indians and others around the world — including people in Los Angeles who have watched the smog suddenly lift from their city during lockdown — can see for themselves some of the immediate value of reducing pollution and may thereby imagine the far more profound benefits of seriously addressing climate change.
Conjuring the political will to reshape the climate change debate could happen not only in India, but also in many other countries, including the United States.
New infrastructure.
Not since the Eisenhower-era of highway building has there been such an opportunity and urgency to expand and repair US infrastructure, an area of common agreement between Republicans and Democrats. Infrastructure initiatives could get many Americans back to work and stimulate the economy in a manner that would support long-term productivity.
Infrastructure means the digital as well as the physical kinds — such as bridges, roads, waste treatment, energy production, schools — many of them necessary to efforts to insulate Americans from the next predictable big crisis, such as the effects of climate change in places like Lower Manhattan, Norfolk, Virginia and southern Florida.
WHAT THE FUTURE WILL LIKELY BRING
Having considered all the changes that should happen in the After Coronavirus era, we now turn our attention to the likely effects and challenges of this new period — changes that are more dystopian, and some already underway — whether we like them or not.
Surveillance technologies will become ever more embedded in societies
The coronavirus has demonstrated many of the benefits of mass tracking and remote data collection and analysis, as health officials have tried to contain the disease’s spread. Yet, it is already evident that these same technologies can be used in ways that are dangerous for civil liberties.
As it navigates a new coronavirus reality, the United States will need to clarify how to manage and regulate the power and scope of mass data collection and analysis — by both state and private entities –to create enforceable protections against the lure of surveillance rule.
The US relationship with China will worsen
The pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerability of global supply chains and may achieve what President Donald Trump could not do, which is to pull significant elements of American manufacturing from China and elsewhere back to the states, especially in industries such as pharmaceuticals.
Trade conflicts and business competition are manageable. What’s more dangerous is the likelihood of ever-more aggressive political posturing between China and the United States, both of which have blamed the other for the spread of the virus.
These tensions could not come at a worse moment, when managing the consequences of the coming global recession requires coordination between the world’s two largest economies.
Populism, nationalism and authoritarianism will grow
Authoritarian leaders are using the pandemic to grab more power. In Hungary, once viewed as among the most successful post-authoritarian democracies, compliant lawmakers gave Viktor Orban, the elected prime minister, the authority to rule by decree indefinitely.
Truth faces new challenges
The pandemic has produced a deluge of disinformation and misinformation, ranging from conspiracy theories, propagated by the Iranian and Chinese government, that the US government manufactured the virus, to multiple internet scams for coronavirus cures.
The risk here does not lie only in the presentation of false tales, but the broader impact of eroding trust in experts and science.
There is also a paradox: Even as the pandemic reveals the benefits that decades of research and public health expertise have brought to tackling diseases like this, the rampant false claims that undermine support for scientific consensus make it difficult to ensure that the public, in the US and elsewhere, has a clear, informed understanding of actual risks and productive policy responses.
The only way to improve this situation is to create and nurture trusted sources of information whose legitimacy and commitment to objective and non-politicized information is repeatedly and publicly presented as widely respected. Not an easy goal at a time of great social and political division.
The era of small government is over
Hinging into the future
The speed and scope of the transformations we are living through are proof of both our vulnerability and our capacity to respond to serious challenges. To the degree the pandemic is a hinge event, it will likely inspire both the best and worst impulses of leaders, states and peoples.
What is needed now, more than ever, is vision, resilience and a willingness to learn the core lesson of this disease: we are all deeply connected at a time of great danger.
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