How COVID-19 Could Reshape International Security Policy

After the end of World War II, a network of international organizations was created to deal with what they determined at that time to be the biggest threats to global political stability. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in 1949 as a means to protect member states from being attacked by other states, namely the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). After the end of the Cold War, as the nature of international conflict began to shift, these organizations had to adapt from the common understanding of conflict being between states to different threats. Non-state actors and threats, such as terrorist groups, cyberattacks, and growing levels of migration, redefined the meaning of international security and policy in the post-Cold War era.

Now, a pandemic is sweeping across the globe and has killed more Americans than the wars in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq combined, with more deaths in Africa in five months than during the two-year Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The incalculable levels of human suffering inflicted by the novel coronavirus (also known as SARS-CoV-2), which causes the disease known as COVID-19, means that international security policies and practice must evolve beyond how they have long been understood.

Global health security has long been factored into the broader international security agenda and the threat of a pandemic is not new. While this pandemic is popularly referred to as “unprecedented,” Thierry Tardy, research director at the NATO Defense College, writes in a recent paper that it was its economically destabilizing impact that made it unexpected, not its public health effects. This is part of the reason why, as of August 2020, the world is still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and there is little assurance of when the disease will be eradicated.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that threats to security do not always have a face and the traditional understanding of “winning” and “losing” to an enemy should not be the standing framework for determining successful or unsuccessful international security policy. Now, international security means universal health coverage, efficient health care delivery, and anti-poverty measures—necessities for mitigating the catastrophic impacts of a pandemic of this scale. Prioritizing preventive measures in global health security, rather than relying on a reactionary response as has been the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, ensures that a future global health crisis will not be nearly as costly in terms of human life and economic devastation. If countries around the world had in place robust mechanisms for knowledge-sharing, cross-border contact tracing, and global cooperation on research and development, it is probable that the COVID-19 pandemic would not have reverberated as far throughout the world for this long.

One challenge specific to international security organizations like NATO is that COVID-19 response efforts have been hyperlocal and stopping the spread of the disease relies primarily on individual behaviors. While NATO is making valuable contributions to combatting disinformation around COVID-19 and is actively facilitating support between health care delivery between states, it cannot mandate health policies if they conflict with the policies of a member state. Using a state-centric approach to security is in line with the idea of preventing interstate conflict, but as threats to security become more decentralized and do not discriminate in who is targeted, an approach that centers human security is urgently needed. This again shows that preventive measures, including investments in equitable health care access for all people, should be treated with the same level of importance as investments in military might.

It is important to note that the non-state threats to international security mentioned earlier have not diminished because of the pandemic. In fact, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that these threats—terrorism, cyberattacks, climate change—may be exacerbated as a result of the pandemic. The intersection of a deadly pandemic with these existing security threats is worrisome and the ongoing media focus on the pandemic should not detract from the continuing conflicts around the world. However, the world is now experiencing a major threat to state security and human security and the COVID-19 pandemic will not be the last global health crisis to cause severe devastation. Redefining what it means to be safe and to ensure security by forming an approach focused on prevention and on people can be the next frontier of how international security is understood.

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Jordà, Òscar, Sanjay R. Singh, and Alan M. Taylor. 2020. “The Long Economic Hangover of Pandemics.” Finance & Development 57, No 2. 12-15. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2020/06/long-term-economic-impact-of-pandemics-jorda.htm