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1. Welcome to the New Abnormal

Author:
Michael Miklaucic
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic is the most globally disruptive event since the terrorist attack against the United States in 2001. Originating in China in late 2019 the disease rapidly spread throughout the international transportation network to every region and every country. Neither its velocity nor its magnitude were initially understood. In 2020 the entire world seemed to come to a standstill. International and even domestic travel came to an abrupt halt. Normally teeming cities were silenced. Streets, markets, and even schools were empty. The gravity of the pandemic was perceived differently in different countries, and at different times, and the subsequent disruption uneven. Each country responded in a unique way, though general response patterns are discernable. Importantly the pandemic revealed significant vulnerabilities caused by the juxtaposition of private sector globalization in the context of national governance. That is what this special issue of PRISM is about; the different perceptions and reactions to COVID-19 as people and governments experienced the disease, and their diverse understanding of its implications for national and international security.
Topic:
National Security, Global Security, Crisis Management, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Reality Injection: Beyond Masks and Quarantine The True Cost of COVID-19

Author:
Eric D. Achtmann, Raquel Bono, Anita Goel, Margaret A. Hanson-Muse, and Steven M. Jones
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
COVID-19 has had a profound economic and social impact on America, taking over a half million lives—more than all American deaths in World War I, World War II, and Vietnam, combined.1 This article seeks to examine primary and secondary consequences of the pandemic in practical terms for the average citizen and taxpayer, whose personal exposure exceeds 2.5 years of net income based on predictions of a $16 to $35 trillion cost to the nation by 2025. Further, we offer insight into the pandemic’s collateral effects on our citizens and workforce (including often overlooked key stakeholders such as women, children, and minorities), as well as more overt aspects of our national security. History will measure the pandemic’s tragic and overwhelming impact on the world—and our country—in terms of infections, hospitalizations, vaccinations, and deaths. Yet, as COVID-19 extends our quasi-lockdown into its 18th month, we are scarcely beginning to comprehend its profound economic impact. A December 2020 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report estimates Americans’ costs at nearly $16 trillioni or double its May 2020 projections.2 To a layperson, $16 trillion is the wealth of 16 million millionaires or $110k for each U.S. taxpayer. Analysts expect this number to reach $35 trillion by 20253—a sum that easily exceeds the initiatives Congress has fought over for yearsii. Another study conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association reached a similar conclusion. “About half of the price tag, $8.6 trillion (about $26,000 per person in the United States), is driven by the long-term health implications and costs for those who contract COVID-19, as well as the statistical estimates for the loss of life.”4 Robert Frost’s words aptly depict society’s effort to overcome the pandemic’s effects, “…miles to go before [we] sleep.” The stock market crash of 1929, in hindsight a predictable occurrence, unleashed a 10-year Great Depression. Likewise, the COVID-19 contagion, an equally predictable event, portends a similar trend. Long term, it compels society to address its socio-economic impact, acknowledge its lack of preparedness, and formulate a realistic action plan for protection against this and future pandemics, as well as potential biowarfare attacks. A similar event is inevitable, whether through malfeasance, rapidly increasing population density, environmental stress, biowarfare attack, or simply bad luck. So is society’s realization of two things: our economy and civilization will struggle to survive another pandemic in the near term, and that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” While one can theoretically shut down the engines and glide a plane to safety in an emergency, there is no substitute for proper planning, operations, and maintenance. Society needs a more proactive and anticipatory approach to national and global security, biodefense, and pandemic prevention and mitigation.5 Leaders need a strategy that leverages the resources of both the public and private sectors, as well as academic and individual initiative. Failure to do this is not an option—it is too costly and could lead to the collapse of entire economies and societies.
Topic:
Economy, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

3. U.S. SOUTHCOM Fights Through COVID-19

Author:
Michael T. Plehn
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
As I boarded my flight in Bogotá, Colombia, to return to the United States on March 14, 2020, after participating in the joint Colombia-U.S. Exercise Vita in the Guajira Peninsula, the reality of how the COVID-19 pandemic was going to affect our lives over the next year began to manifest. Arriving back in Miami, where I was the Military Deputy Commander for U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), I went straight home to begin a 14-day quarantine in accordance with new policies from the Department of Defense (DOD) for travelers returning from overseas. It was the first of many adaptations that we would make in the coming months. In May of 2019, shortly after assuming command at USSOUTHCOM, Admiral Craig Faller, USN, established three primary lines of effort to guide our activities: strengthen partnerships, counter threats, and build our team.1 Less than a year later, we were tested in all three areas by the pandemic. One of the great strengths of USSOUTHCOM is the network of engaged and willing partners in the region. We work closely with them as we guide all U.S. military activity across much of Latin America and the Caribbean. We are neighbors and friends who share common values, ties, and interests. Our neighborhood is not only rich in natural resources but also beset by many longstanding challenges and several emerging issues. While there is no current armed conflict between countries in the region, it is one of the most violent areas on the globe, much of it fueled by transnational criminal organizations and longstanding structural, societal issues. According to a 2019 global study on homicide by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the rate of intentional homicide in Central and South America is four times the global average.2 Particularly virulent, transnational criminal organizations—flush with cash—constantly seek to expand their lethal trade through extortion, corruption, intimidation, and violence. These actions, in turn, erode the power and legitimacy of local, state, and federal governments, reducing their ability to fight this scourge.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Armed Forces, COVID-19, and SOUTHCOM
Political Geography:
South America and United States of America

4. COVID-19 and Superpower Competition: An Effective American Response

Author:
Amit Gupta
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Before COVID-19 became a global pandemic, the growing consensus among analysts was that we were entering a period of deglobalization. According to the economic analyst Mohammed el-Erian deglobalization was taking place because by the 2000s the adverse economic impact of globalization had become apparent to the Western middle class. Secondly, the U.S.-China trade war saw rising tariffs and a call for rebuilding national manufacturing capabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic was the last nail in the coffin as countries adopted highly individualistic and nationalistic policies that put national interest above any global concerns.1 Coupled with the perceived drive to deglobalization is the fact that we have re-entered an era of great power competition with the 2017 National Security Strategy clearly stating that both Russia and China are revisionist powers that challenge American primacy and that, “… want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests. China seeks to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model, and reorder the region in its favor.”2 What this article argues is that true security in the emerging international system will require precisely those aspects of globalization that the critics decry because no single country can effectively tackle such a complex and deadly threat as the COVID-19 pandemic through strictly national measures. Further, the emerging great power competition is one not just of military and economic rivalry but, much in the same way as during the Cold War, it is a struggle between different ways to organize societies and particularly to deliver goods and services efficiently and justly. With the latter in mind, how the United States and its allies and partners lead the response to COVID-19 will have an impact on the outcome of global power relationships. If China provides better solutions on dealing with the pandemic, then it will be able to undercut the American-created liberal international order. To discuss this issue, we need to first explain what globalization is and why, in a COVID-19 world, it provides the security solutions to the challenge posed by the disease.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Globalization, Strategic Competition, COVID-19, and Superpower
Political Geography:
China, Global Focus, and United States of America

5. The Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. Defense Industrial Base

Author:
Nayantara D. Hensel
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a number of challenges on countries and industries, some of which have been partially mitigated by government efforts, medical developments, and corporate strategies. Nevertheless, COVID-19, which, in March 2020, was identified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization and was declared by the U.S. government as a national emergency,1 will likely continue to have after-effects in the coming years. The defense sector, as has been the case with many other sectors, has faced challenges in declining production at manufacturing plants, difficulties with key inputs from sole source suppliers, concerns regarding the financial viability of small businesses within the supply chains, and the impact of different variants of COVID-19 within the global supply chains. Companies which had diversified between commercial and military clients often faced a greater negative impact on their financial strength than companies with largely defense-focused products. This was partially due to the decline in demand within the commercial aerospace sector as a result of COVID-19. The financial health of companies across industries suffered due to COVID-19; indeed, this was reflected in the almost 30 percent increase in commercial chapter 11 filings in 2020 compared to 2019, with bankruptcies reaching their highest levels since 2012.2 The sectors with the greatest number of bankruptcies in 2020 were real estate, oil and gas, restaurants, entertainment, and retail.3 While bankruptcies were lower among firms in the defense sector due to stability in multi-year contracts with the government, as well as support of smaller suppliers by larger suppliers and by the government, defense firms with a greater focus on commercial clients suffered more. Consequently, although funding from the federal government under the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, as well as funding from the Department of Defense (DOD), provided support for companies within the defense sector and other sectors, defense firms continue to face challenges in the short-term and, potentially, in the longer-term. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 relief funding could have long-term effects on government deficits and debt, which may reduce defense spending in future years. Indeed, the potential atrophy in the defense industrial base due to the impact of COVID-19 on the financial health of defense companies and on future government spending could lead to national security risks. Production of key defense products—aircraft, ships, tanks, cybersecurity technology, etc.—is vital in supporting national security strategies in various regions and through various types of warfare.
Topic:
Economy, Manufacturing, Pandemic, Industry, Defense Industry, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

6. China, the West, and the Future Global Order By Julian Lindley-French and Franco Algieri

Author:
Julian Lindley-French and Franco Algieri
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The primary purpose of this article is to respectfully communicate to a Chinese audience a Western view of the future world order. China needs the West as much as the West needs China. However, the West has awakened geopolitically to the toxic power politics that Russia is imposing on Ukraine and China’s support for it. China is thus faced with a profound choice: alliance with a declining and weak Russia or cooperation with a powerful bloc of global democracies that Russia’s incompetent and illegal aggression is helping to forge. The West is steadily morphing into a new global Community of Democracies with states such as those in the G7, Quads, and Quints taking on increasing importance as centers of decisionmaking.2 All three groupings reflect an emerging implicit structure with the United States at their core, European democracies on one American geopolitical flank, with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and other democracies in the Indo-Pacific region on the other American geopolitical flank. The force that is forging such a community is China as it morphs into a superpower. Specifically, China is choosing to be an aggressive putative superpower. President Xi Jinping’s aggressive worldview is of a China defined by its opposition to the United States and, by extension, America’s democratic allies and partners. A new world is being forged from within the increasingly hot cauldron of U.S.-Chinese strategic competition. However, does that mean this new world is inevitably now set on a crash course to conflict, something akin to a re-run of the collapse of pre–World War I Europe into systemic war? Or is it not too late for both sides to forge a pragmatic peace—a peace forged from respect, rather than destructive and disrespectful confrontation? On the face of it, President Xi seems to have made his choice, but in some very important respects siding with Russia in geopolitical conflict with the community of democracies seems counterintuitive when we look at China from a Western perspective (as this article does). This perspective also implies China’s “choice” might not be as firm as some would have it—a profound but essentially simple choice between siding with Vladimir Putin and confrontation with the West or continued growth, wealth, and power through collaboration with the West? The facts speak for themselves. Using the most favorable economic statistics for the combined Chinese and Russian economies—purchasing power parity—their combined economies are worth some $27 trillion in 2022. Using the same data for G7 countries, the core of the emerging Community, the total is $39 trillion.3 Add Australia and South Korea to the aggregate and the figure is $42 trillion. If nominal gross domestic product (GPD) is compared, the contrast is even more striking with the combined GDPs of China and Russia in 2022 totaling $20.2 trillion, while the combined GDPs of the G7 countries amount to $45.2 trillion, which when Australia and South Korea are added increases to $48.8 trillion.4 Critically, China’s trade with the democracies is over 10 times greater than that with Russia,5 while in 2020, China’s merchandise trade surplus with the rest of the world totaled $535 billion, with much of that figure due to surpluses with both the United States and Europe.6
Topic:
Security, Geopolitics, Strategic Competition, International Order, and Superpower
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, and United States of America

7. The Limits of Victory: Evaluating the Employment of Military Power

Author:
Michael H. Levine
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
On November 28, 1984, then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger appeared before the National Press Club in Washington, DC, to deliver a speech titled “The Uses of Military Power.” The previous year had brought mixed results in the deployment of U.S. combat troops overseas. An invasion of the small West Indies country of Grenada wrested regime control from the one-party socialist People’s Revolutionary Government in favor of a relatively stable democracy. In Lebanon, however, the bombing of a Marine Corps barracks complex in Beirut killed 305 troops and civilians, including 241 Americans, and led to the withdrawal of the multinational peacekeeping force months later. Perhaps most central to Secretary Weinberger’s speech was the Vietnam War, an event that two decades later still struck deep into the institutional fabric of the U.S. military. The Secretary argued that combat forces should be deployed resolutely with “the sole object of winning” in cases where vital national interests are at stake.1 Moreover, the use of force must meet six criteria: vital national interests, wholehearted commitment, clearly defined political and military objectives, congruent ends and means, domestic support, and last resort. Seven years later, many viewed the U.S. triumph in the Gulf War as a vindication of this doctrine. Today, this way of thinking is known as the Powell Doctrine, in reference to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush gleefully declared, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.”2
Topic:
Defense Policy, History, Armed Forces, and Military
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

8. Panda Power? Chinese Soft Power in the Era of COVID-19

Author:
Amit Gupta
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Much like competition between the United States and the former Soviet Union, the rivalry between the United States and China is not only one of military-strategic and economic challenges but also one of ideas. The West, particularly the United States, has had the advantage of presenting the more compelling image to the rest of the world in the form of what Joseph Nye, Jr., dubbed soft power. The argument goes that while China makes propaganda efforts, the United States enjoys soft power—the attractiveness of its culture, political ideas, and policies—and this gives America an international advantage. As the Australian security analyst Hugh White put it, “Everybody admires China, but no one wants to be China.”1 While this was true in the early years of the post–Cold War era, the Chinese have since used their newfound wealth to create a more friendly image for themselves. If they are able to successfully distribute their version of the COVID-19 vaccine around the world, we may see Beijing benefiting from a boost in its image—despite the abrasive “wolf warrior diplomacy” of the past few years, its military forays in the East and South China seas, and the fact that the Chinese government was initially less than forthcoming in sharing data on the pandemic.2 With a recent analysis suggesting that China’s economy will overtake that of the United States in 2028, China’s attempts to rebrand its image will not only have more resources but also find an increasingly eager international audience that seeks to engage the newly emerging number one global economy.3 Soft power, after all, means little without an economic and a military capability to back it up, and China has both. To discuss the Chinese challenge, this article makes its argument in three parts: first, it argues that Nye’s definition of soft power has limitations, and in fact, the Chinese can influence global public opinion with a mixture of propaganda and soft power. Second, it describes China’s attempts to influence global public opinion and the extent to which it may succeed. Finally, it examines the possible future of the Chinese soft power challenge and what the United States can do to counter it.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Media, Soft Power, Strategic Competition, COVID-19, and Rivalry
Political Geography:
China and Global Focus

9. The 21st Century's Great Military Rivalry

Author:
Graham Allison and Jonah Glick-Unterman
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
A quarter-century ago, China conducted what it called “missile tests” bracketing the island of Taiwan to deter it from a move toward independence by demonstrating that China could cut Taiwan’s ocean lifelines. In response, in a show of superiority that forced China to back down, the United States deployed two aircraft carriers to Taiwan’s adjacent waters. If China were to repeat the same missile tests today, it is highly unlikely that the United States would respond as it did in 1996. If U.S. carriers moved that close to the Chinese mainland now, they could be sunk by the DF-21 and DF-26 missiles that China has since developed and deployed. This article presents three major theses concerning the military rivalry between China and the United States in this century. First, the era of U.S. military primacy is over: dead, buried, and gone—except in the minds of some political leaders and policy analysts who have not examined the hard facts.1 As former Secretary of Defense James Mattis put it starkly in his 2018 National Defense Strategy, “For decades the United States has enjoyed uncontested or dominant superiority in every operating domain. We could generally deploy our forces when we wanted, assemble them where we wanted, and operate how we wanted.”2 But that was then. “Today,” Mattis warned, “every domain is contested—air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.”3 As a result, in the past two decades, the United States has been forced to retreat from a strategy based on primacy and dominance to one of deterrence. As President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his National Security Council colleague Kurt Campbell acknowledged in 2019, “The United States must accept that military primacy will be difficult to restore, given the reach of China’s weapons, and instead focus on deterring China from interfering with its freedom of maneuver and from physically coercing U.S. allies and partners.”4 One of the architects of the Trump administration’s 2018 National Defense Strategy put it less diplomatically and more succinctly: “The era of untrammeled U.S. military superiority is over.”5
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Deterrence, Strategic Competition, Rivalry, and Military
Political Geography:
China, Taiwan, and United States of America

10. The BRI and Its Rivals: The Building and Rebuilding of Eurasia in the 21st Century

Author:
Anoushiravan Ehteshami
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
China’s re-emergence as a global power after 400 years raises profound questions about not only China’s place in the truly new world order in which no superpower can reign supreme but also the international system itself, as well as the ways in which China’s policies may be reorientating Eurasia’s regions in the direction of China. For much of the post–World War II period, China was a minor actor on the world stage, and from the 1960s onward it was Japan’s meteoric rise as a major emerging economic power that posed a geopolitical challenge to the Euro-American domination of the world economy. With an unprecedented economic growth rate of around 10 percent from 1953 to when the oil crisis hit in 1973, Japan created an industrial miracle. Racist terminology invoking the rise of the “yellow peril” notwithstanding, Japan’s position as Asia’s leading economy was recognized by its addition to the G-4 club of the most advanced economies of the world in 1973 and its firm place in the successor G-7 group of such economies in 1976. Japan’s industrial might, technological prowess, and innovative management techniques took the world by storm, virtually rewriting the rules of capitalist development. Its success was such that even at the height of an oil price shock, which took oil prices to over $100 per barrel in the early 1980s, the country’s trade balance grew from $2.1 billion in 1980 to nearly $90 billion in 1986.1
Topic:
Infrastructure, Economy, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Superpower
Political Geography:
China and Asia