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I teach national security law and worked at the Pentagon for a year on counter-terrorism programs meant to keep the US safe. The COVID-19 crisis has proven that our national security priorities are complete wrong. It is past time to rethink what national security really means. 1/
The fundamental goal of a national security program should be to protect American lives. After 9/11, we thought that meant launching a global counter-terrorism program. We waged a war in Afghanistan to eradicate the potential threat of another attack from al Qaeda. 2/
We launched a war against Iraq on the grounds (which turned out to be false) that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the U.S. and our allies. 3/
Now the United States has missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and around twenty African countries, including most prominently Somalia and Libya. All are justified on the grounds that they are meant to protect American lives. 4/
The U.S. spent 2.8 trillion dollars during fiscal years 2002-2017 on counter-terrorism programs, according to this @StimsonCenter report: 5/ https://www.stimson.org/wp-content/files/file-attachments/CT_Spending_Report_0.pdf
The 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S. was the most fatal terrorist attack of recent times, claiming 3000 lives. 6/ https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism
BUT "Overall we see that terrorism deaths globally–and in most parts of the world–are relatively rare. Much more common risks–often ones that we can influence – kill many more people. An estimated 7 million deaths each year result from smoking; 4.7 million from obesity; . . .7/
. . . and 3 million from outdoor air pollution. The dominance of terrorism in the daily news cycle can mean that we lose perspective of this." 8/ https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism
Even as we have spent trillions on counter-terrorism efforts, we have let public health and pandemic response atrophy. President Trump recently suggested that 100,000 U.S. deaths would be a win. 9/
If social distancing measures are lifted too soon, the numbers of deaths could be far higher. If this were a terrorist threat, we would have declared war on whatever group was responsible for it back in January. 10/
When this is all over, we need to radically rethink what it means to protect Americans. We need to reorient public spending that has been dedicated to counter-terrorism efforts to protect against next public health emergency. 11/
One piece of that, as @Jacob_S_Hacker and I have written, is universal health insurance. Another is robust pandemic response planning--not just in the U.S., but globally. 12/ https://www.justsecurity.org/69130/universal-health-care-is-a-national-security-issue/
If we learn anything from this crisis, let's hope we at least learn that when it comes to global health threats, no nation can protect itself on its own. Global cooperation is essential. Putting up walls doesn't work. 13/
We must think much more broadly about how to work together to address threats to human life, including pandemics and climate change. That's what "national security" must mean in the post-COVID-19 world. 14/14
