Should The Military Be Responsible For Battling A Pandemic?

Military medical personnel arrive in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province, to fight the novel coronavirus pneumonia, Jan 24, 2020. [Photo by Huang Shifeng/chinadaily.com.cn]

James Stavridis, Bloomberg: Battling a Pandemic Is a Job for the Military

Even if coronavirus fizzles out, the world’s armies need to prepare for the next deadly global outbreak.

Even with China taking extreme measures to contain the spread of coronavirus — effectively quarantining 50 million people in the center of the country — at least 130 Chinese have died and it is beginning to pop up around the globe, including at least five cases in the U.S.This is one of the few times when there are advantages to being an authoritarian society where people are used to immediately obeying commands from higher authority; imagine the reaction if the U.S. government shut all transportation in and out of Chicago, a step the Chinese government has taken in a similarly sized metropolis, Wuhan.

Still, the unfortunate timing of Chinese New Year means that hundreds of millions are on the move, and the ubiquity of air travel means the virus will be difficult to contain. Are we facing another Spanish Influenza, which a century ago infected more than a third of the world’s population with a 20% mortality rate? Probably not. But Mother Nature has a nasty habit of throwing deadly pandemics at us every couple of centuries, despite all medical progress – and we are increasingly due. And if this or a future virus truly goes global, the world’s militaries are going to have to take a lead role in containing it.

As commander of U.S. Southern Command I oversaw the responses to several cholera outbreaks in Haiti – easier to contain a than coronavirus, but more than half a million Haitians were infected and nearly 10,000 died in the aftermath of a 2010 earthquake. The U.S. military and allied partners were crucial to halting the spread of the disease. American troops -- working with counterparts from Brazil and Chile — were able to bring water purification, electrical generation and basic civil order. No civilian agency could have done so given the scale of the emergency.

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WNU Editor: It is the health professionals who must be in the lead to battle a global pandemic. The military is there to support their actions.

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