Biological Threats Are National Security Risks: Why COVID-19 Should Be a Wake Up Call for Policy Makers

The outbreak of a highly contagious disease like COVID‑19 strikes at the core of national security and the nation’s interest in protecting its citizens from unnecessary harm. This paper explains how the Trump administration's failure to implement its own National Biodefense Strategy harmed U.S. national security and contributed to anti-government violence in the United States. The outbreak of a naturally occurring, novel virus in the United States exposed weaknesses in national security law and policy that put the country at heightened risk from domestic and foreign threats. A national security strategy is the “nation’s plan for the coordinated use of all the instruments of state power—nonmilitary as well as military—to pursue objectives that defend and advance its national interest.” Perhaps the most straightforward national security objective is to protect the country from foreign invasion, but national security involves other objectives that aim to protect people in the United States as well as their values. For example, protecting U.S. elections from foreign interference is a security objective that advances the nation’s interest in democratic governance.