01 May 2021
- RSIS
- Publication
- External Publications
- Fighting the COVID-19 War – With a Little Help from … Clausewitz
Fighting the COVID-19 War – With a Little Help from … Clausewitz
Abstract
Given the rapidly unfolding and significant social, economic and geopolitical impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, it has become a wider national security matter as well, requiring a coordinated response from other sectors beyond public health. In this respect, what would a wider, more encompassing, national security response to COVID-19 entail? The current struggle against COVID-19 has been called a “war”. If so, can we learn anything from the insights of the 19th century Prussian philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz, who famously conceptualised war as comprising a “remarkable trinity” of “primordial passions”; the “play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam”; and the “element of subordination, as an instrument of policy”? This article will show what a coordinated “trinitarian” response to the outbreak involving the public health community, the public and the government must entail.
Abstract
Given the rapidly unfolding and significant social, economic and geopolitical impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, it has become a wider national security matter as well, requiring a coordinated response from other sectors beyond public health. In this respect, what would a wider, more encompassing, national security response to COVID-19 entail? The current struggle against COVID-19 has been called a “war”. If so, can we learn anything from the insights of the 19th century Prussian philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz, who famously conceptualised war as comprising a “remarkable trinity” of “primordial passions”; the “play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam”; and the “element of subordination, as an instrument of policy”? This article will show what a coordinated “trinitarian” response to the outbreak involving the public health community, the public and the government must entail.
