August 31, 2020
Plagues Are Back. Will Wars Follow?
The suffering inflicted by Covid-19 fits a wider 21st-century pattern: the unexpected return of old pathologies previously thought vanquished by the march of progress, now suddenly back in virulently modern forms.
Until recently, outbreaks of infectious disease were a recurring scourge of civilization. Only in the past few decades did human beings imagine we had escaped this horror.
In geopolitics, as in biology, it turns out that mankind remains susceptible to new strains of old maladies.
Great-power competition, authoritarian alternatives to democracy—these too, not long ago, were presumed to have been safely consigned to the ash heap of history. Yet in geopolitics, as in biology, it turns out that mankind remains susceptible to new strains of old maladies.
Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal.
More from CNAS
-
The U.S.-China confrontation is not another Cold War. It’s something new.
Commentary
With U.S.-China relations in free fall, the Trump administration’s chief arms control negotiator recently proclaimed that "we know how to win these races and we know how to sp...
By Richard Fontaine & Ely Ratner
-
How Long Will Deterrence Hold?
Podcast
Mike hosts Michèle Flournoy, former Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where she currently serves as Chair of the Board o...
By Michèle Flournoy
-
Colombia Tariffs, Banning Chinese Drones, and Stacie Pettyjohn on Drone Warfare
Podcast
Emily and Geoff play a quick round of Tariff Tarot to dissect Trump’s tariff threats on Colombia last weekend. Then they dig in to the bipartisan debate over banning various c...
By Emily Kilcrease, Stacie Pettyjohn & Geoffrey Gertz
-
Don’t Talk About the War
Commentary
Confronting aggressors and getting them to the negotiation table requires both carrots and sticks—in other words, diplomacy and military power....
By Franz-Stefan Gady
