COVID-19: Projecting the National Security Dimensions of Pandemics

National security—in its traditional sense—is associated with the protection of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a state, as well as its critical interests abroad. However, the lethal nature of pandemics is increasingly raising scientific awareness about their national security dimensions. To this end, National Academies Press 1 observes that ‘national security is not just about protection from state and non-state actors, but also encompasses protection from emerging infectious diseases and other health outcomes that can threaten a nation’s economic vitality and its very way of life’. As Evans 2 would want us to accept, ‘emerging diseases and their pandemic potential pose perhaps an even greater national security threat, particularly in this era of globalization when disease can spread more rapidly than in previous eras’.