In the news, Sunday, March 22, 2020

________

MAR 21      INDEX      MAR 23

________

________

from CNBC

TV Network in Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Trump activates National Guard in California, New York and Washington state: ‘This is a war’

President Donald Trump on Sunday announced that he has activated the National Guard in California, New York and Washington state in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The administration emphasized that the deployment of guard members is not martial law. The state governors will retain command of the National Guard, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency will cover all costs of the missions to respond to the virus outbreak, the president said during a White House press briefing.

________

from HumanProgress.org  Education Website

Coronavirus and Human Progress
Coronavirus is deadly, but it is not the bubonic plague, which had a mortality rate of 50 percent, or the septicemic plague, which had a mortality rate of 100 percent. Luckily for the long-term wellbeing of our species, we have been re-awakened to the mortal danger posed by communicable diseases by a far milder virus. Once the immediate crisis is behind us, human and financial resources will be deployed by governments and the private sector to ensure that next time we are ready. Laws will be changed and regulations streamlined to ensure that we are nimbler, which is to say faster, in responding to future emergencies. In the meantime, we must not overreact to the coronavirus pandemic by killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The global economy will have to change somewhat. Likely, supply lines will shorten and the definition of strategic reserves broaden. A fundamental shift toward autarky, however, would be catastrophic. The global division of labor has enriched the world to an unprecedented degree. It is these riches that allow us to combat coronavirus today. A poorer world would be a sicker world. Let us hope that we have the wisdom to recognize that.

________

from Logistics In War  blog

WINNING THE WAR FOR PROSPERITY – THE MILITARY, SUPPLY CHAIN SECURITY AND THE POST-PANDEMIC WORLD
Supply chain security is the concept which encompasses the programs, systems, procedures, technologies and solutions applied to address threats to the supply chain and the consequent threats to economic, social and physical well-being of citizens and organised society. – World Bank, 2009
Deborah Cowen’s book, The deadly life of logistics, describes the intertwined relationship between commercial logistics and security. ‘With logistics comes new kinds of crises, new paradigms of security’, Cowen opens, describing how the global logistics enterprise developed from Second World War experience has been employed by government and business to define the modern world.[1] The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to end the fragile order of international supply and industrial production for the short term at least. This event has direct existential and strategic consequences for Western militaries, but also requires them to be part of national economic responses. This article is an attempt to consider a few aspects of this ‘new world’. It is an attempt to describe its implications for national security as it pertains to supply and industry, and otherwise initiate a conversation about how Western militaries might prepare for the post-COVID-19 future.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________