The greatest Black Swan event to overtake planet Earth in the last 100 years has been the Covid-19 pandemic. It may be true that the Spanish Flu took a far heavier toll in terms of human life (50 million killed between 1918 and 1920) and that World War I and II caused exponentially greater amounts of devastation and economic disruption. However, it is the very suddenness of this event that has been so unnerving. It was just not foreseen or forecast and in a matter of just three months it devastated the globe.
As on 7 April, Covid-19 had infected 1,431,073 people globally and some 82,096 had died. United Nations Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) has estimated the loss to the global economy as over $1 trillion. International Monetary Fund (IMF) anticipated that its negative impact would far exceed that of the 2008 recession, which was largely a localised aberration. This pandemic is truly global because it has affected almost 200 countries, so far.
In India, the focus has understandably been on the medical aspects of this epidemic. The prime minister of India rightly gave priority to saving human lives over preserving the economy. This Hobson’s choice had delayed reactions in Europe and America until it was too late. A total national level lockdown was, however, ordered in India at a relatively early stage of the outbreak of this pandemic. What we have missed completely so far has been any discussion about the national security implications of his pandemic. The focus in this issue of IMR, therefore, has been precisely on the national security dimensions of this pandemic.
Few people know that the USA and China have been very actively engaged in research on bat-borne strains of the coronavirus. Thus, in 2018, USA and China jointly funded a study in South China, which identified 89 new strains of bat-borne coronaviruses. The US biological research Lab at Maryland had cooperated extensively with the infamous Chinese Institute of Virology at Wuhan in this study. The US has two more labs specializing in biological warfare In Kazakhstan and Georgia. China has two labs focusing on biological warfare at Wuhan. A study of Chinese military doctrines shows a very heavy emphasis on exploiting biological warfare as first strikes in its strategy for non-contact warfare scenarios designed to bring a nation down to its knees without firing a shot. Our study indicates that over a 100 strains of novel bat-borne coronaviruses have already been isolated and harvested and, as such, there was no need to create such a genetically modified virus in the lab. The accidental release theories, thus, do not stand. That leaves us with the far more grim scenario of deliberate release/spread. Biological attacks could, thus, be the opening salvos of a deliberate non-contact warfare offensive.
National Security Dimensions
To empirically analyse this issue, we at IMR crystallized four causative scenarios and then war gamed them in the light of known facts about the biological warfare capabilities and research profiles on this subject in USA and China. We then took a very specific look at extant doctrines of military use of pathogens as part of unrestricted warfare or non-contact warfare. These four scenarios are:
• Scenario One – Natural epidemic originating In the wet markets of Wuhan.
• Scenario Two – Accidental release from lab in Wuhan.
• Scenario Three – Deliberate release of natural bat-borne coronaviral strains by China in Wuhan to trigger global crisis and then make economic gains
• Scenario 4 – A biological war between USA and China as an escalation of economic warfare.
Virologists and microbiologists so far are focused on Scenario 1, ie, a natural epidemic originating in the wet markets of Wuhan as the real cause. Their major complaint is about China’s delay in warning the world. This accepted wisdom needs greater analysis.
Both China and USA have accused each other of deliberate/ accidental release of this virus in Wuhan. Lab made/ genetically engineered coronaviruses were not required. Over a 100 such strains were naturally available. The strain that broke out in Wuhan was a milder single-mutation strain that is not so dangerous or fatal. Its gene-sequencing was done in India from our students who were evacuated from Wuhan. The one in Italy was far more dangerous and fatal (its hook protein molecule that latches on to the host human cell had undergone three mutations).
Could China have released the milder one in Wuhan and the more dangerous one in Europe (Italy) and USA to win the economic war, weaken the dollar and gain global economic hegemony? Alternatively, is the Chinese accusation of the US military releasing it in Wuhan correct or purely a propaganda stance to counter US accusations? Was that then the start of a biological war exchange? We have examined all these speculations in this issue.
Military Literature
Chinese military literature has talked of the biological aspects of war for the last two decades. It started with a book on Unrestricted Warfare by two Chinese senior colonels in 1999. More recently, in 2010, we had a book “War for Power” by Guo Jiwei of the Chinese Army University, which outlined a concept of war with biological characteristics. The 2017 edition of the PLA’s “Science of Military Strategy” has added a new chapter – “Biology as a Domain of Military Struggle”. It could not be more explicit. The PLA has been scripting biowarfare in their strategic discourse for more than two decades now. Devastated by the Covid pandemic the world cannot ignore these writings as theoretical moonshine.
