NCJ Number
190408
Journal
Janes's Intelligence Review Volume: 13 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2001 Pages: 48-51
Editor(s)
Christopher C. Aaron
Date Published
September 2001
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article investigated the political, economic, and military implications and responses necessary to meet the challenge of infectious diseases threatening national security.
Abstract
The spread of infectious diseases is now recognized as a threat of global proportions. The argument that infectious diseases pose a real and serious challenge to security rests on three main propositions: (1) their ability to kill in large numbers; (2) their adverse impact on national and regional stability; and (3) their potential use as deliberate agents of coercion. Beyond their direct impact on security, infectious diseases often generate a subset of related problems having serious effects on a state’s wider socio-economic and political stability. These diseases can adversely affect economic development, have a profound negative impact on a state’s social order, functioning, and psyche, and can undermine public confidence in the state’s general custodian function eroding the overall governing legitimacy. Threats such as disease typically have internal and external ramifications. Responding to these threats requires innovative policies that are complex and multi-dimensional in nature, calling for initiatives on both the national and international levels.