COVID-19: Potential Implications for
January 25, 2022
International Security Environment—Overview Ronald O'Rourke
of Issues and Further Reading for Congress
Specialist in Naval Affairs

Some observers argue the COVID-19 pandemic could be a world-changing event with potentially
Kathleen J. McInnis
profound and long-lasting implications for the international security environment. Other
Specialist in International
observers are more skeptical that the pandemic will have such effects.
Security

In reports issued in March and April 2021, the U.S. intelligence community provided
assessments of the potential impact of the pandemic on the international security environment.

Observers who argue the pandemic could be world-changing for the international security environment have focused on
several areas of potential change, including the following, which are listed here separately but overlap in some cases and can
interact with one another:
 world order, international institutions, and global governance;
 U.S. global leadership and the U.S. role in the world;
 China’s potential role as a global leader;
 U.S. relations and great power competition with China and Russia;
 the relative prevalence of democratic and authoritarian or autocratic forms of government;
 societal tension, reform, transformation, and governmental stability in various countries;
 the world economy, globalization, and U.S. trade policy;
 allied defense spending and U.S. alliances;
 the cohesion of the European Union;
 the definition of, and budgeting for, U.S. national security;
 U.S. defense strategy, defense budgets, and military operations ;
 U.S. foreign assistance programs, international debt relief, and refugee policy;
 activities of non-state actors;
 the amount of U.S. attention devoted to ongoing international issues other than the pandemic; and
 the role of Congress in setting and overseeing the execution of U.S. foreign and defense policy.
Issues for Congress may include whether and how the pandemic could change the international security environment,
whether the Biden Administration’s actions for responding to such change are appropriate and sufficient, and what
implications such change could have for the role of Congress in setting and overseeing the execution of U.S. foreign and
defense policy. Congress’s decisions regarding these issues could have significant implications for U.S. foreign and defense
policy.
Congressional Research Service

link to page 13 link to page 17 COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Introduction
Some observers argue the COVID-19 pandemic could be a world-changing event with potentially
profound and long-lasting implications for the international security environment. Other
observers are more skeptical that the pandemic will have such effects. This report provides a brief
overview of some potential implications the pandemic might have for the international security
environment, and appendices listing CRS reports and other writings for further reading.
Issues for Congress may include whether and how the pandemic could change the international
security environment, whether the Biden Administration’s actions for responding to such change
are appropriate and sufficient, and what implications such change could have for the role of
Congress in setting and overseeing the execution of U.S. foreign and defense policy. Congress’s
decisions regarding these issues could have significant implications for U.S. foreign and defense
policy.
Appendix A presents a list of CRS reports that provide more in-depth discussions of issues
presented in this report. Appendix B presents a list of additional writings reflecting various
perspectives on these issues.
Background
2021 Assessments by U.S. Intelligence Community
In reports issued in March and April 2021, the U.S. intelligence community provided assessments
of the potential impact of the pandemic on the international security environment. Excerpts from
these two reports are presented below.
March 2021 NIC Report on Global Trends
A March 2021 report of the National Intelligence Council (NIC)1 on global trends—the 2021
edition of a report that NIC publishes every four years to serve as an unclassified strategic
assessment on key trends that might shape the world over the next 20 years—includes a section
on the potential impact of the pandemic, which states
The COVID-19 pandemic emerged globally in 2020, wreaking havoc across the world,
killing more than 2.5 million people as of early 2021, devastating families and
communities, and disrupting economies and political dynamics within and between
countries. Previous global trends editions forecasted the potential for new diseases and
even imagined scenarios with a pandemic, but we lacked a full picture of the breadth and
depth of its disruptive potential. COVID-19 has shaken long-held assumptions about
resilience and adaptation and created new uncertainties about the economy, governance,
geopolitics, and technology.

1 The Office of the Director of National Intelligence states that the National Intelligence Council “supports the Director
of National Intelligence [DNI] in his role as head of the Intelligence Community (IC) and is the IC’s center for long-
term strategic analysis. Since its establishment in 1979, the NIC has served as a bridge between the intelligence and
policy communities, a source of deep substantive expertise on intelligence issues, and a facilitator of Intelligence
Community collaboration and outreach. The NIC’s National Intelligence Officers—drawn from government, academia,
and the private sector—are the Intelligence Community’s senior experts on a range of regional and functional issues.”
(Director of National Intelligence, “National Intelligence Council—Who We Are,” accessed July 9, 2021, at
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=393&Itemid=778.)
Congressional Research Service
1

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

To understand and assess the impact of this crisis, we examined and debated a broad range
of our assumptions and assessments related to key global trends. We asked a series of
questions: Which existing trends will endure, which trends are accelerating or decelerating
because of the pandemic, and where are we likely to experience fundamental, systemic
shifts? Are the disruptions temporary or could the pandemic unleash new forces to shape
the future? Much like the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the COVID-19 pandemic
is likely to produce some changes that will be felt for years to come and change the way
we live, work, and govern domestically and internationally. How great these will be,
however, is very much in question.
ACCELERATING, SHARPENING SOME TRENDS
The pandemic and corresponding national responses appear to be honing and accelerating
several trends that were already underway before the outbreak. COVID-19 brought global
health and healthcare issues into sharp relief, exposed and in some cases widened social
fissures, underscored vast disparities in healthcare access and infrastructure, and
interrupted efforts to combat other diseases. The pandemic also highlighted weaknesses in
the international coordination on health crises and the mismatch between existing
institutions, funding levels, and future health challenges.
Catalyzing Economic Trends. Lockdowns, quarantines, and the closing of international
borders have catalyzed some pre-existing economic trends, including diversification in
global supply chains, increased national debt, and greater government intervention in
economies. Moving forward, the character of globalization may retain some of the changes
from this crisis period, and debt, particularly for developing economies, will strain national
capacities for many years.
Reinforcing Nationalism and Polarization. Nationalism and polarization have been on
the rise in many countries, especially exclusionary nationalism. Efforts to contain and
manage the virus have reinforced nationalist trends globally as some states turned inward
to protect their citizens and sometimes cast blame on marginalized groups. The response
to the pandemic has fueled partisanship and polarization in many countries as groups argue
over the best way to respond and seek scapegoats to blame for spreading the virus and for
slow responses.
Deepening Inequality. The disproportionate economic impact of COVID-19 on low-
income earners has caused them to fall further behind. When COVID-19 is finally
controlled, many families are likely to have experienced further setbacks, especially those
working in the service or informal sectors or who left the workforce to provide dependent
care—predominantly women. The pandemic has exposed the digital divide within and
between countries while spurring efforts to improve Internet access.
Straining Governance. The pandemic is straining government capacity for services and
contributing to already low levels of trust in institutions in countries that have not
effectively handled the response. The pandemic is exacerbating the confusing and
polarized information environment that is undermining public confidence in health
authorities, particularly in open societies. Illiberal regimes in some countries are using the
pandemic as a pretext to more severely crack down on dissent and restrict civic freedoms,
conditions that may outlive the disease.
Highlighting Failed International Cooperation. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the
weaknesses and political cleavages in international institutions, such as the World Health
Organization (WHO) and United Nations, and called into question countries’ ability and
willingness to cooperate multilaterally to address common challenges beyond infectious
disease, particularly climate change. The WHO, which has faced significant funding
difficulties and resistance to mandatory surveillance regimes, is facing its gravest shock in
nearly two decades. The crisis, however, may ultimately lead actors to make deeper
Congressional Research Service
2

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

reforms, standardize data collection and sharing, and forge new public-private
partnerships.
Elevating the Role of Nonstate Actors. Nonstate actors, ranging from the Gates
Foundation to private companies, have been crucial to vaccine research or retrofitting
equipment to mass produce medical supplies and personal protective equipment. Nonstate
networks will complement national and intergovernmental action in future health crises,
including early warning, treatment, facilitation of data-sharing, and vaccine development.
WHILE OTHERS DECELERATE OR REVERSE
COVID-19 is slowing and possibly reversing some longstanding trends in human
development, especially the reduction of poverty and disease and closing gender inequality
gaps. The longest lasting reversals may be in poverty reduction across Africa, Latin
America, and South Asia, followed by losses in gender equality. The resources devoted to
fighting COVID-19 and social restrictions could reverse years of progress against malaria,
measles, polio, and other infectious diseases by consuming key financial, material, and
personnel resources.
The COVID-19 emergency may bring regions together in ways that previous crises have
not.
Although European countries early in the crisis imposed restrictions on border traffic and
exports of critical medical supplies, the European Union has rallied around an economic
rescue package and other emergency measures that could bolster the European integration
project going forward. COVID-19 could also lead to redirection of national budgets toward
pandemic response and economic recovery, diverting funds from defense expenditures,
foreign aid, and infrastructure programs in some countries, at least in the near term.
MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS
The unanticipated second- and third-order effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have
reminded us how uncertain the future is—both in the long and short term. As researchers
and analysts, we must be ever vigilant, asking better questions, frequently challenging our
assumptions, checking our biases, and looking for weak signals of change. We need to
expect the unexpected and apply the lessons of this pandemic to our craft in the future.2
April 2021 DNI Threat Assessment
An April 9, 2021, report from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)—DNI’s annual threat
assessment for 2021—includes a section on the pandemic that states (emphasis as in the original):
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted life worldwide, with far-reaching effects that
extend well beyond global health to the economic, political, and security spheres. We
expect COVID-19 to remain a threat to populations worldwide until vaccines and
therapeutics are widely distributed. The economic and political implications of the
pandemic will ripple through the world for years.
The pandemic is raising geopolitical tensions, and great powers are jockeying for
advantage and influence. States are struggling to cooperate—and in some cases are
undermining cooperation—to respond to the pandemic and its economic fallout,
particularly as some governments turn inward and question the merits of globalization and
interdependence. Some governments, such as China and Russia, are using offers of medical
supplies and vaccines to try to boost their geopolitical standing.
The economic fallout from the pandemic is likely to create or worsen instability in at
least a few—and perhaps many—countries, as people grow more desperate in the face

2 National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2040, A More Contested World, March 2021, pp. 11-13.
Congressional Research Service
3

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

of interlocking pressures that include sustained economic downturns, job losses, and
disrupted supply chains. Some hard-hit developing countries are experiencing financial
and humanitarian crises, increasing the risk of surges in migration, collapsed governments,
or internal conflict.
 Although global trade shows signs of bouncing back from the COVID-19-induced
slump, economists caution that any recovery this year could be disrupted by ongoing
or expanding pandemic effects, keeping pressure on many governments to focus on
internal economic stability. In April, the International Monetary Fund estimated that
the global economy would grow 6 percent this year and 4.4 percent in 2022. This
year’s forecast is revised up 0.5 percentage points relative to the previous forecast,
reflecting expectations of vaccine-powered strengthening of activity later in the year
and additional policy support in a few large economies. The global growth contraction
for 2020 is estimated at 3.3 percent.
 The resurgence in COVID-19 infections early this year may have an even greater
economic impact as struggling businesses in hard-hit sectors such as tourism and
restaurants fold and governments face increasing budget strains.
 The effects on developing countries—especially those that rely heavily on remittances,
tourism, or oil exports—may be severe and longer lasting; many developing countries
already have sought debt relief.
 The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, along with conflict and weather
extremes, has driven food insecurity worldwide to its highest point in more than a
decade, which increases the risk of instability. The number of people experiencing
high levels of acute food insecurity doubled from 135 million in 2019 to about 270
million last year, and is projected to rise to 330 million by yearend.
The COVID-19 pandemic is prompting shifts in security priorities for countries around
the world. As militaries face growing calls to cut budgets, gaps are emerging in UN
peacekeeping operations; military training and preparedness; counterterrorism operations;
and arms control monitoring, verification, and compliance. These gaps are likely to grow
without a quick end to the pandemic and a rapid recovery, making managing conflict more
difficult—particularly because the pandemic has not caused any diminution in the number
or intensity of conflicts.
COVID-19-related disruptions to essential health services—such as vaccinations, aid
delivery, and maternal and child health programs—will increase the likelihood of
additional health emergencies, especially among vulnerable populations in low-income
countries. As examples, the pandemic has disrupted HIV/AIDS treatments and
preventative measures in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as measles and polio vaccination
campaigns in dozens of countries. World populations, including Americans, will remain
vulnerable to new outbreaks of infectious diseases as risk factors persist, such as rapid and
unplanned urbanization, protracted conflict and humanitarian crises, human incursions into
previously unsettled land, expansion of international travel and trade, and public mistrust
of government and health care workers.3
Overview of Areas of Potential Implications
Areas of potential change reflected in writings from observers who view the pandemic as a
potentially world-changing event include but are not limited to those discussed below. Although
these areas of potential change are presented separately, they overlap in some cases and can
interact with one another.

3 Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, April 9,
2021, pp. 17-18.
Congressional Research Service
4

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

World Order, International Institutions, and Global Governance
Some observers have focused on the possibility that the pandemic could cause or accelerate
changes to the U.S.-led liberal international order that has operated since World War II, to the
international institutions and norms that contribute to it, and consequently to global governance.4
Changes to the international order and its supporting institutions and norms could affect the
international context for addressing not only the pandemic, but other international issues as well.
U.S. Global Leadership and Role in the World
The pandemic could influence discussions over the costs and benefits to the United States of
acting as a global leader, not only with respect to global health but across a range of issues.
In the earlier months of the pandemic, some observers focused on how the pandemic may have
illustrated the strengths or weaknesses of the Trump Administration’s “America First” approach
to the U.S. role in the world. Some observers argued that the pandemic demonstrated that the
United States was maintaining or reasserting its role as global leader, while others argued that the
pandemic demonstrated that the United States was choosing to withdraw from or was no longer
capable of performing that role, and that the pandemic was the first major international crisis
since World War II for which the United States did not serve as the leader for spearheading,
organizing, or implementing an international response.
Other observers have argued that the U.S. response to the pandemic has focused international
attention on what they view as a need for reform at the World Health Organization (WHO),
demonstrated the strength and innovativeness of the U.S. scientific and pharmaceutical
establishments in terms of developing and manufacturing vaccines, and demonstrated the
flexibility and resiliency of the U.S. federal system in terms of permitting states and localities to
respond to the pandemic in ways that are tailored to local conditions.
Some observers, including some foreign observers, have argued that the U.S. domestic response
to the pandemic is demonstrating weaknesses in U.S. democracy, governance, and public health,
particularly in comparison to how certain other countries responded to the pandemic within their
own borders, and that this could reduce the ability of the United States in the future to offer itself
or be accepted by other countries as a global leader on other international issues or as a model for
other countries to emulate. As vaccines have become more widely available in the United States,
some observers have argued that the United States should export larger numbers of vaccine doses
to other countries that need them so as to demonstrate U.S. global leadership and help protect
U.S. public health and the U.S. economy by helping to end the global pandemic more quickly.

4 The term international order or world order generally refers in foreign policy discussions to the collection of
organizations, institutions, treaties, rules, norms, and practices that are intended to organize, structure, and regulate
international relations during a given historical period.
Other terms used to refer to the U.S.-led liberal international order include postwar international order, rules-based
international order, and open international order. Observers sometimes substitute world for international, or omit
international or world and refer simply to the liberal order, the U.S.-led order, and so on. In the terms liberal
international order and liberal order, the word liberal does not refer to the conservative-liberal construct often used in
discussing contemporary politics in the United States or other countries. It is, instead, an older use of the term that
refers to an order based on the rule of law, as opposed to an order based on the arbitrary powers of hereditary
monarchs.
Though often referred to as if it is a fully developed or universally established situation, the liberal international order,
like other international orders that preceded it, is incomplete in geographic reach and in other ways; partly aspirational;
not fixed in stone, but rather subject to evolution over time; sometimes violated by its supporters; not entirely free of
might-makes-right behavior; resisted or rejected by certain states and non-state actors; and subject to various stresses
and challenges.
Congressional Research Service
5

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

China’s Potential Role as a Global Leader
Some observers have focused on how the pandemic may be providing insight into whether China
desires and is working to become a global leader on par with (or in the place of) the United
States, to what degree China has a capacity for doing so, and how other countries might view
China acting in such a role. China’s transparency, particularly regarding its actions in the early
days of its COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan and trial data on the efficacy of its vaccines, as well as
China’s actions to send vaccines, other medical supplies, and medical personnel to other
countries, perhaps for political or diplomatic purposes, have become elements of a broader
ongoing discussion regarding China’s capacity or suitability for acting as a global leader.
U.S. Relations and Great Power Competition with China and Russia
Some observers have focused on how the pandemic has become a significant element in U.S-
China relations, and in U.S. great power competition with China and Russia. For some observers,
the pandemic presents an opportunity for U.S.-China cooperation on an important international
issue of common interest. For other observers, the pandemic is a major source of dispute and an
arena of competition between the two countries, and is contributing to a hardening of U.S.-China
relations into a Cold War-like adversarial situation.
In the earlier months of the pandemic, some observers focused on what they viewed as a
competition or race between the United States, China, Russia, and other countries to develop,
manufacture, and administer effective vaccines, and thus be able to restore their economies to full
operation sooner than other countries. Some observers have focused on whether China and Russia
are attempting to use exports of their vaccines as levers to gain advantages in their relations with
recipient countries. The terms vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy are being used by some
of these observers to refer to such perceived activities. Some observers have expressed concern
that decisions by countries to pursue vaccine development and deployment in a competitive,
individual manner rather than a cooperative, multilateral manner could reduce the overall
effectiveness of efforts to develop, manufacture, and administer effective vaccines and thereby
prolong the global pandemic.
Some observers have focused on the pandemic as a factor in the discussion of whether the United
States should decouple its economy from China’s and reduce its dependence on China for key
materials and products, including hospital supplies and pharmaceuticals. Some observers have
focused on whether the U.S. and Chinese responses to the pandemic will affect views around the
world regarding the relative merits of the U.S. and Chinese forms of government and economic
models as potential examples to emulate.
Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Autocracy
Related to the point above about forms of government, some observers have focused on the
potential impact of the pandemic on discussions in various countries regarding the merits of
democracy compared to those of other forms of government. Some observers have focused on
whether the pandemic is providing national leaders with an opportunity or rationale for taking
actions to seize greater power and move their countries away from democracy and toward
authoritarianism or autocracy, or strengthen or consolidate their already-existing authoritarian or
autocratic forms of government.
Congressional Research Service
6

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Societal Tension, Reform, and Transformation, and Governmental Stability
Beyond the specific point above about potential movement toward greater authoritarianism and
autocracy, some observers have focused on the possibility that the pandemic more generally could
cause increased social tensions in certain countries, could lead to (or present opportunities for)
societal reforms and transformations, and could destabilize and perhaps cause the downfall of
governments, akin to the effects of certain past world-changing events, such as World War I.5
Such changes could alter the political orientations, national strategies, foreign policies, and
defense policies of the countries in which they occur, potentially inducing follow-on effects
among governments and other global actors that interact with those countries.
World Economy, Globalization, and U.S. Trade Policy
Some observers have focused on the possibility that the pandemic could lead to significant and
potentially long-lasting changes to the world economy that in turn could reshape the international
security environment. Noting that the pandemic reduced world trade volumes and disrupted and
altered global supply chains, they have focused on the question of whether economic
globalization will as a result be slowed, halted, reversed, or otherwise changed. Observers are
monitoring or discussing how such effects could influence or be influenced by U.S. trade policy.
Allied Defense Spending and U.S. Alliances
Particularly during the earlier months of the pandemic, some observers focused on the possibility
that costs incurred by U.S. allies—particularly NATO allies in Europe—to support their
economies during stay-at-home/lockdown periods could lead to offsetting reductions in their
defense expenditures. More generally, some observers during the earlier months of the pandemic
asked whether reductions in economic growth caused by the pandemic could lead to reductions in
the defense budgets of U.S. allies in both Europe and Asia.
European Union
In the earlier months of the pandemic, some observers focused on the question of whether the
pandemic was creating tensions—or, conversely, opportunities for greater coordination—among
the European Union member states, and what impact the pandemic might ultimately have on the
cohesion of the European Union.
Definition of, and Budgeting for, U.S. National Security
Some observers have focused on the question of whether the pandemic will (or should) lead to a
revised definition of U.S. national security, particularly one that is less military-centric and more
focused on what are sometimes called human-security-oriented challenges or global issues, such

5 For brief discussions of the impacts of World War I on societies and governments, see, for example, Robert Wilde,
“The Consequences of World War I, Political and Social Effects of the War to End All Wars,” ThoughtCo., July 10,
2019; John Horne, “The First World War: the Aftermath, The Years Following the End of the War Were Marked by
More Wars, Political Upheaval and Deep Social Change,” Irish Times, April 24, 2018; Steven Mintz, “Historical
Context: The Global Effect of World War I,” History Now (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History), undated,
accessed April 16, 2020; Margaret MacMillan, “World War I: The War That Changed Everything,” Wall Street
Journal, June 20, 2014; Steven Erlanger, “The War to End All Wars? Hardly. But It Did Change Them Forever.” New
York Times, June 26, 2014; Jay Winter, “How the Great War Shaped the World,” Atlantic, World War I issue
(September 29, 2014); Kathleen Haley, “100 Years after WWI: The Lasting Impacts of the Great War,” Media, Law &
Policy (Syracuse University), July 28, 2014; “Aftermath of World War I,” Wikipedia, updated April 11, 2020, accessed
April 16, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
7

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

as climate change, that have sometimes been more at the periphery of U.S. national security
policy and plans. Such a change in definition could lead to a changed allocation of funding
between the Department of Defense (DOD) and other government agencies that perform national-
security-related tasks, a realignment of resources within DOD between combat-oriented programs
and other programs (such as those related to DOD’s mission of providing defense support of civil
authorities), and perhaps a changed allocation of funding among the agencies other than DOD
that perform national-security-related tasks.
U.S. Defense Strategy, Defense Budget, and Military Operations
Particularly during the earlier months of the pandemic, some observers focused on the question of
whether large federal expenditures made in response to the domestic U.S. economic effects of the
pandemic, and the impact of these expenditures on the federal budget deficit and federal debt,
could lead to greater constraints in coming years on U.S. defense spending levels. As a follow-on
matter, these observers additionally focused on the question of whether responding to such
increased constraints would (or should) lead to revisions in U.S. defense strategy, changes in U.S.
defense programs, and a reduction or termination of certain overseas U.S. military operations.
U.S. Foreign Assistance, International Debt Relief, and Refugee Policy
Some observers have focused on the question of whether the pandemic is providing a new lens
through which to measure the value of U.S. foreign assistance, international debt relief, and
refugee policy in promoting U.S. interests, particularly in connection with the previously
mentioned issue of whether to revise the definition of U.S. national security to make it less
military-centric.
Non-state Actors
Some observers have focused on how non-state actors such as international terrorist and criminal
organizations are reacting to the pandemic, and on how much priority should be given to
countering such actors in the future, particularly in a context of a changed definition of U.S.
national security.
U.S. Attention to International Issues Other than the Pandemic
Particularly during the earlier months of the pandemic, some observers focused on whether
responding to the pandemic was affecting the time and resources that U.S. leaders and agencies
could devote to addressing other international issues of concern to the United States that predated
but continued to exist in parallel with the pandemic. In the earlier months of the pandemic, U.S.
officials warned other countries to not take actions during the pandemic to challenge U.S.
interests around the world or otherwise test U.S. resolve or responsiveness on the thinking that
the pandemic was distracting the U.S. government from other concerns or reducing U.S. capacity
for responding to any such challenges.
Role of Congress
In the earlier months of the pandemic, a few observers focused on the issue of how the pandemic
had affected Congress’s activities for conducting oversight of the Administration’s foreign policy
actions.
Congressional Research Service
8

link to page 13 link to page 17 COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Appendices with CRS Reports and Additional Writings
For further reading on the topics outlined above, see the CRS reports presented in Appendix A
and the additional writings presented in Appendix B.
Potential Issues for Congress
Potential issues for Congress regarding implications of the pandemic for the international security
environment and the U.S. role in the world include but are not limited to the following:
 Will the pandemic change the international security environment, and if so, in
what ways? How clearly can potential changes be anticipated? What insight into
these questions, if any, can be provided by past major world events such as World
Wars I and II and the 1918 influenza pandemic?
 How should the United States respond to potential changes in the international
security environment arising from the current pandemic and its effects,
particularly in light of uncertainty regarding the precise nature and likelihood of
these changes? How might U.S. action or inaction influence or accelerate these
changes?
 What does the pandemic demonstrate about the role of the United States as a
global leader? What impact, if any, will the U.S. domestic response to the
pandemic have on the ability of the United States in the future to offer itself or be
accepted by other countries as a global leader on other international issues, or to
serve as a model for other countries to emulate in terms of their own political
systems, governance, and economic models?
 What actions is the Administration developing to respond to potential changes in
the international security environment arising from the pandemic? Does
Congress have sufficient visibility into these actions? Are these actions
appropriate and sufficient? What metrics should Congress use to assess them?
 What implications do potential changes in the international security environment
arising from the pandemic have for the role of Congress in setting and overseeing
the execution of U.S. foreign and defense policy? Is Congress appropriately
organized for maintaining Congress as a co-equal branch of government relative
to the executive branch in addressing these potential changes? If the pandemic
becomes a world-changing event for the international security environment and
the U.S. role in the world, what implications, if any, might that have for
congressional organization and operations?
Congressional Research Service
9

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Appendix A. Related CRS Reports
CRS reports that provide more in-depth discussions of specific issues discussed in this report
include the following, which are presented in alphabetical order of their titles:6
 CRS Insight IN11198, Bolivia Postpones May Elections Amidst COVID-19
Outbreak, by Clare Ribando Seelke.
 CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10525, Can the United States Sue China over COVID-19
in an International Court?, by Stephen P. Mulligan.
 CRS In Focus IF11532, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Impact in
Africa, coordinated by Alexis Arieff.
 CRS Report R46209, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic: CRS
Experts, by Matthew B. Barry. (Includes a section listing CRS experts on
international response activities relating to the COVD-19 pandemic.)
 CRS Report R46354, COVID-19 and China: A Chronology of Events (December
2019-January 2020), by Susan V. Lawrence.
 CRS Insight IN11496, COVID-19 and Emerging Global Patterns of Financial
Crime, by Liana W. Rosen.
 CRS In Focus IF11606, COVID-19 and Foreign Assistance: Congressional
Oversight Framework and Current Activities, by Nick M. Brown and Emily M.
Morgenstern.
 CRS In Focus IF11496, COVID-19 and Foreign Assistance: Issues for Congress,
by Nick M. Brown, Marian L. Lawson, and Emily M. Morgenstern.
 CRS In Focus IF11575, COVID-19 and Global Food Security: Issues for
Congress, by Alyssa R. Casey and Emily M. Morgenstern.
 CRS Insight IN11288, COVID-19 and the Defense Industrial Base: DOD
Response and Legislative Considerations, by Heidi M. Peters.
 CRS Insight IN11279, COVID-19 and U.S. Iran Policy, by Kenneth Katzman.
 CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10424, COVID-19: An Overview of Trade-Related
Measures to Address Access to Medical Goods, by Nina M. Hart.
 CRS Report R46633, COVID-19 Vaccines: Global Health Issues, coordinated by
Sara M. Tharakan
 CRS Report R46304, COVID-19: China Medical Supply Chains and Broader
Trade Issues, coordinated by Karen M. Sutter.
 CRS Insight IN11387, COVID-19: Defense Production Act (DPA) Developments
and Issues for Congress, by Michael H. Cecire and Heidi M. Peters.
 CRS Insight IN11305, COVID-19: Defense Support of Civil Authorities, by
Lawrence Kapp and Alan Ott.
 CRS In Focus IF11421, COVID-19: Global Implications and Responses, by Sara
M. Tharakan et al.

6 Additional CRS reports that do not include COVID-19 in their titles and are not listed here may include discussions of
the international implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Congressional Research Service
10

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

 CRS Insight IN11280, COVID-19: Industrial Mobilization and Defense
Production Act (DPA) Implementation, by Michael H. Cecire and Heidi M.
Peters.
 CRS Insight IN11481, COVID-19 International Responses: Resources for
Comparison with U.S. Policies, by Hannah Fischer and Sara M. Tharakan.
 CRS Insight IN11583, COVID-19 International Responses: Resources for the
117th Congress, by Hannah Fischer and Sara M. Tharakan.
 CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10436, COVID-19: International Trade and Access to
Pharmaceutical Products, by Nina M. Hart.
 CRS In Focus IF11525, COVID-19: National Security and Defense Strategy, by
Kathleen J. McInnis.
 CRS Video WVB00330, COVID-19 Public Health Series: Global Health and
Development, by Sara M. Tharakan et al.
 CRS Insight IN11435, COVID-19-Related Suspension of Nonimmigrant Entry,
by Jill H. Wilson.
 CRS Report R46342, COVID-19: Role of the International Financial
Institutions, by Rebecca M. Nelson and Martin A. Weiss.
 CRS Insight IN11273, COVID-19: The Basics of Domestic Defense Response,
coordinated by Michael J. Vassalotti.
 CRS In Focus IF11434, COVID-19: U.S.-China Economic Considerations, by
Karen M. Sutter and Michael D. Sutherland.
 CRS Insight IN11470, Defense Production Act (DPA): Recent Developments in
Response to COVID-19, by Michael H. Cecire and Heidi M. Peters.
 CRS In Focus IF11635, Europe, COVID-19, and U.S. Relations, by Kristin
Archick et al.
 CRS In Focus IF11551, Export Restrictions in Response to the COVID-19
Pandemic, by Christopher A. Casey and Cathleen D. Cimino-Isaacs.
 CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10467, Foreign Sovereign Immunity and COVID-19
Lawsuits Against China, by Jennifer K. Elsea.
 CRS Insight IN11493, Global Economic Growth Forecasts: Impact of COVID-
19, by James K. Jackson.
 CRS Report R46430, Global Democracy and Human Rights Impacts of COVID-
19: In Brief, coordinated by Michael A. Weber.
 CRS In Focus IF11548, Helping U.S. Citizens Abroad During the COVID-19
Pandemic and Other International Crises: Role of the Department of State, by
Cory R. Gill.
 CRS In Focus IF11796, Global COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution, coordinated by
Sara M. Tharakan.
 CRS Report R46270, Global Economic Effects of COVID-19, coordinated by
James K. Jackson.
 CRS Video WVB00380, Impact of COVID-19 on Health Systems in Africa: A
Dialogue with Experts, by Tiaji Salaam-Blyther.
 CRS In Focus IF11537, Intelligence Community Support to Pandemic
Preparedness and Response, by Michael E. DeVine.
Congressional Research Service
11

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

 CRS Insight IN11732, International COVID-19 Data and Vaccine Distribution:
Selected Resources, by Hannah Fischer.
 CRS In Focus IF11581, Latin America and the Caribbean: Impact of COVID-19,
by Mark P. Sullivan et al.
 CRS Insight IN11535, Mexican Drug Trafficking and Cartel Operations amid
COVID-19, by June S. Beittel and Liana W. Rosen.
 CRS Insight IN11619, New COVID-19 Defense Production Act (DPA) Actions:
Implementation Considerations, by Michael H. Cecire, Nina M. Hart, and Heidi
M. Peters.
 CRS Insight IN11593, New Presidential Directives on the Defense Production
Act (DPA) and the COVID-19 Pandemic, by Michael H. Cecire and Heidi M.
Peters.
 CRS Report R46319, Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19): Q&A on Global
Implications and Responses, coordinated by Tiaji Salaam-Blyther.
 CRS In Focus IF11822, Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic, coordinated by Tiaji
Salaam-Blyther.
 CRS In Focus IF11480, Overview: The Department of Defense and COVID-19,
coordinated by Kathleen J. McInnis.
 CRS In Focus IF11858, Potential WTO TRIPS Waiver and COVID-19, by
Shayerah I. Akhtar and Ian F. Fergusson.
 CRS Insight IN11662, Potential WTO TRIPS Waiver and COVID-19, by
Shayerah I. Akhtar and Ian F. Fergusson.
 CRS Insight IN11365, President Trump Criticizes VOA Coverage of China’s
COVID-19 Response, by Thomas Lum and Matthew C. Weed.
 CRS In Focus IF11880, Sovereign Debt and the COVID-19 Pandemic, by Martin
A. Weiss.
 CRS Insight IN11231, The Defense Production Act (DPA) and COVID-19: Key
Authorities and Policy Considerations, by Michael H. Cecire and Heidi M.
Peters.
 CRS Insight IN11337, The Defense Production Act (DPA) and the COVID-19
Pandemic: Recent Developments and Policy Considerations, by Michael H.
Cecire and Heidi M. Peters.
 CRS In Focus IF12013, The U.S. Government’s Role in Domestic and Global
COVID-19 Vaccine Supply and Distribution: Frequently Asked Questions, by
Sara M. Tharakan and Taylor R. Wyatt.
 CRS In Focus IF11029, The Venezuela Regional Humanitarian Crisis and
COVID-19, by Rhoda Margesson and Clare Ribando Seelke.
 CRS Insight IN11369, U.S. Funding to the World Health Organization (WHO),
by Luisa Blanchfield and Tiaji Salaam-Blyther.
 CRS Insight IN11325, U.S. Travel and Tourism and COVID-19, by Michaela D.
Platzer.
 CRS In Focus IF11494, Wildlife Trade, COVID-19, and Other Zoonotic
Diseases, by Pervaze A. Sheikh and Katarina C. O'Regan.
Congressional Research Service
12

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

 CRS In Focus IF11513, WTO: Ministerial Delay, COVID-19, and Ongoing
Issues, by Cathleen D. Cimino-Isaacs, Rachel F. Fefer, and Ian F. Fergusson.
Congressional Research Service
13

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Appendix B. Additional Writings
In presenting sources of additional reading, this appendix includes some examples of writings
reflecting various perspectives on the potential implications of the pandemic on the international
security environment and the U.S. role in the world, organized by specific themes or topics.
Within each section, the items are presented in chronological order, with the most recent on top.
For most of the sections, additional citations with dates earlier than that of the last item listed in
the section can be found in previous versions of this CRS report.
General/Multitopic
Michael Kugelman, “How COVID-19 Has Shaped South Asia, The Region Has Become a
Pandemic Hot Spot,” Foreign Policy, July 15, 2021.
Anthony Faiola, “Pandemic-Driven Hunger Is Making the World More Unequal,” Washington
Post, July 12, 2021.
Alex Ward, “The Pandemic’s Impact on Our World Is Only Just Beginning, The US Intelligence
Community Says the Coronavirus Will Impact You for Years to Come, Even If You Didn’t Get
Sick,” Vox, April 14, 2021.
Dimitris Valatsas and Patrycja Koszykowska, “COVID-19’s Baby Bust, Disasters Usually Come
With Falling Birth Rates. But This Time, They Might Not Recover Unless Governments Take
Action Now,” Foreign Policy, April 9, 2021.
Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Intelligence Report Warns of Global Consequences of Social
Fragmentation, The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Highlighted Weaknesses of the International
Order, Said the Report, Which Is Issued Every Four Years,” New York Times, April 8, 2021.
Warren P. Strobel and Dustin Volz, “Covid-19 Fuels Inequality, Political Divide, Authoritarianism
World-Wide, U.S. Intelligence Analysts Say, Quadrennial Global Trends Report Also Warns
Privacy Will ‘Effectively Disappear’ and Synthetic Media Will ‘Distort Truth and Reality,’” Wall
Street Journal, April 8, 2021.
Laurie Goering, “African Leaders Warn COVID-19 Crisis Harming Climate Adaptation Push,”
Reuters, April 6, 2021.
Meghan Benton, Jeanne Batalova, Samuel Davidoff-Gore, and Timo Schmidt, COVID-19 and the
State of Global Mobility in 2020, Migration Policy Institute, April 2021, 57 pp.
Michael Varnum, Cendri Hutcherson, and Igor Grossmann, “Everyone Was Wrong on the
Pandemic’s Societal Impact, In March 2020, a Study Asked Experts and Laypeople for Their
Predictions. Neither Group Came Close to Being Right,” Foreign Policy, March 18, 2021.
Bastian Giegerich, Fenella McGerty, and Peter Round, The Geo-Economics and Geopolitics of
COVID-19: Implications for European Security, International Institute for Strategic Studies
(IISS), March 2021, 23 pp. (Posted online March 16, 2021.)
Fabio Teixeira, “Over 20 Countries Found Weakening Environmental Protection During
Pandemic,” Reuters, March 11, 2021.
Edward Alden, “The Human Cost of Endless Pandemic Border Closures, One Year after the
World Declared Borders Shut, There Is Still No Plan to Reduce the Toll on Millions of Lives,”
Foreign Policy, February 26, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
14

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Simon Lester Huan Zhu, “The Danger of Blindly Navigating Data Nationalism, Digital Trade and
the Flow of Digital Information Are Certain to Grow in Prominence in the Future. The
Coronavirus Pandemic Has Pushed Their Growth Curve Along,” National Interest, February 21,
2021.
Judd Devermont, A Post-Covid-19 Reset, The Future of Africa’s Foreign Partnerships, Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), February 2021, 14 pp.
John R. Allen et al., “The World After the Coronavirus, We Asked 12 Leading Thinkers to Predict
What Happens in 2021 and Beyond,” Foreign Policy, January 2, 2021.
IISS Manama Dialogue 2020 Special Publication: The Strategic and Geo-economic Implications
of the COVID-19 Pandemic, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), December 2020,
54 pp.
Colum Lynch, “U.N. Peacemaking in the Age of Plague, United Nations Diplomats and Civil
Servants Fear Peace Efforts in Geneva May Aid the Spread of The Coronavirus,” Foreign Policy,
November 13, 2020.
Matthew Lavietes, “U.N. Says Pandemic Will Slow Already Miniscule Progress in Women’s
Rights,” Reuters, October 20, 2020.
Travis Bubenik, “Costlier Than War: Researchers Put Pandemic’s [U.S.] Price Tag at $16
Trillion,” Courthouse News Service, October 12, 2020.
Joseph S. Nye Jr., “COVID-19 Might Not Change the World, Pandemics Are Not Always
Transformative Events. While Some Worrying Preexisting Trends Could Accelerate, It’s Incorrect
to Assume that the Coronavirus Will End Globalization, Kill Liberal Democracy, or Enhance
China’s Soft Power,” Foreign Policy, October 9, 2020.
IGCC Experts, “Global Cooperation in the Time of COVID-19,” Institute on Global Conflict and
Cooperation, UC San Diego, October 5, 2020.
Vivek Wadhwa, “The Genetic Engineering Genie Is Out of the Bottle, the Next Pandemic Could
be Bioengineered in Someone’s Garage Using Cheap and Widely Available Technology,” Foreign
Policy, September 11, 2020.
Sohini Chatterjee and Mark P. Lagon, “The Cataclysmic Great Power Challenge Everyone Saw
Coming, Violent Extremism, Migration, Pandemics, and Climate Change Are Among the
Burgeoning List of Fundamental Challenges That Will Require Transnational Cooperation and
Collaboration,” National Interest, August 28, 2020.
Edward Alden, “The World Needs to Reopen Borders Before It’s Too Late, Even As They
Struggle to Control the Pandemic, Governments Should Move Quickly to Reopen Borders
Instead of Giving in to Xenophobia, Nationalism, and Illusions of Autarky,” Foreign Policy,
August 25, 2020.
Daniel W. Drezner, “The Song Remains the Same: International Relations After COVID-19,”
Cambridge University Press, August 19, 2020.
Michael R. Kenwick and Beth A. Simmons, “Pandemic Response as Border Politics,” Cambridge
University Press, August 19, 2020.
Mohan Malik, “The Pandemic’s Geopolitical Aftershocks,” Strategist (Australian Strategic
Policy Institute), August 4, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
15

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Seth A. Johnston, “The Pandemic and the Limits of Realism, The Foundational International
Relations Theory Has Been Revealed to Be Far Less Realistic Than It Claims,” Foreign Policy,
June 24, 2020.
James Goldgeier and Carmen Iezzi Mezzera, “How to Rethink the Teaching of International
Relations, As Universities Struggle to Respond to the Ongoing Pandemic, Here’s What They
Should Focus On,” Foreign Policy, June 12, 2020.
Stephen M. Walt, “The Pandemic’s 5 Silver Linings, The Coronavirus Has Exacted a Terrible
Toll—But Some Good Things May Come of It Yet,” Foreign Policy, May 26, 2020.
Tom McTague, “The Pandemic’s Geopolitical Aftershocks Are Coming, Western Capitals Aren’t
Just Worried About the Risk of a Resurgence in Coronavirus Cases,” Atlantic, May 18, 2020.
Stephen M. Walt, “Will a Global Depression Trigger Another World War? The Coronavirus
Pandemic Has Already Devastated the International Economy. Its Military Fallout Remains to Be
Seen,” Foreign Policy, May 13, 2020.
Phillip Y. Lipscy, “It’s Too Soon to Call Coronavirus Winners and Losers, Given how much
remains unknown about the virus, talk of success may be premature,” Foreign Policy, May 12,
2020.
Alan Nicol, “The Pandemic Is Laying Bare a Global Water Crisis, Insufficient Water for Washing
Is Likely to Worsen the Coronavirus in the Poorest Nations. There’s a Better Way Forward,”
Foreign Policy, May 12, 2020.
George H. Nash, “The Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 in Historical Perspective,” National
Review, May 11, 2020.
Edith M. Lederer, “UN Chief Says Pandemic Is Unleashing a ‘Tsunami of Hate,’” Associated
Press, May 8, 2020.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev, “Why the Coronavirus Won't Transform International Affairs Like 9/11
Did,” National Interest, May 5, 2020.
Deepanshu Mohan, “The Geopolitical Contours of a Post-COVID-19 World,” East Asia Forum,
May 2, 2020.
Andrew Ehrhardt, “Disease and Diplomacy in the 19th Century,” War on the Rocks, April 30,
2019.
Resilience in the Face of the Coronavirus Pandemic, World Politics Review report, May 2020, 47
pp. (Includes essays by various authors with the titles “Planning for the World After the
Coronavirus Pandemic,” “What It Will Take to Save Economies From the Coronavirus
Pandemic,” “Building Trust, Confidence and Collective Action in the Age of COVID-19,” “Why
Tackling Corruption Is Crucial to the Global Coronavirus Response,” and “The Geography of
COVID-19 and a Vulnerable Global Food System.”)
Iain King, “How Covid-19 Will Change Us: Seven Lessons from the Most Consequential
Pandemics in History,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), April 29, 2020.
Dmitri K. Simes, “The Perfect Storm,” National Interest, April 24, 2020.
Fred Kaplan, “What Happens if Oil Doesn’t Recover? If Demand Doesn’t Pick Up This Summer,
We Could See Major Shifts in Global Power,” Slate, April 23, 2020.
Barry R. Posen, “Do Pandemics Promote Peace? Why Sickness Slows the March to War,”
Foreign Affairs, April 23, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
16

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Joseph Cirincione, “How to Prevent War During the Coronavirus Pandemic, How Will the
Coronavirus Threaten Global Peace?” National Interest, April 22, 2020.
Frank Hoffman, “An American Perspective on Post-Pandemic Geopolitics,” RUSI, April 20,
2020.
Gordon Bardos, “Will the Coronavirus Crisis Force America to Look in the Mirror and Reform?”
National Interest, April 18, 2020.
Nicholas Eberstadt, “The “New Normal”: Thoughts about the Shape of Things to Come in the
Post-Pandemic World,” National Bureau of Asian Research, April 18, 2020.
Steve Coll, “Woodrow Wilson’s Case of the Flu, and How Pandemics Change History,” New
Yorker, April 17, 2020.
Ravi Kant, “Coronavirus: An Ice-Nine Moment for the World,” Asia Times, April 15, 2020.
Jackson Diehl, “The Pandemic Is Killing Truth, Too,” Washington Post, April 12, 2020.
Edith M. Lederer, “UN Chief Warns COVID-19 Threatens Global Peace and Security,”
Associated Press, April 10, 2020.
Richard Haass, “The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather Than Reshape It, Not Every Crisis
Is a Turning Point, Foreign Affairs, April 7, 2020.
Stratfor Worldview, “How the Coronavirus Pandemic Is Changing the World—and the Future,”
National Interest, April 4, 2020.
Daniel W. Drezner, “The Most Counterintuitive Prediction about World Politics and the
Coronavirus, What If Nothing Changes?” Washington Post, March 30, 2020.
Ali Demirdas, “Western Values May Not Survive the Coronavirus. European Unity and American
Military Power Just Haven’t Held Up,” National Interest, March 28, 2020.
John Allen et al., “How the World Will Look after the Coronavirus Pandemic,” Foreign Policy,
March 20, 2020. (Includes short contributions from 12 authors.)
Maxine Whittaker, “How Infectious Diseases Have Shaped Our Culture, Habits and Language,”
The Conversation, July 12, 2017.
World Order, International Institutions, and Global Governance
Andrew Ehrhardt, “International Order Through the Historian’s Eye,” War on the Rocks,
November 22, 2021. (Book review of Colin Kahl and Thomas Wright, Aftershocks: Pandemic
Politics and the End of the Old International Order, St. Martin’s Press; 464 pp.)
Economist, “Two New Books Assess the Geopolitical Lessons of Covid-19, They Are Bleak, Say
‘Aftershocks’ and ‘Geopolitics for the End Time,’” Economist, October 9, 2021. (Book review of
Colin Kahl and Thomas Wright, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old
International Order, St. Martin’s Press; 464 pp., and Bruno Maçães, Geopolitics for the End
Time, Hurst; 240 pp.)
Rosemary Flowers-Wanjie, “Rich Countries Are Ignoring the Global Vaccine System, Money
Isn’t the Problem. Power Is,” Foreign Policy, September 23, 2021.
Jeneen Interlandi, “The World Is at War With Covid. Covid Is Winning,” New York Times,
September 21, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
17

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and Lawrence H. Summers, “We Don’t Have
to Fly Blind into the Next Pandemic,” Washington Post, September 16, 2021.
Adam Tooze, “What if the Coronavirus Crisis Is Just a Trial Run?” New York Times, September 1,
2021.
Catherine Osborn, “COVAX Is Not Working, Will the Pandemic’s Delta Phase be More
Equitable?” Foreign Policy, August 6, 2021.
Simon Frankel Pratt and Jamie Levin, “Vaccines Will Shape the New Geopolitical Order, The
Gulf Between Haves and Have-Nots is Only Growing,” Foreign Policy, April 29, 2021.
Nina Schwalbe, “The World Should Treat Pandemics Like It Treats Chemical Weapons, Plans for
a Global Pandemic Treaty Don’t Solve the Problem of China’s Refusal to Cooperate,” Foreign
Policy, April 14, 2021.
Scott Neuman, “Many World Leaders Call For Treaty On Future Pandemics,” NPR, March 30,
2021.
Helen V. Milner, Susan Peterson, Ryan Powers, Michael J. Tierney, and Erik Voeten, “Trump,
COVID-19, and the Future of International Order, In a New Survey, International Relations
Experts Are Pessimistic About the Years to Come,” Foreign Policy, October 8, 2020.
Seth Center and Emma Bates, editors, After Disruption: Historical Perspectives on the Future of
International Order, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), September 2020, 65
pp.
Hung Tran, “One World, Two Systems” Takes Shape During the Pandemic, Atlantic Council,
September 2020, 10 pp.
Brett D. Schaefer and Danielle Pletka, “How the WHO Can Earn Back U.S. Support,” Heritage
Foundation, August 17, 2020.
Bobo Lo, “Global Order in the Shadow of the Coronavirus: China, Russia and the West, It’s Time
to Rethink Global Governance and its Priorities,” Lowy Institute, July 29, 2020.
Robert D. Blackwill Thomas Wright, “Why COVID-19 Presents a World Reordering Moment,”
National Interest, July 11, 2020.
Jeffrey Cimmino et al., A Global Strategy for Shaping the Post-COVID-19 World, Atlantic
Council, 2020 (released July 7, 2020), 52 pp.
Mary Robinson, “Multilateralism Offers Hope for a Sea-Change after COVID-19,” The Hill, June
26, 2020.
Aparna Pande, “India Could Emerge as the Global Power the World Has Been Waiting for After
COVID,” Hudson Institute, June 8, 2020.
James Crabtree, “Welcome to a World of Bubbles, Countries Across Europe and Asia Are
Exploring Special Bilateral Arrangements to Ease Border Restrictions. The Result Could Be a
Globe Fractured Along Epidemiological Lines,” Foreign Policy, June 1, 2020.
Jeffrey Cimmino, Matthew Kroenig, and Barry Pavel, Taking Stock: Where Are Geopolitics
Headed in the COVID-19 Era? Atlantic Council, June 2020, 20 pp.
Congressional Research Service
18

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

U.S. Global Leadership and Role in World
Krishna B. Kumar, “America Can Still Deliver on Global Vaccine Diplomacy,” National Interest,
December 28, 2021.
Eric Banco, “‘It’s a Sore Spot for a Lot of People’: Why Officials Are Raising Questions About
Biden’s Vaccine Donations,” Politico, December 8, 2021.
Carmen Paun, “Blinken Announces New Efforts to Speed Global Vaccination,” Politico Pro,
November 10, 2021.
Vidya Krishnan, “How to End Vaccine Apartheid, The United States Has Failed on Its Boast to
Be an ‘Arsenal Of Vaccines,’” Foreign Policy, November 9, 2021.
Andrea Shalal, “U.S., Indonesia Call for New G20 Forum to Prepare for Next Pandemic,”
Reuters, October 26, 2021.
David Brunnstrom, “U.S. Says Delivering on Vaccine Pledge to Asia Key to Quad Credibility,”
Reuters, October 20, 2021.
Jonah Blank, “Biden Can Bounce Back From Afghanistan—By Vaccinating the World, My
Former Boss Has a Rare Opportunity to Prove His Critics Wrong,” Foreign Policy, September 10,
2021.
Katherine Eban, “How ‘Micromanagement and Distrust’ Hobbled Biden’s Global Vaccination
Push, The White House Says It Is Donating More Doses Than ‘All Other Countries Combined,’
But Critics Inside and Outside the U.S. Government Warn of an Effort that Is ‘Wildly
Insufficient,’” Vanity Fair, September 9, 2021.
Isaac Chotiner, “Has the Biden Administration Failed on Global Vaccines? Krishna Udayakumar,
The Founding Director of Duke’s Global Health Innovation Center, Describes What the U.S.
Needs to Do Now to Support Vaccination Around the World,” New Yorker, August 31, 2021.
Eric A. Friedman and Lawrence O. Gostin, “The Whole World Needs Vaccines Before a Worse
Variant Than Delta Arrives, The United States Has to Put Global Health First Unless It Wants a
New Disaster,” Foreign Policy, August 24, 2021.
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), US Emergency Plan for Global COVID-19
Relief: Urgent Action to End the Pandemic Globally and Accelerate US Recovery and Security,
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), August 3, 2021, 9 pp.
Oluwatosin Adeshokan et al., “Africa Reacts to U.S. Vaccine Distribution at Home and Abroad,”
Cener for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), July 29, 2021.
CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security, Time to Escalate U.S. Leadership
on Covid-19 and Beyond, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), July 2021, 16 pp.
(Posted online July 21, 2021.) (The report states on its final page that its authors are Julie
Gerberding, Susan Brooks, J. Stephen Morrison, Anna McCaffrey, and Katherine E. Bliss.)
Robbie Gramer, “Biden to Ship Millions of Vaccines to Africa, The United States Will Donate 25
Million Doses as African Countries Reel from a Third Wave of COVID-19,” Foreign Policy, July
16, 2021.
Michael Gerson, “Covid-19’s Global Spread is a Test for America,” Washington Post, July 15,
2021.
Robert Zoellick, “Liberal Democracies Are Running Out of Time to Save the rest of the Planet
from Covid,” Washington Post, July 9, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
19

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Derek Thompson, “World War II’s Lesson for After the Pandemic, The U.S. Needs Another
Innovation Dream Team,” Atlantic, June 28, 2021.
David Adesnik, “America’s Syrian Allies Deserve the COVID-19 Vaccine, They Vanquished the
Islamic State and Are Now in Desperate Need of Aid,” Foreign Policy, June 22, 2021.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “Biden Boosts Vaccine-Sharing, Says U.S. Soon Will Outpace
Donations By Russia, China,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, May 18, 2021.
Christian Paz, “America’s Vaccine Nationalism Isn’t Working, The Longer It Takes for the United
States to Lead a Global Response, the More the Risks Compound,” Atlantic, May 13, 2021.
Karen DeYoung, “Samantha Power Wants to Restore U.S. Prestige by Getting American-made
Vaccines ‘Into Arms’ Around the World,” Washington Post, May 11 (updated May 12), 2021.
Dan Diamond and Tyler Pager, “‘Where is the plan?’: Biden Pressed on Global Vaccine Strategy,
Critics Say the Administration Has Taken a Piecemeal Approach to the Worsening International
Crisis,” Washington Post, May 9, 2021.
Chelsea Clinton and Achal Prabhala, “Biden Has the Power to Vaccinate the World, He Should
Use It,” Atlantic, May 5, 2021.
Tom Frieden and Marine Buissonnière, “The U.S. Has the Power to Tamp Down Coronavirus
Variants—If We’re Willing to Use It,” Politico, March 2, 2021.
Gregory B. Poling, “Embracing a Pandemic-Centered Foreign Policy,” Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS), March 1, 2021.
Dan Diamond and Jeff Stein, “White House Is Split Over How to Vaccinate the World,”
Washington Post, April 30, 2021.
Michael Hirsh, “Health Experts Slam Biden’s ‘Massive’ Global Leadership Failure, Biden’s
Speech to Congress Ignores His Dithering on COVID-19 Vaccine Patents, Jeopardizing Millions
of Lives in Other Nations, Critics Say.,” Foreign Policy, April 29, 2021.
J. Stephen Morrison, Katherine E. Bliss, and Anna McCaffrey, The Time Is Now for U.S. Global
Leadership on Covid-19 Vaccines, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), April
2021, 11 pp. (Posted online April 14, 2021.)
Anne Applebaum, “What America’s Vaccination Campaign Proves to the World, The U.S.
Stumbled Early in the Pandemic, But the Vaccine Rollout Could Reboot the Country’s Image,”
Atlantic, April 10, 2021.
Azmi Haroun, “Global NGOs Call on the Biden Administration to Concoct a Plan for Sharing
Vaccine Surplus with Nations in Need,” Business Insider, March 30, 2021.
Justin Talbot Zorn and Mathias Alencastro, “In Brazil, Vaccine Diplomacy Can Help Save the
Climate, Washington Should Bypass Bolsonaro and Open a Direct Dialogue on Amazon
Deforestation with Local Leaders in Regions Hit Hard by COVID-19,” Foreign Policy, March
30, 2021.
John Oldfield, “We Need US Leadership on Water Security to Combat COVID-19 Globally,” The
Hill, March 29, 2021.
Thomas J. Bollyky, “Democracies Keep Vaccines for Themselves, President Biden’s Pledge to
Mexico Is an Exception from a Stark Pattern.,” Atlantic, March 27, 2021.
Dave Lawler, “Biden’s Next Challenge: Vaccine Diplomacy,” Axios, March 22, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
20

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Selam Gebrekidan and Matt Apuzzo, “Rich Countries Signed Away a Chance to Vaccinate the
World, Despite Warnings, American and European Officials Gave Up Leverage that Could Have
Guaranteed Access for Billions of People. That Risks Prolonging the Pandemic,” New York
Times, March 21 (updated May 7), 2021.
Jason Marczak and Cristina Guevara, COVID-19 Recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean:
A Partnership Strategy for the Biden Administration, Atlantic Council, March 2021, 37 pp.
(Posted online March 16, 2021.)
Colm Quinn, “G-7 Scrambles for Global Vaccine Plan, After Months of Warnings, the Group of
Wealthy Nations Has Begun to Put Forward Solutions to the Lopsided Distribution of
Coronavirus Vaccines,” Foreign Policy, February 19, 2021.
Emily Rauhala, Erin Cunningham, and Adam Taylor, “White House Announces $4 Billion in
Funding for Covax, the Global Vaccine Effort that Trump Spurned,” Washington Post, February
18, 2021.
Jan Tore Sanner, “Why the Rich World Cannot Afford to Leave the Poor Behind on Vaccines,”
Government.no (Government of Norway), February 16, 2021.
Alex Leary, “Biden to Join G-7 Leaders in Virtual Meeting to Discuss Pandemic Response,” Wall
Street Journal, February 14, 2021.
Ethan Guillén, “End the Pandemic Faster by Listening to Developing Countries, Biden Has a
Golden Opportunity to Help with Global Vaccines,” Foreign Policy, February 8, 2021.
Jonathan Tepperman, “The Global Vaccine Rollout Is Failing—and That Puts Everyone,
Everywhere, In Danger, The Selfish Reasons the United States and Europe Must Help Poor
Countries Deal with COVID-19,” Foreign Policy, January 28, 2021.
White House, “National Security Directive on United States Global Leadership to Strengthen the
International COVID-19 Response and to Advance Global Health Security and Biological
Preparedness,” National Security Directive 1, White House, January 21, 2021.
Kenneth C. Brill, “COVID-19 Vaccine Lessons for American Diplomacy after Trump,” The Hill,
January 14, 2021.
China’s Potential Role as a Global Leader
Christian Shepherd, “Covid Pushed China Away from the World Stage. But Its Global Ambitions
Persist,” Washington Post, November 19, 2021.
Gideon Rachman, “China’s Self-Isolation Is a Global Concern, Beijing’s Zero-Covid Policy Is
Damaging International Business and Global Governance,” Financial Times, November 8, 2021.
James T. Areddy, “China Aims to Export 2 Billion Covid-19 Vaccines This Year, Commitment
Expands Chinese Diplomatic Effort to Help Developing Nations, as Delta Variant Spreads,” Wall
Street Journal, August 6, 2021.
Sui-Lee Wee, “They Relied on Chinese Vaccines. Now They’re Battling Outbreaks. More Than
90 Countries Are Using Covid Shots from China. Experts Say Recent Infections in Those Places
Should Serve As a Cautionary Tale in the Global Effort to Fight the Disease,” New York Times,
June 22 (updated June 28), 2021.
Raymond Zhong and Christopher F. Schuetze, “Taiwan Wants German Vaccines. China May Be
Standing in Its Way,” New York Times, June 16 (updated June 22), 2021.
Congressional Research Service
21

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Associated Press, “Taiwan Says China Exploiting Vaccines for Political Gain,” Associated Press,
June 3, 2021.
Adam Taylor and Paul Schemm, “China’s Great Vaccine Hope, Sinopharm, Sees Reputation
Darkened Amid Covid Spikes in Countries Using It,” Washington Post, June 3, 2021.
Uwagbale Edward-Ekpu, “China’s Vaccine Outreach in Africa is Falling Short of Beijing’s
Pledges,” Quartz Africa, May 21, 2021.
Ben Smith, “When Covid Hit, China Was Ready to Tell Its Version of the Story, The Government
Has Been Using Its Money and Power to Create an Alternative to a Global News Media
Dominated by Outlets like the BBC and CNN,” New York Times, May 9 (updated May 29), 2021.
Vincent Ni, “Border Dispute Casts Shadow over China’s Offers of Covid Help for India,”
Guardian, April 29, 2021.
Isabel Bernhard, “Latin America Believed in Chinese Vaccines. Now It May Have Reason to
Rethink, China’s Latest Disclosure Could Reconfigure Regional Politics and Promote Domestic
Development Across the Americas,” Diplomat, April 21, 2021.
Kareem Fahim and Karen DeYoung, “China Has Made Big Vaccine Promises. When They Come
Up Short, Nations Struggle,” Washington Post, April 7, 2021.
James Palmer, “China’s Vaccine Diplomacy Has Mixed Results, Concerns About the Efficacy of
Sinovac and Sinopharm Has Dented Their Reputation, Even Among Allies of Beijing,” Foreign
Policy, April 7, 2021.
Francisco Urdinez, China’s Improvised Mask Diplomacy in Chile, Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, April 2021, 30 pp. (Posted online April 6, 2021.)
Richard Javad Heydarian, “China’s Vaccine Diplomacy Stumbles in Southeast Asia, Delays and
Concerns About the Efficacy and Politics of China’s Vaccine Shipments Plague Its Vaccine Drive
in the Region,” Al Jazeera, April 5, 2021.
Eli Lake, “China’s Claims of Exoneration on Covid Ring Hollow, Even the Head of the World
Health Organization Found Its Report on the Pandemic’s Origins Insufficient,” Bloomberg, April,
2, 2021.
Emily Rauhala, “WHO Chief, U.S. and Other World Leaders Criticize China for Limiting Access
of Team Researching Coronavirus Origins,” Washington Post, March 30, 2021.
Rajni George, “At China’s Borders, “Vaccine Passports” Just Got Real, In Announcing It Would
Prioritize Travelers Who Had Received Chinese-Made Vaccines, Beijing Sparked Outrage in
Countries Where Those Aren’t Available,” Foreign Policy, March 25, 2021.
Elliot Hannon, “China’s Happy to Share Its COVID-19 Vaccines, but Not the Data Showing if
They Actually Work,” Slate, March 24, 2021.
Eva Dou and Shibani Mahtani, “China’s Vaccine Diplomacy Stumbles as Clinical Trial Data
Remains Absent,” Washington Post, March 23, 2021.
Bret Schafer, Amber Frankland, Nathan Kohlenberg, and Etienne Soula, “Influence-enza: How
Russia, China, and Iran Have Shaped and Manipulated Coronavirus Vaccine Narratives,” Alliance
for Securing Democracy (German Marshall Fud of the United States), March 6, 2021.
Huizhong Wu and Kristen Gelineau, “Chinese Vaccines Sweep Much of the World, Despite
Concerns,” Associated Press, March 2, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
22

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Laura Pitel, “Turkey’s Uighurs Fear Betrayal over Chinese Vaccines and Trade, Erdogan Accused
of Toning down Rhetoric about Oppressed Muslims to Avoid Upsetting Beijing,” Financial
Times, February 24, 2021.
Mordechai Chaziza, “Chinese Health Diplomacy and the Maghreb in the COVID-19 Era,” Middle
East Institute, February 23, 2021.
Yang Lizhong and Chen Dingding, “Is China’s COVID-19 Diplomacy Working in Southeast
Asia? A Recent Poll Suggests a Mixed Picture for China,” Diplomat, February 20, 2021.
Jason Hung, “In China’s ‘Vaccine Diplomacy’ with the Philippines, Both Sides Are Taking Big
Risks,” East-West Center, February 19, 2021.
Lucien O. Chauvin, Anthony Faiola, and Eva Dou, “Squeezed Out of the Race for Western
Vaccines, Developing Countries Turn to China,” Washington Post, February 16, 2021.
Erika Kinetz, “Anatomy of a Conspiracy: With COVID, China Took leading Role,” Associated
Press, February 15, 2021.
Alex Leary, “U.S. Expresses ‘Deep Concerns’ Over China Withholding Data From Pandemic
Investigators,” Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2021.
Javier C. Hernández and James Gorman, “On W.H.O. Trip, China Refused to Hand Over
Important Data,” New York Times, February 12, 2021.
U.S. Relations and Great Power Competition with China
and Russia
Adam Taylor, “Beijing and Moscow Are Losing the Vaccine Diplomacy Battle,” Washington
Post, January 11, 2022.
Anna Nishino, “Pharmacy of the World: China’s Quest to be the No. 1 Drugmaker,” Nekkei Asia,
December 23, 2021.
Paul Stronski, “Russian COVID-19 Diplomacy in Africa: A Mixed Bag,” Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, December 10, 2021.
Matthew Renda, “Covid-Related Social Media Disinformation Campaign by China Fell Flat,”
Courthouse News, Service, December 1, 2021.
“China, Russia Used Pandemic Disinformation to Undermine U.S., Report Says,” Washington
Times, November 15, 2021.
Christian Johnson and William Marcellino, Bad Actors in News Reporting, Tracking News
Manipulation by State Actors, RAND, 2021, 19 pp.
Chao Deng and Joe Parkinson, “China’s Army Furnishes Foreign Militaries With Covid-19
Vaccines, The People’s Liberation Army Has Helped Further Beijing’s Global Interests During
the Pandemic, Bringing Doses Directly to Militaries,” Wall Street Journal, November 8, 2021.
China Power Team, “Is China Succeeding at Shaping Global Narratives about Covid-19?” China
Power (Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]). October 22 (updated November 8),
2021.
Anna Nishino, “Production, Politics and Propaganda, How Beijing Has Shaped the International
COVID Immunization Drive,” Nikkei Asia, October 12, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
23

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Bonny Lin, Matthew P. Funaiole, Brian Hart, and Hannah Price, “China Is Exploiting the
Pandemic to Advance Its Interests, with Mixed Results,” Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), September 30, 2021.
China Power Team. “Is China’s Covid-19 Diplomacy Succeeding?” China Power (Center for
Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]), September 23 (updated September 30), 2021.
Bob Herman, “The U.S. Isn’t Vaccinating Most of the World — But China Might,” Axios,
September 13, 2021.
Asif Muztaba Hassan, “China Swoops Into Bangladesh With a Vaccine Deal, It Bided Its Time
and When India Halted Supply of Vaccines to Bangladesh, It Saw Opportunity and Struck,”
Diplomat, August 24, 2021.
Sui-Lee Wee and Steven Lee Myers, “As Chinese Vaccines Stumble, U.S. Finds New Opening in
Asia, Several Southeast Asian Nations Are Raising Doubts about the Efficacy of China’s
Vaccines. The Biden Administration Has Recently Offered to Provide Shots, ‘No Strings
Attached,’” New York Times, August 20 (updated September 30), 2021.
James Palmer, “Why China Keeps Spinning COVID-19 Conspiracies, A Fake Expert Is the Latest
Part of a State Media Push to Blame the United States for the Pandemic—at Great Diplomatic
Cost,” Foreign Policy, August 11, 2021.
Shibani Mahtani, “Ravaged by Delta Outbreak, Southeast Asia Shifts Away from China’s
Vaccines,” Washington Post, August 10, 2021.
Bloomberg News, “China’s Covid-Zero Strategy Risks Leaving It Isolated for Years,”
Bloomberg, August 9, 2021.
Sui-Lee Wee, “China Says It Will Provide 2 Billion Vaccine Doses to the World. The Pledge,
Which Included a $100 Million Donation to Covax, Intensifies Competition with the U.S. over
Leadership in Ending the Pandemic,” New York Times, August 6 (updated August 9), 2021.
Julian E. Barnes, “Russian Disinformation Targets Vaccines and the Biden Administration, A New
Campaign Appears to be Spreading Falsehoods about the Potential for Forced Inoculations
Against Covid-19,” New York Times, August 5 (updated September 20), 2021.
Jonathan Barrett, “Biden Pledges ‘No Strings’ Pacific Pandemic Support,” Reuters, August 5,
2021.
Nick Baker, “China Has Accused Australia of Vaccine Sabotage in the Pacific. Here’s why, A
Spat Between China and Australia over Covid-19 Vaccines Highlights the Tense Geopolitics of
the Pacific Region,” NBC News, August 2, 2021.
Jake Rudnitsky, “Russia’s Global Vaccine Ambitions Stumble During Supply Shortage,”
Bloomberg, July 30, 2021.
Benjamin Ho, “Why China Will Not Cooperate with the West: The Pandemic Made Things
Worse, Beijing Sees Vaccine Diplomacy as a Crucial Means with Which to Convince Other
Countries of Its Goodwill and Friendship. It Wants to Seize the Moral High Ground to Claim that
It Is Superior to the West,” National Interest, July 25, 2021.
By Samuel Ramani, “Vaccines Are Japan’s New Tool to Counter China, Despite Its Worsening
Pandemic, Tokyo’s Vaccine Diplomacy Has Gained Traction,” Foreign Policy, July 23, 2021.
Julia Hollingsworth and Ben Westcott, “A Pacific Nation’s Covid-19 Crisis Has Become a
Political Power Play between China and Australia,” CNN, July 19, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
24

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Chloe Lim And Nile Bowie, “China’s Vaccine Diplomacy Falters in SE Asia, Regional Nations
Are Abandoning Chinese Vaccines for Western Ones as Evidence Mounts Sinovac Is Less Potent
Against the Delta Strain,” Asia Times, July 19, 2021.
Josh Rogin, “China’s Vaccine Profiteering at the U.N. Is Being Funded by U.S. Taxpayers,”
Washington Post, July 15, 2021.
R. Evan Ellis, “Vaccine Diplomacy in Latin America, Caribbean a PR Coup for China,” National
Defense, July 12, 2021.
Robbie Gramer, “U.S. Blunts China’s Vaccine Diplomacy in Latin America, The Biden
Administration Ships Millions of Vaccines to the Region As Its Public Health Crisis Worsens,”
Foreign Policy, July 9, 2021.
Alexey Kovalev, “The Shocking Enormity of Russia’s Botched Pandemic Response, A Massive
Third Wave Is Spreading Unchecked, Anti-vaxxers Are Rampant, and the Kremlin’s Vaccine
Diplomacy has failed,” Foreign Policy, July 5, 2021.
Tyler Durden, “How China Became The Big Winner Of The COVID Era,” ZeroHedge, July 3,
2021.
Sinikukka Saari, Russia’s Corona Diplomacy and Geoeconomic Competition, A Sputnik Moment?
Finnish Institute of International Affairs, July 2021, 8 pp.
Rintaro Hosokawa, “Vaccines and Rifts Dominate First G-20 Ministers Meeting in 2 Years,”
Chinese FM Calls on Countries to Stop ‘Export Restrictions and Excessive Hoarding,’” Nikkei
Asia, June 30, 2021.
Shaun Tandon and Gildas Le Roux (Agence France-Presse), “US Urges Covid Cooperation at
G20 as China Critical,” Yahoo News, June 29, 2021.
Koji Sugimoto and George Yin, “With Vaccine Diplomacy to Taiwan, U.S. and Japan Steal March
on China, Vaccine Diplomacy Is Not Just About Winning ‘Hearts and Minds’ but Also
Realpolitik,” National Interest, June 28, 2021.
Samuel Ramani, “With Sputnik V, Russia Shot Itself in the Foot, High Prices, Delayed Deliveries,
and Questions About Efficacy Raise Suspicions about Russia’s Vaccine Diplomacy in Africa,”
Foreign Policy, June 24, 2021.
Reuben Johnson, “COVID, Hacking, and Spying Helped China Develop a New Stealth Fighter in
Record Time, In the West, the Pandemic Put the Defense Industry on Hold. In China, the Military
Used the Time to Make Big Advances,” Bulwark, June 23, 2021.
Deborah Seligsohn, “Demands for a Lab Leak Investigation Are a Dangerous Distraction, U.S.-
China Cooperation Is Vital for Global Health Efforts,” Foreign Policy, June 18, 2021.
Josh Rogin, “To Push Back Against Chinese Aggression, Give Taiwan Vaccines,” Washington
Post, June 17 (updated June 25), 2021.
Niharika Mandhana and Sha Hua, “China Steps Into Covid-19 Vaccine Void in Asia’s Developing
Nations, Shots Developed by Chinese Companies Have Been a Conspicuous Part of the Rollouts
in the First Half of 2021, Helping Beijing Strengthen Regional Ties,” New York Times, June 16,
2021.
Oliver Stuenkel, “Vaccine Diplomacy Boosts China’s Standing in Latin America, Beijing Has
Increased Its Leverage in the Region—but Washington Can Still Stage a Comeback,” Foreign
Policy, June 11, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
25

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Jack Detsch, “U.S.-China Spat Over Taiwan Extends to Vaccine Diplomacy, The United States Is
Providing Hundreds of Thousands of Vaccines Right in China’s Front Yard,” Foreign Policy, June
11, 2021.
Matthew Dalton, “France Suspects Russian Role in Campaign to Discredit Pfizer Vaccine,
Several French Bloggers Said They Received Emails Offering to Pay for Social-Media Videos
Criticizing the Covid-19 Vaccine,” Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2021.
Dan De Luce, “China is Using Vaccines to Push Its Agenda in Latin America, and the U.S. Is
Behind the Curve, Experts Say, Latin American Officials Say China Has Pushed Their Countries
to Cut Ties with Taiwan in Return for Badly Needed Covid-19 Vaccines,” NBC News, May 23,
2021.
Michael Martina, “U.S. Says Condemns Political Use of Vaccines after China-Taiwan Tussle,”
Reuters, May 14, 2021.
Ben Westcott, “China and Russia Want to Vaccinate the Developing World Before the West. It’s
Brought Them Closer Than Ever,” CNN, May 11, 2021.
Meia Nouwens, The Evolving Nature of China’s Military Diplomacy: From Visits to Vaccines,
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), May 2021, 15 pp. (Posted online May 10,
2021.)
Iain Marlow, Sudhi Ranjan Sen, and James Paton, “World Turns to China for Vaccines After
India, U.S. Stumble,” Bloomberg, May 6 (updated May 7), 2021.
Nicholas G. Evans and Mark Eccleston-Turner, “COVID-19 Vaccine Nationalism Will Cost Lives
Worldwide,” Slate, May 3, 2021.
Krishna Kumar, “Why America Must Do More to Vaccinate the World’s Population,” National
Interest, May 3, 2021.
Andrew Higgins, “Russian Attempts to Expand Sputnik Vaccine Set Off Discord in Europe,” New
York Times, May 2 (updated May 5), 2021.
Miriam Matthews, Katya Migacheva, and Ryan Andrew Brown, Superspreaders of Malign and
Subversive Information on COVID-19, Russian and Chinese Efforts Targeting the United States,
RAND, 2021, 82 pp.
Euronews, “EU Slams Russia and China for Western Vaccines Disinformation Campaign,”
Euronews, April 29, 2021.
Robin Emmott, “Russia, China sow disinformation to undermine trust in Western vaccines: EU,”
Reuters, April 28, 2021.
Akhil Ramesh, “On Vaccines, Globalists Are Nationalists and Nationalists Are Gobalists,” The
Hill, April 27, 2021.
Josh Rogin, “The United States Can’t Ignore China’s Vaccine Diplomacy in Latin America,”
Washington Post, April 22, 2021.
Georgia Leatherdale-Gilholy, “Could India’s Vaccine Diplomacy Displace China?” National
Interest, April 20, 2021.
Harsh V. Pant and Premesha Saha, “India’s Vaccine Diplomacy Reaches Taiwan,” National
Interest, April 20, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
26

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Hal Brands, “America’s Come-From-Behind Pandemic Victory, China Was the Global Winner of
the Coronavirus Disaster—Until the United States Beat the Odds,” Foreign Policy, April 16,
2021.
Eckart Woertz and Roie Yellinek, “Vaccine Diplomacy in the MENA Region,” Middle East
Institute, April 14, 2021.
Dalibor Rohac, “Sputnik V’s Biggest Legacy May Be Political Turmoil, In Eastern European
Countries That Have Accepted the Russian Vaccine, Destabilization Has Followed,” Foreign
Policy, April 14, 2021.
Cecilia Yap and Andreo Calonzo, “Philippines Asks U.S. for Vaccine Help as China Tensions
Grow,” Bloomberg, April 11, 2021.
Reuters Staff, “Taiwan Says China Uses COVID-19 Vaccines to Press Paraguay to Break Ties,”
Reuters, April 7, 2021. (See also Bill Bostock, “Taiwan Accused China of Trying to Bribe
Paraguay with COVID-19 Vaccines to Make It Stop Recognizing Taiwan,” Business Insider,
April 7, 2021; Agence France-Presse, “Taiwan Accuses Beijing of Luring Paraguay with
‘Vaccine Diplomacy,” France 24, April 7, 2021; BBC, “Taiwan Accuses China of ‘Vaccine
Diplomacy’ in Paraguay,” BBC, April 7, 2021.)
Reuters Staff, “Taiwan Says India Helped Paraguay Get Vaccines After China Pressure,” Reuters,
April 7, 2021.
Luke McGee, “Europe Is Torn Over Whether to Take Putin’s Help on Vaccines,” CNN, April 3,
2021.
Georgi Kantchev and Laurence Norman, “With EU’s Covid-19 Vaccine Drive in Disarray, Russia
Sees an Opening, Despite Tensions with Moscow, Some EU Leaders Back the Sputnik V Shot,
Which Could Offer Kremlin a Soft Power Coup,” Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2021.
Tim Gosling, “Russia and China Are Exploiting Europe’s Vaccine Shortfalls, Slovakia’s Prime
Minister Has Resigned Over a Secret Delivery of Moscow’s Sputnik V as Brussels Struggles to
Keep the EU United,” Foreign Policy, March 31, 2021.
Yasmeen Serhan, “Here’s How Russia and China Are Helping the U.S., Beijing and Moscow Are
Filling the Vaccine Gap That Wealthy Countries Helped Create,” Atlantic, March 30, 2021.
Hal Brands, “America Is Overtaking China in Vaccine Diplomacy, China Squandered Its Early
Advantages, and Now the U.S. Government and Drug Makers Are Leading a Second-Half
Comeback,” Bloomberg, March 23, 2021.
Erik Brattberg, “Middle Power Diplomacy in an Age of US-China Tensions,” Washington
Quarterly, Spring 202: 219-238. (Published online March 23, 2021.)
Otto Lanzavecchia, “Old Friends in Italy Join Russia’s Vaccine Offensive,” Center for European
Policy Analysis (CEPA), March 19, 2021.
Sadanand Dhume, “India Beats China at Vaccine Diplomacy, But New Delhi’s Massive Success
Is a Function of Collaboration with the West, Not ‘Self-Reliance,’” Wall Street Journal, March
18, 2021.
Austin Bay, “On Point: Russia Joins China's Wuhan Virus Lie Campaign,” Strategy Page, March
17, 2021.
John Bowden, “Kremlin: Pressure on Countries to Refuse Russian COVID-19 Vaccine ‘Quite
Unprecedented,’” The Hill, March 16, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
27

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

John Grady, “SOUTHCOM’s Faller: China Used Pandemic to Expand ‘Corrosive, Insidious
Influence’ in Central, South America, U.S. Influence ‘Eroding,’” USNI News, March 16 (updated
March 17), 2021.
Jeff Pao, “China, Quad Slug It Out in Vaccine Diplomacy Fight, Beijing and Washington Use
Low-Cost Vaccines to Win Hearts and Minds in Poor and Under-Developed Countries,” Asia
Times, March 16, 2021.
Daniele Carminati, “The Ups and Downs of Soft Power in the Asia-Pacific, The Coronavirus
Pandemic Has Shifted the Relative ‘Soft power’ Standing of Leading Powers,” Diplomat, March
15, 2021.
Ernesto Londoño and Letícia Casado, “Brazil Needs Vaccines. China Is Benefiting, China Is a
Major Supplier of Coronavirus Vaccine, Giving It Enormous Leverage in Pandemic-Ravaged
Nations. Brazil, Recently Hostile to the Chinese Company Huawei, Has Suddenly Changed Its
Stance,” New York Times, March 15, 2021.
Edward Lucas, Jake Morris, and Corina Rebegea, Information Bedlam: Russian and Chinese
Information Operations During Covid-19, Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), 2021, 20
pp. (Posted online March 15, 2021.)
Eric Bellman, “U.S. Taps Indian Covid-19 Vaccine Production Prowess to Inoculate Indo-
Pacific,” Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2021.
Nathaniel Weixel, “US Comes under Pressure to Share Vaccines with Rest of World,” The Hill,
March 14, 2021.
David Brunnstrom, Michael Martina, and Jeff Mason, “U.S., India, Japan and Australia Counter
China with Billion-Dose Vaccine Pact,” Reuters, March 12, 2021.
Michael J. Green, “Quad Summit’s Vaccine Deal Is Biden’s Bold First Move in Asia, It’s a Smart
Step to Counter China, but the Next Ones Won’t Be as Easy,” Foreign Policy, March 12, 2021.
Demetri Sevastopulo, Amy Kazmin, and Jamie Smyth, “US and Asia Allies Launch Major
Vaccine Drive to Counter China, The 1bn Covid Jabs Will be Funded by US and Japan, Made in
India and Distributed by Australia,” Financial Times, March 12, 2021.
David Wainer and Patrick Gillespie, “It’s ‘America First’ on Vaccines as Russia, China Fill Gap,”
Bloomberg, March 12, 2021.
Anne Gearan and Miriam Berger, “Biden Faces Pressure to Distribute Vaccines Worldwide,
While Americans Still Need Them at Home,” Washington Post, March 11, 2021.
Yanzhong Huang, “Vaccine Diplomacy Is Paying Off for China, Beijing Hasn’t Won the Soft-
Power Stakes, but It Has an Early Lead,” Foreign Affairs, March 11, 2021.
Philip Blenkinsop, “Rich, Developing Nations Wrangle over COVID Vaccine Patents,” Reuters,
March 10, 2021.
Dinko Hanaan Dinko, “How ‘Mask Diplomacy’ Rescued China's Image in Africa, While Beijing
Was Nimbly Pivoting, the U.S. Continued to Let Its Relationships Wither,” Defense One, March
10, 2021.
Joel Gehrke, “US Eager to Beat China at Vaccine Diplomacy Game,” Washington Examiner,
March 10, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
28

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Rafi Khetab, “How America Can Outcompete China in an Age of Global Pandemics, Managing
Pandemics Rightly Matters a Great Deal in This Era of Great Power Competition,” National
Interest, March 10, 2021.
Yomiuri Shimbun, “Quad to Create Framework for Providing Vaccines to Developing Countries,”
Japan News, March 10, 2021.
Henry Foy, “Covid Vaccine Diplomacy Is a Dilemma for Foreign Embassies in Russia, Sputnik V
Is One of the Most Effective Jabs but the UK And US Are Flying in Their Own Supplies,”
Financial Times, March 9, 2021.
Prabhjote Gill, “India Is Asking the QUAD for Money to Boost Vaccine Production and Counter
China’s Moves on the Global Stage,” Business Insider India, March 9, 2021.
Deirdre Shesgreen, “‘Russia Is Up to Its Old Tricks’: Biden Battling COVID-19 Vaccine
Disinformation Campaign,” USA Today, March 8, 2021.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev and Ray Takeyh, “Who Came Out On Top from the 2020 Coronavirus Year?
Predictions that Russia or China Would Take the Lead in the Fight against the Pandemic Have
Not Panned Out. Instead, Countries Around the World Are Clamoring for Forging New Trade,
Technological, and Health Alliances with the United States,” National Interest, March 7, 2021.
Parag Khanna, “The New ‘End of History,’ If There Is a Political System that Has Emerged
Victorious from the Coronavirus Pandemic, It Is Asian Democratic Technocracy,” National
Interest, March 6, 2021.
Lillian Posner, “The Controversy Behind Russia’s Sputnik V Vaccine,” National Interest, March
6, 2021.
Josh Rogin, “How Covid Hastened the Decline and Fall of the U.S.-China Relationship,”
Washington Post, March 4, 2021.
Krishna N. Das, “Chinese Hackers Target Indian Vaccine Makers SII, Bharat Biotech, Says
Security Firm,” Reuters, March 1, 2021.
Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Autocracy
Sandra Ahmadi and Aseem Prakash, “Autocrats Are Exploiting COVID-19 to Weaken Central
Bank Independence,” Foreign Policy, January 10, 2022.
Victoria Kim, “Who’s Watching? How Governments Used the Pandemic to Normalize
Surveillance,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 2021.
Amnesty International, Silenced and Misinformed: Freedom of Expression in Danger During
Covid-19, Amnesty International, 2021, 38 pp. (Posted online October 19, 2021.)
Justin Esarey, “The Myth That Democracies Bungled the Pandemic, The Argument that
Authoritarian Governments Outperform Democracies in a Crisis Has Found New Life During the
Coronavirus Pandemic. The Data Tell a Different Story,” Atlantic, October 4, 2021.
Jill Lawless, “Authoritarianism Advances as World Battles the Pandemic,” Associated Press, July
15, 2021.
Parag Khanna, “The Pandemic Proves Only Technocrats Can Save Us, Populist Politicians Love
to Belittle Experts, but When It’s a Matter of Life and Death, the Precautionary Principle and
Expertise Are What Counts,” Foreign Policy, June 24, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
29

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Uri Friedman, “COVID-19 Lays Bare the Price of Populism, A Raging Outbreak in Brazil
Threatens Gains Against the Virus,” Atlantic, May 9, 2021.
Camille Elemia, “At Least 10 Asia Pacific Gov’ts Use COVID-19 for Censorship,
Disinformation,” Rappler, April 20, 2021.
R. Evan Ellis, Populism, China, and Covid-19, Latin America’s New Perfect Storm, Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), April 2021, 6 pp. (Posted online April 20, 2021.)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “Governments In Europe, Central Asia Used Pandemic To
Clamp Down On Human Rights, Amnesty Says,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 7,
2021.
Elian Peltier, “Laws Used to Fight Pandemic Are in Some Cases Weakening Democracies, Report
Says,” New York Times, March 9, 2021.
Parag Khanna, “The New ‘End of History,’ If There Is a Political System that Has Emerged
Victorious from the Coronavirus Pandemic, It Is Asian Democratic Technocracy,” National
Interest, March 6, 2021.
Joshua Kurlantzick, COVID-19 and Its Effect on Inequality and Democracy, A Study of Five
Large Democracies, Council on Foreign Relations, March 2021, 36 pp.
Economist, “Global Democracy Has a Very Bad Year, The Pandemic Caused an Unprecedented
Rollback of Democratic Freedoms in 2020,” Economist, February 2, 2021.
Societal Tension, Reform, and Transformation, and
Governmental Stability
Christopher Chen, “Future-ready Humanitarian Action: Strategic Resilience in a Post-Covid
World,” S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), December 16, 2021.
Benoit Faucon, Summer Said, and Joe Parkinson, “Military Coups in Africa at Highest Level
Since End of Colonialism, Attempted or Successful Coups in Africa Are Occurring More
Frequently as Democratic States Buckle under Pressure from Covid-19,” Wall Street Journal,
November 4, 2021.
Carnegie Civic Research Network, Civil Society and the Global Pandemic: Building Back
Different? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2021, 19 pp. (Posted online
September 30, 2021.)
Peter Landers, Mike Cherney, and Jon Emont, “Covid-19 Delta Infections Trigger Political Side
Effects in Asia, Voters Are Directing Their Dissatisfaction at Leaders They Believe Responded
Too Slowly to the Variant’s Spread,” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2021.
Joe Parkin Daniels, “The Pandemic’s Legacy Will Spur New Protests in Latin America, Increased
Economic Inequality Has Only Added to Widespread Discontent,” Foreign Policy, July 29, 2021.
Elise Labott, “Get Ready for a Spike in Global Unrest, COVID-19 Threatens to Accelerate
Longer-Term Rebellion, Violence, and Political Upheaval,” Foreign Policy, July 22, 2021.
Paolo Gerbaudo, “Big Government Is Back, The Pandemic Has Discredited Decades of Free
Market Orthodoxy—But Not All Visions of State Interventionism Are Progressive,” Foreign
Policy, February 13, 2021.
Emeline Wuilbercq, “Pandemic Woes Seen Swelling Global Ranks of Child Soldiers,” Reuters,
February 12, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
30

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Alexander Villegas, Anthony Faiola, and Lesley Wroughton, “As Spending Climbs and Revenue
Falls, the Coronavirus Forces a Global Reckoning, A Rising ‘Debt Tsunami’ Threatens Even
Stable, Peaceful Middle-Income Countries,” Washington Post, January 10, 2021.
Edoardo Campanella, “The Pandemic Remade the Chinese Economy, Other Countries Should
Prepare Now for Their Own Reformations,” Foreign Policy, January 4, 2021.
Philip Barrett and Sophia Chen, Social Repercussions of Pandemics, International Monetary
Fund, IMF Working Paper WP/21/21, January 2021, 24 pp.
Jarrett Blanc, Frances Z. Brown, and Benjamin Press, “Conflict Zones in the Time of
Coronavirus: War and War by Other Means,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
December 17, 2020.
Tahsin Saadi Sedik and Rui Xu, “When Inequality is High, Pandemics Can Fuel Social Unrest,”
IMF Blog (International Monetary Fund), December 11, 2020.
Joaquín Cottani, The Effects of Covid-19 on Latin America’s Economy, Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS), November 2020, 9 pp.
Tomasz Mickiewicz, Jun Du, and Oleksandr Shepotylo, “Coronavirus: Individualistic Societies
Might Be Doing Worse, the Individualism Hypothesis Is Worth Investigating Further,” National
Interest, October 14, 2020.
Clare Duffy, “The Pandemic Could Push 150 Million More People Worldwide into ‘Extreme
Poverty,’” CNN Business, October 7, 2020.
World Economy, Globalization, and U.S. Trade Policy
Damien Cave and Christopher F. Schuetze, “Contending With the Pandemic, Wealthy Nations
Wage Global Battle for Migrants, Covid Kept Many People in Place. Now Several Developed
Countries, Facing Aging Labor Forces and Worker Shortages, Are Racing to Recruit, Train and
Integrate Foreigners,” New York Times, November 23, 2021.
Megan Greene, “Don’t Believe the Deglobalisation Narrative, Data Show Trade Balances Are
Not Shrinking and Foreign Investment Continues to Pour into China,” Financial Times,
November 16, 2021.
Rajiv Shah, “Rich Countries Saved Themselves During the Pandemic. Poorer Countries Are
Reeling. Developing Countries Had Been Closing the Gap with Wealthier Nations for Decades.
When Covid-19 Hit, That Stopped,” Washington Post, October 22, 2021.
Zack Beauchamp, “‘Neoliberalism Has Really Ruptured’: Adam Tooze on the Legacy of 2020,
The Global Aftershocks of Covid-19 and the Economic Crisis It Caused, Explained,” Vox,
September 9, 2021.
Editorial Board, “China’s Changing Role in the World Economy, Delta Variant and Supply Chain
Problems Are Slowing the Global Recovery,” Economist, September 1, 2021.
Peter S. Goodman and Keith Bradsher, “The World Is Still Short of Everything. Get Used to It.
Pandemic-Related Product Shortages—from Computer Chips to Construction Materials—Were
Supposed to Be Resolved by Now. Instead, the World Has Gained a Lesson in the Ripple Effects
of Disruption,” New York Times, August 30 (updated September 23), 2021.
Emily Rauhala, Anu Narayanswamy, Youjin Shin, and Júlia Ledur, “How the Pandemic Set Back
Women’s Progress in the Global Workforce,” Washington Post, August 28, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
31

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Jayati Ghosh,, “Specter of Stagflation Hangs Over Emerging Markets, Rich Countries’ Pandemic
Policies Are Sucking Growth and Capital Out of the Developing World,” Foreign Policy, August
5, 2021.
Gabriele Steinhauser and Drew Hinshaw, “India’s Covid-19 Agonies Highlight Growing Rich-
Poor Gap in Vaccinations,” Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2021.
James K. Galbraith, “The Death of Neoliberalism Is Greatly Exaggerated, The West’s Economic
Orthodoxy of the Past 40 Years Has Been Shaken by the Pandemic—But the Fight Isn’t Nearly
Over Yet,” Foreign Policy, April 6, 2021.
Nita Bhalla, “Africans Slam Rich Nations For Blocking Access To Generic COVID Vaccines,”
Reuters, March 11, 2021.
Colm Quinn, “Rich vs. Poor (Again) at WTO, Months after India and South Africa Made Their
Initial Proposal, the World Trade Organization Has Another Chance to Waive Intellectual
Property Rights for Covid-19 Vaccines and Treatments,” Foreign Policy, March 10, 2021.
Scott Lincicome, “The Pandemic Does Not Demand Government Micromanagement of Global
Supply Chains,” Cato Institute, February 24, 2021.
Fatima Hassan, “Don’t Let Drug Companies Create a System of Vaccine Apartheid, To Avoid
Repeating the Pitfalls of the HIV/AIDS Crisis, Governments and the WTO Must Make COVID-
19 Vaccination a Public Good by Temporarily Waiving Intellectual Property Rights and
Compelling Emergency Production,” Foreign Policy, February 23, 2021.
Peter S. Goodman, “One Vaccine Side Effect: Global Economic Inequality, As Covid Inoculations
Begin, the Economic Downturn Stands to be Reversed, but Developing Countries Are at Risk of
Being Left Behind,” New York Times, December 25, 2020.
Michael Shields, “Pandemic Speeds Labour Shift from Humans to Robots, WEF Survey Finds,”
Reuters, October 20, 2020.
Scott Lincicome, “Why a Successful COVID-19 Vaccine Depends on Globalization, Each of the
Vaccines that the United States Has Secured Appears to be Heavily Reliant on Globalization to
Produce the Final Doses at the Absolute Maximum Speed and Scale,” National Interest, October
16, 2020.
Josh Zumbrun and Yuka Hayashi, “China Growth Limits Global Economic Damage From
Pandemic, IMF Says,” Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2020.
Eric K. Hontz, “The Fate of Globalization in the Post-Coronavirus Era,” National Interest,
September 12, 2020.
Niccolò Pisani, “Trump’s China ‘Decoupling’ and Coronavirus: Why 2020 Upheaval Won’t Kill
Globalisation,” The Conversation, September 9, 2020.
Carmen Reinhart and Vincent Reinhart, “The Pandemic Depression, The Global Economy Will
Never Be the Same,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2020.
Anthony B. Kim, “Protectionism and the Pandemic Are Curtailing Global Trade. Policymakers
Must Act Accordingly,” Heritage Foundation, August 5, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
32

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Allied Defense Spending and U.S. Alliances
Amy Kazmin and Demetri Sevastopulo, “India’s Covid Calamity Exposes Weakest Link in US-
Led ‘Quad’ Alliance, New Delhi Virus Response Undermines Its Coalition with America, Japan
and Australia to Resist China,” Financial Times, June 14, 2021.
Michael Kugelman, “The U.S.-India Relationship Has a New Top Priority, The Indian Foreign
Minister’s U.S. Visit Shows the Partners Are Primarily Focused on Tackling the Coronavirus—
for Now,” Foreign Policy, May 27, 2021.
Tom Waldwyn and Fenella McGerty, “How COVID-19 Has Impacted South China Sea Defense
Spending and Procurement,” Defense News, May 10, 2021.
Mike Glenn, “COVID-19 Contributes to Jump in World’s Military Budgets: Report,” Washington
Times, April 26, 2021.
Jeffrey Lightfoot and Olivier-Rémy Bel, Sovereign Solidarity, France, the US, and Alliances in a
Post-Covid World, Atlantic Council, 2020 (released November 11, 2020), 28 pp.
Pierre Morcos, Toward a New “Lost Decade”? Covid-19 and Defense Spending in Europe,
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), October 2020, 7 pp. (Posted online October
15, 2020.)
Alice Billon-Galland, COVID-19 and the Defence Policies of European States, NATO Defense
College, October 2020, 4 pp.
Claudia Major, Catalyst or Crisis? COVID-19 and European Security, NATO Defense College,
October 2020, 4 pp.
Olivier Rittimann, NATO and the COVID-19 Emergency: Actions and Lessons, NATO Defense
College, September 2020, 4 pp.
European Union
Isaac Chotiner, “How the Pandemic Changed Europe, The historian Adam Tooze Discusses the
Vaccine Rollout and Shifting Politics in the E.U.,” New Yorker, April 15, 2021.
Steven Erlanger, “Vaccine ‘Fiasco’ Damages Europe’s Credibility, The European Union’s Failure
to Secure Adequate Vaccine Supplies, Followed by an Export Ban, Has Dented the Reputation of
the Bloc’s Leaders. It May Also hurt their Ability to Act in Other Areas,” New York Times, April
2, 2021.
Tim Gosling, “Russia and China Are Exploiting Europe’s Vaccine Shortfalls, Slovakia’s Prime
Minister Has Resigned Over a Secret Delivery of Moscow’s Sputnik V as Brussels Struggles to
Keep the EU United,” Foreign Policy, March 31, 2021.
Laurence Norman and Jenny Strasburg, “Vaccine Fight Between EU and U.K. Threatens to
Escalate, Officials on Both Sides Are in Talks to Prevent Bans of Exports of Covid-19 Shots and
Vaccination Supplies,” Wall Street Journal, Updated March 22, 2021.
Caroline de Gruyter, “Europe Needed Borders. Coronavirus Built Them. The Pandemic Has the
Continent Increasingly Discussing Its Common Boundaries—and Common Identity,” Foreign
Policy, December 4, 2020.
Colm Quinn, “Can Europe Come Together to Save Itself? A Quarrel over the EU Coronavirus
Fund Threatens to Stall Economic Recovery Efforts,” Foreign Policy, November 19, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
33

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Joseph de Weck and Elettra Ardissino, “The Pandemic Is Showing What the EU Is Good For,”
Foreign Policy, September 8, 2020.
Adam Tooze, “It’s a New Europe—if You Can Keep It, The Continent Has Managed to Take a
Great Leap Forward—But There Still Might Be a Crash Landing,” Foreign Policy, August 7,
2020.
Editorial Board, “The Pandemic Has Made Europe Stronger,” Washington Post, July 28, 2020.
Joseph de Weck, “Germany Is Finally Ready to Spend, In the Long Run, the COVID-19
Pandemic May Change Europe’s Economy for the Better,” Foreign Policy, June 22, 2020.
Patrick Donahue and Arne Delfs, “Merkel Calls for Agreement on EU Fund Before Summer
Break,” Bloomberg, June 18, 2020.
Desmond Lachman, “A Eurozone Economic Crisis Thanks to Coronavirus?” National Interest,
June 2, 2020.
Definition of, and Budgeting for, U.S. National Security
Josh Kerbel, “The US Talks A Lot About Strategic Complexity. Too Bad It’s Mostly Just Talk,
The Pandemic Sidelined a National Security Community that Gives Only Lip Service to a Vital
Concept,” Defense One, March 9, 2021.
Susan B. Glasser, “What Does National Security Even Mean Anymore, After January 6th and the
Pandemic? Talking Threats, Foreign and Domestic, with Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff,” New Yorker, March 4, 2021.
Jacob Parakilas, “The Lesson of 2020? Security Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, And
Science and Technology Will Only Take Us So Far When It Comes to Future Threats,
Conventional or Otherwise,” Diplomat, December 23, 2020.
Patrick M. Cronin and Audrey Kurth Cronin, “Rebuilding America in the Post Trump Era, The
Trump Administration’s Woeful Response to Many Threats, but Especially the Coronavirus
Pandemic, Demonstrates that Dealing with Tomorrow’s Bioterror Threat Must be a National
Security Priority,” National Interest, December 18, 2020.
Kevin Bilms, “Will COVID Finally Force Us to Think Differently About National Security? The
‘Softer’ Approaches of Irregular War Offer Outsized Benefits During Competition and Armed
Conflict Alike,” Defense One, December 15, 2020.
Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel, “Coronavirus Pandemic Stands to Force Changes in
U.S. Spy Services, After Years of Underplaying Soft Threats Like Disease and Climate Change,
National-Security Establishment Faces Calls for a New Approach,” Wall Street Journal,
November 22, 2020.
Uri Firedman, “The Pandemic Is Revealing a New Form of National Power, In the COVID-19
Era, a Country’s Strength Is Determined Not Only by Its Military and Economy, but Also by Its
Resilience,” Atlantic, November 15, 2020.
Frank Hoffman, “National Security in the Post-Pandemic Era,” Orbis, Winter 2021: 17-45. (The
first page of the article carries an additional date of November 2020.)
Marigny Kirschke-Schwartz, “America Must Act To Avoid A Biotechnology Arms Race, the
Covid-19 Pandemic Has Shown Us the Potential for a Biological Incident to Upend Global
Stability, and the Implications Are Sobering,” National Interest, September 22, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
34

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Calder Walton, “US Intelligence, the Coronavirus and the Age of Globalized Challenges,” Belfer
Center for Science and International Affairs, August 24, 2020.
U.S. Defense Strategy, Defense Budget, and Military Operations
Frank Hoffman, “U.S. Defense Strategy After The Pandemic,” War on the Rocks, April 20, 2021.
Aaron Mehta, “After COVID, Are Billions in Biodefense Funds Needed to Deter US
Adversaries?” Defense News, April 9, 2021.
America’s Strategic Choices: Defense Spending in a Post-Covid-19 World, An Executive Outbrief
From The CSBA–Ronald Reagan Institute Defense Worskhops, Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments, January 2021, 13 pp.
Tony Bertuca, “Lord Says Pandemic Sharpened DOD’s Focus on Re-Shoring, Especially
Microelectronics,” Inside Defense, September 29, 2020.
Mike Glenn, “Don’t Pay for COVID-19 Relief at Expense of Nation’s Defense, Esper Warns,”
Washington Times, September 24, 2020.
Mackenzie Eaglen, “More Safety for Less Security Is a Sucker Bet,” American Enterprise
Institute, September 3, 2020.
Jon Harper, “Army a Potential Bill Payer for COVID-19 Costs,” National Defense, August 18,
2020.
Matt Vallone, “U.S. Defense Spending During and After the Pandemic,” War on the Rocks, July
31, 2020.
Franklin C. Miller, “Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste,” Real Clear Defense, June 1, 2020.
U.S. Foreign Assistance, International Debt Relief, and Refugee
Policy
Meghan Benton, Future Scenarios for Global Mobility in the Shadow of Pandemic, Migration
Policy Institute, July 2021, 33 pp.
Catherine Osborn, “How to Escape the COVID-19 Debt Trap, This Crisis May Be a Turning
Point for How the IMF Treats Indebted Nations.,” Foreign Policy, June 4, 2021.
Bernard Aryeetey, “G20 Debt Relief for Poor Nations Means COVID Healthcare Investment,”
Thomson Reuters Foundation News, April 7, 2021.
Gabriele Steinhauser and Joe Wallace, “Africa’s First Pandemic Default Tests New Effort to Ease
Debt From China, Effort to Ensure that China and Bondholders Participate in Debt Restructurings
Could Help Resolve Zambia’s Default,” Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2020.
Dan Runde, Conor Savoy, and Shannon McKeown, Post-pandemic Governance in the Indo-
Pacific, Adapting USAID’s Strategy in the Face of Covid-19, Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS), September 2020, 11 pp. (Posted online September 25, 2020.)
Sam Denney and Kemal Kirisci, “COVID-19 and the Chance to Reform U.S. Refugee Policy,”
Lawfare, August 18, 2020.
Daniel F. Runde, “USAID Should Lead Global Pandemic Response in an Age of Great Power
Competition,” The Hill, August 17, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
35

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Rayn Ellis, “Conservative Foreign Aid Can Strengthen US Interests in the Coronavirus
Recovery,” Washington Examiner, August 11, 2020.
Jamille Bigio and Haydn Welch, “As the Global Economy Melts Down, Human Trafficking Is
Booming,” Foreign Policy, August 10, 2020.
Zuhumnan Dapel, “It Is Too Late to Save These Victims of the Pandemic, The COVID-19
Catastrophe Is Shrinking Remittances from the United States and Creating a Looming
Humanitarian Disaster,” Foreign Policy, July 20, 2020.
Frances D’Emilio, “UN: Pandemic Could Push Tens of Millions into Chronic Hunger,”
Associated Press, July 13, 2020.
Emily Hawthorne, “COVID-19 Cash Shortages Will Cripple Global Humanitarian Efforts,”
Stratfor, June 30, 2020.
Olivia Enos, “The Danger for Refugees and the Most Vulnerable During COVID-19,” Heritage
Foundation, June 22, 2020.
Stephanie Segel, “International Financial Institutions Step Up, but Debt Sustainability Looms
Large for Future Support,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), May 21, 2020.
Joel Gehrke, “Fighting China with Foreign Aid: USAID Becomes a Critical Tool in Battle for
World Influence,” Washington Examiner, May 10, 2020.
Michael H. Fuchs, Alexandra Schmitt, and Haneul Lee, “Foreign Aid is Critical to Stopping the
Coronavirus,” National Interest, May 3, 2020.
Daniel F. Runde, Conor M. Savoy, and Shannon McKeown, “Covid-19 Has Consequences for
U.S. Foreign Aid and Global Leadership,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS),
May 1, 2020.
Non-state Actors
Lindsey Kennedy and Nathan Paul Southern, “Endangered Species Are Paying the Price of
COVID-19, Diminishing Tourism Has Created New Incentives for the Illegal Wildlife Trade,”
Foreign Policy, July 11, 2021.
Kieran Guilbert, “Traffickers Seen Thriving in Europe as COVID-19 Hits Victim Support,”
Reuters, April 9, 2021.
Charlie Mitchell, “Palo Alto Networks Report Explores ‘Explosion’ in Cloud Attacks Amid
COVID-19 pandemic, Inside Cybersecurity, April 6, 2021
Michael King and Sam Mullins, “COVID-19 and Terrorism in the West: Has Radicalization
Really Gone Viral?” Just Security, March 4, 2021.
Lindsey Kennedy and Nathan Paul Southern, “The Pandemic Is Putting Gangsters in Power, As
States Struggle, Organized Crime Is Rising to New Prominence,” Foreign Policy, February 15,
2021.
Lindsey Kennedy and Nathan Paul Southern, “How to Run a Criminal Network in a Pandemic,
Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers Are Upgrading Their Marketing and Delivery Services,”
Foreign Policy, September 5, 2020.
Joby Warrick, “Covid-19 Pandemic Is Stoking Extremist Flames Worldwide, Analysts Warn,”
Washington Post, July 9, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
36

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

Ioan Grillo, “How Mexico’s Drug Cartels Are Profiting From the Pandemic,” New York Times,
July 7, 2020.
Edith M. Lederer, “UN Chief Warns COVID-19 Provides Opportunity for Terrorists,” Associated
Press, July 6, 2020.
Robin Simcox, “Terrorism After the Pandemic, Months of Isolation and Governments Grappling
with Other Crises Could Lead to a Rise in Attacks,” Foreign Policy, July 2, 2020.
Zachary Abuza and Alif Satria, “How Are Indonesia’s Terrorist Groups Weathering the
Pandemic?” Diplomat, June 23, 2020.
Camilo Tamayo Gomez, “Coronavirus: Drug Cartels Functioning as Governing Bodies Could
Receive Popularity Boost,” National Interest, June 23, 2020.
Simon Harding, “How Gangs and Drug Dealers Adapted to the Pandemic Reality,” National
Interest, June 22, 2020.
Nikita Malik, “How to Prepare for the Coronavirus’s Impact on Terrorism,” National Interest,
June 21, 2020.
Anthony Faiola and Lucien Chauvin, “The Coronavirus Has Gutted the Price of Coca. It Could
Reshape the Cocaine Trade,” Washington Post, June 9, 2020.
Alexandra Lamarche, Arden Bentley, Rachel Schmidtke, and Sahar Atrache, “The Coronavirus
Has Become Terrorists’ Combat Weapon of Choice,” National Interest, June 9, 2020.
U.S. Attention to International Issues Other than COVID-19
David Ignatius, “The Rest of the World Is Taking Advantage of a Distracted America,”
Washington Post, October 6, 2020.
David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Edward Wong, “As Virus Toll Preoccupies U.S., Rivals Test
Limits of American Power,” New York Times, June 1 (updated June 2), 2020.
James Jay Carafano, “Amid Coronavirus, Global Challenges Remain for U.S.—Keep Eye on
These 3 Hot Spots,” Heritage Foundation, May 20, 2020.
Kathrin Hille, “Taiwan Fears Uptick in Military Threat from China in Wake of Coronavirus,”
Financial Times, May 18, 2020.
Steven Erlanger, “Will the Coronavirus Crisis Trump the Climate Crisis?” New York Times, May
9 (updated May 11), 2020.
Steve Mollman, “China’s South China Sea Plan Unfolds Regardless of the Coronavirus,” Quartz,
May 9, 2020.
Thomas Spoehr, “U.S. Can’t Afford to Take Its Eye off the Ball As National Threats Loom
Beyond COVID-19,” Heritage Foundation, May 8, 2020.
Arjun Kapur, “Scotland Launched an Invasion During the Black Death. Does History Tell China
to Attack Taiwan?” National Interest, May 2, 2020.
Role of Congress
Daniel P. Vajdich, “Congress Has Been AWOL on U.S. Coronavirus Diplomacy, The Invisibility
and Silence of Congress Is Another Reason for America’s Shocking Abdication of Global
Leadership,” Foreign Policy, May 22, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
37

COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment

George Ingram and Jeffrey L. Sturchio, “How Congress Can Address the International
Dimensions of the COVID-19 Response,” Brookings Institution, April 15, 2020.
Rob Berschinski and Benjamin Haas, “How Congress Can Save Lives, Protect Rights, and Exert
U.S. Leadership Globally in Response to Coronavirus,” Just Security, April 8, 2020.
Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch, “Pandemic Stymies Congressional Check on Trump’s Foreign
Policy,” Foreign Policy, April 8, 2020.

Author Information

Ronald O'Rourke
Kathleen J. McInnis
Specialist in Naval Affairs
Specialist in International Security

Acknowledgments
A third original coauthor of this report was Michael Moodie, who was Assistant Director of the Foreign
Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of CRS and a Senior Specialist in Foreign Affairs, Defense, and
Trade until his retirement from CRS in December 2020.

Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan
shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and
under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other
than public understanding of information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in
connection with CRS’s institutional role. CRS Reports, as a work of the United States Government, are not
subject to copyright protection in the United States. Any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed in
its entirety without permission from CRS. However, as a CRS Report may include copyrighted images or
material from a third party, you may need to obtain the permission of the copyright holder if you wish to
copy or otherwise use copyrighted material.

Congressional Research Service
R46336 · VERSION 24 · UPDATED
38