Some Thoughts for Defence Planners in the Shadow of Covid-19
Some Thoughts for Defence Planners in the Shadow of Covid-19* The world is currently in a state of negative flux as many of the shibboleths of the post-Cold War world - globalisation, freedom of movement, Just-In-Time (JIT) supply chains and so on - are trembling under the weight of a pandemic the like of which has not been seen since the Spanish Flu, over a century ago. This is the strategic shock (or is it security shock?) which will form the backdrop to the UK's now delayed Integrated Defence and Security Review (IDSR) slated to report sometime this year. Unlike the vast majority of post-war reviews this had been reported as not needing to be cost neutral, but unsurprisingly, considering the impact of the extraordinary economic, societal and medical shocks caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, defence, security and political commentators on Twitter and elsewhere are beginning to query the sustainability of this, and in some cases, the continuing utility of defence capabilit