| dc.description.abstract | After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the United States reoriented itself to focus
on terrorist networks and rogue states. Congress created a new institution,
the Department of Homeland Security. President George W. Bush made terrorism
and counterproliferation the organizing principle of US national security policy.
The administration adopted the 1% rule—if there was a 1% chance of something
happening, it would be treated as an imminent danger. This doctrine would lead
to the invasion of Iraq. Almost two decades later, the United States still wages a
low-intensity, high-technology war against terrorist networks all over the world.
The coronavirus has surpassed 9/11 and the global financial crisis as the defining international event for the majority of Americans. Over 130,000 Americans
have died to date, and over forty million have lost their jobs. More people are dying
from COVID-19 globally than almost anything else.1
The virus placed immense
strain on globalization, brought travel to a virtual halt, exposed strains within the
European Union, and poses the greatest challenge to the Chinese Communist
Party since 1989. And that is as of this writing in June 2020. The crisis may be a
long one that extends well into 2021. | |
