As the United States shuts down for the coronavirus, the military faces two viral threats to its readiness and deterrent posture. The Trump administration faces hard choices about deployments and action to maintain deterrence.
On the deterrence question, Iran is now clearly seeking advantage from the coronavirus chaos. In two aggressive attacks against a U.S. military base in Iraq last week, a top Iranian proxy evinced Tehran’s new desire to test American resolve.
Iran faces a catastrophe in its domestic coronavirus situation, but Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime is liberated by its lack of regard for human suffering. It will have been emboldened by the weak U.S. response to its killing of two American service members and the wounding of others in the attacks last week. The U.S. response has undermined President Trump’s red line against lethal attacks on U.S. citizens. We should thus expect further lethal attacks in the coming days.
And the Iranian challenge must not be viewed in a vacuum. Other U.S. adversaries are likely to seek their own opportunities. They’ll hope that the coronavirus distracts Trump.
North Korea’s escalating ballistic missile tests indicate its willingness to push harder for American economic concessions. And Russia remains determined to push the U.S. military out of eastern Syria and willing to kill Americans in that pursuit. Regardless, all U.S. adversaries have reason to suspect that Trump’s distraction makes him newly vulnerable to pressure.
Even then, that’s just one element of the U.S. military’s new coronavirus problem.
The other challenge is in force readiness. Note the Navy’s announcement on Monday that two sailors have now tested positive for coronavirus. While the Navy is taking precautions to test all personnel who are about to deploy, it cannot mitigate the risk of an outbreak entirely. Nor can its Army, Air Force, or Marine Corps partners.
That’s a problem.
Consider the Navy’s provision of the nation’s conventional deterrent linchpin: the aircraft carriers. Although aircraft carriers provide a relatively self-sustaining quarantine zone, they can also become epidemic breeding grounds if one infected sailor gets aboard. Think about the viral opportunities borne of more than 6,000 people in close quarters.
None of the three carrier strike groups underway (excluding the Gerald R. Ford, which is underway but broken) have reported an infection so far. But that doesn’t end the complication. After all, the Harry S. Truman strike group is already four months into its deployment. The Navy must soon decide whether to extend that deployment and guard against the next-to-deploy-but-currently-at-port strike group becoming infected. And the Navy, like other forward-deployed elements of the services, must also consider the prospect of a monthslong pandemic. Forward planning suddenly gets very complicated.
Ultimately, then, don’t feel so bad for yourself that you’re simply stuck at home. Those sworn to protect us have a tough job every day, and it just got tougher.
