When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States was shocked and stunned. Caught on the backfoot, we were practically stupefied by the surprise attack, but that didn’t last long.
By 1945, America had more than quintupled the size of its armed forces, tripled the size of its navy escort fleet, and grown into an industrial power absolutely unrivaled across the world. To this day, that wartime mobilization is the greatest testament to this country’s ingenuity and willpower and the most shining victory in the history of American ideals. In his diary, a Japanese admiral said that Japan had awoken the U.S., “a sleeping giant, and filled it with resolve.” The world would never be the same.
Fast-forward to 2020, and our country has been caught by surprise once more. “This is our Pearl Harbor moment,” the surgeon general warned. Only this time, our enemy is a virus, our battlefields are our bodies, and the war we’re fighting takes place at home.
If the U.S. is to win this war against the coronavirus, we need to fashion a response to rival our triumph after the original Pearl Harbor. We need bold plans and innovative new ways to counter this threat, take up the offensive, and mobilize American greatness.
The key, then as now, is the economy. We need new strategies to liberate our economy from the crippling effects of the coronavirus and unleash the power and potential both of enterprise and each worker’s fighting spirit.
Time isn’t on our side, and, right now, we’re wasting it. The shutdowns implemented across the country were always nothing more than a temporary measure, a momentary retreat to buy us some time and recollect our forces. A shutdown is not a long-term solution. We cannot win this war by cowering indoors until the virus goes away.
As states everywhere extend their shutdown orders, the economy is atrophying before our eyes. Right now, America is facing 26 million unemployment claims, a complete reversal of nearly a decade of economic growth. A whopping 75% of U.S. companies reported disruptions to their supply chains, with nearly half of all small businesses predicted to shutter by June if the shutdown isn’t lifted.
And, when the economy erodes, so, too, does the confidence and sense of purpose of ordinary people. A startling 36% of people report that the coronavirus outbreak has seriously affected their mental health, with anxiety, stress, and depression levels skyrocketing. It is clear why: Ninety-five percent of people are stuck at home, with no clear action plan to follow and no way to fight back.
We should bear another comparison in mind. This isn’t just our Pearl Harbor moment; it’s also our 9/11 moment. On that day in 2001, the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in order to strike a blow to the financial district because they knew that a blow to the economy was a blow to our strength and fighting capacity. Those efforts did not succeed. Today, our “invisible enemy” threatens to win where hijackers and terrorists failed.
Unless, that is, we curtail the damage and get back in the game.
By cowering inside, we’re letting the economy crash and wasting our most precious wartime resource: the people. Of course, it would be imprudent to rush back to work without proper precautions in place, and no one wants to risk lives for nothing. But that doesn’t mean we can’t work at all. We need a middle ground that unleashes the economy while still implementing best practices to prevent the spread of the virus.
So, rather than sticking to a blanket shutdown order, our state governments need to find new strategies for tactically reopening the economy and putting people back to work on a region-by-region and industry-by-industry basis.
Expansion of testing capacity is crucial here. With the right testing infrastructure in place, we can lift the lockdowns and let our workers join the fight without courting extreme risks of another outbreak. And, through public service announcements, clear and accurate threat education, and the dissemination of actionable proposals for working safely during the pandemic, we can integrate aggressive economic recovery with cautious vigilance against the coronavirus.
How things could look going forward is still unclear, but one thing is certain: It will not be easy.
Certain industries and regions of the state will return before others; many people will be called on to make great sacrifices of time, effort, and comfort. It seems likely that the people most susceptible to this disease may need to be isolated for some to time to come while temperature-taking, frequent handwashing, and universal virus testing may well have to become the “new normal,” at least for the foreseeable future.
But we need courage, not cowardice. Already, we’re beginning to flatten the curve, and the president’s team has come up with a possible path to reopen the country. Our window of opportunity is opening, and we have to seize it. What America needs right now is a new action plan, the mobilization of a new “Arsenal of Biology” to rival the “Arsenal of Democracy” that President Franklin D. Roosevelt mobilized for World War II. Complacency will cost us our lives and our future.
Robert Norton is general counsel for Hillsdale College and writes in his own personal capacity.
