Congratulations everyone, I think.

By now, most of you have come to the understanding during the last few weeks or so that you are living through a rather unique moment; a legitimate Black Swan event.

A bad flu comes every year or so. We’ve had a few scares here and there, but nothing like COVID-19 has threatened our species like this in generations.

Now and then people would warn about what a pandemic might look like, but it always seemed like a bad movie script.

Welcome to the matinee.

We are in the early stages of a global pandemic not seen in living memory. The very few over the age of 100 still with us were too young to remember the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919. No one really knows the full impact the virus will have as it burns its way around the planet, but there is enough information already breaking above the ambient noise to make some prognostications.

Even though this started in China, we really can’t use their data to see what is coming. You can’t trust their numbers, and their public health practices, if tried here, would lead to revolt.

There are other nations a few weeks ahead of us who do have similar cultural and political norms, transparent societies, and sustainable scientific exchange.

They can help inform us to where we are going and have reliable if imperfect data sets. We will probably wind up somewhere between the experiences of South Korea, Japan, France, Spain, and Italy. In time we will see whose experience will be closer to ours.

For the navalists out there, besides the tactical level movements, activations, and command policies, there are a few things we can assume will be a secondary effect;

– Toss out your plans to get to 355.
– Don’t assume you know how many Columbia SSBN you are going to get.
– Don’t assume you will get the CVN you think you deserve.
– The more expensive and risky your program, the less likely it will get any traction and funding through the next few POM cycles.

This is an election year, and defense issues will be of least interest to candidates since the elections of 2000. What little appetite there was for growing the defense budget or expending political capital to get a larger Navy wedge of the pie has been eclipsed by more immediate issues.

Pandemic response and economic recovery. Those are what will get attention and money until COVID-19 burns through. That is the primary planning assumption everyone needs to have as they look at how to fight for the future force.

Only in the last few days have economists started to make projections on what this will do to our economy this year, and it is a catastrophic shock to the system in the short to medium term. Sure, we will recover, but everyone is going to have to reset their baseline assumptions rather radically not just for the USA, but for our allies and our greatest competitor – and source of the virus – China.

Let’s go back to the fundamentals and see what impact this has had so far as of 18 March 2020.

Diplomatic: The EU as an institution, already weakened by BREXIT and an inability to deal the migrant crisis, has failed another challenge as constituent states reestablish border controls. The never was has been power is unlikely to ever be. China, first in the epidemic so the first out, is on the offensive trying to step in to the void left as Europe and North America turn their concerns inward to deal with their expanding pandemic.

Informational: While on the fringes, some media from free nations have tried to report on China’s misinformation campaign from the start of the pandemic in 2019, you can feel the silencing effect reinforced by China’s expelling 13 journalists from New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal because of their COVID-19 coverage. From Italy to Serbia and other nations, they are pushing to be seen as the solution and not the problem. Even on the small end of the spectrum, they have had exceptional success in obscuring the source of COVID-19 in the broader discussion space by playing the “woke” card against those how try to call it the “Wuhan Virus” or other variations. Impressive effort considering the long history of naming diseases from where they started or broke in to the general view; Spanish Flu, Lyme Disease, Ebola, Marburg Virus, German Measles etc. When the dust settles, in real and virtual terms, the Chinese want to own a few more squares on the board and no negativity – and they’re succeeding so far.

Military: The move with our NATO allies to increase their military spending is dead in the water, and will probably lose ground as they struggle over the next few years to recover economically. With the stress of COVID-19 overwhelming already weak medical systems such as that it Italy, pressure to spend new funds there instead of on the military will be impossible to resist. China may also feel a similar pressure. The PRC is not a democratic nation, but they are concerned with stability have lost face internally. If so, this will buy time for everyone; maybe. For the USA, in addition to the concerns mentioned earlier in the post, the American public was already disinterested in the Long War pre-COVID-19, less concerned now. Budget priority much lower. No political candidate in the 2020 election will lead with a call for more defense spending. No one will want to hear it. All the voters will want to hear about is health now, then economy. That will hold for at least the next two years – unless the the future wants to deliver another Black Swan riding a red horse instead of a black one.

Economic: No major economy will avoid significant impacts in the short term. In the long term, the free trade movement of the last few decades has lost a lot of credibility as the very real fragility of global supply chains were brought out in stark relief. Especially for existential and strategic items such as medicines and manufacturing, expect a renewed interest in nations wanting to keep and defend domestic capabilities in certain areas – or at least lower their reliance on one nation, specifically China. Oil prices started to collapse even prior to COVID-19 and expect a compounding effect on nations dependent on petroleum such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia – none exceptionally stable to begin with. In the long term, there is of course the global debt load. Things are so off the charts at this point – it is hard to know when the music will stop. The world’s reserve currency saddled in debt yet has serious people now talking about negative interest rates? Uncharted. It doesn’t end well.

There’s the quick 18 March “Known Unknowns” about COVID-19 for our corner of the blogosphere to ponder.

Now, everyone wash your hands.