To those at the helm of affairs and in the military, what leadership lessons do they derive from the ongoing worldwide crisis?

by BS Dhanoa

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) stealthily struck in November 2019, decimating the Chinese province of Hubei, with its epicentre in Wuhan (patient zero is supposedly a shrimp seller in Wuhan’s wet market). It soon spread across China and made an appearance in parts of East and Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. Governments initially brushed aside the severity and capacity for death that this new disease was capable of. The Director General of WHO Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was hesitant to classify it as a pandemic, only doing so on 11 March 2020, by which time COVID-19 was rampaging in over a 100 countries and advancing its tentacles into the remaining.

While the seriousness and deficiencies of the Chinese government’s approach to tackle this crisis were on display in mid-January and February 2020, other nations, which saw a spike in COVID-19 cases, had varying responses; from quick mobilisation of medical and emergency response mechanisms to an ostrich like refusal to clear the sand from their eyes. The virus was not waiting to see who was reacting, it generated its own non-discriminatory vector mechanisms, in an interconnected and globalised environment, settling, uninvited, in the larynx and air tracts of the rich and the poor, literally drowning its victims’ lungs in their own fluids. The disease was on a warpath and only a war like mobilisation of the people and resources would do.

Militaries are first responders in crises, and the pandemic was a crisis on a global scale, demanding the very best from strategic leaders. “If the coronavirus outbreak has taught us anything beyond the necessity of careful hygiene, it’s that the first victim of a pandemic is leadership,” says Matthew Karnitschnig in Politico. While the media and health policy advisors have excoriated political leaders who were slow to react (for a variety of economic and partisan reasons), military leaders have had their own mini crisis ever since this unseen yet deadly “adversary” was reported amongst them. Responses ranged from initial hesitant statements that reaffirmed a military’s full support to their nation’s health and disaster response organisations, to ensuring that their own rank and file were capable of staying healthy and disease free themselves, while being on the highest alert for this terrifying enemy that no early warning systems could identify or track.

The virus was not waiting to see who was reacting, it generated its own non-discriminatory vector mechanisms, in an interconnected and globalised environment, settling, uninvited, in the larynx and air tracts of the rich and the poor, literally drowning its victims’ lungs in their own fluids.

Leaders were initially, pardon the euphemism, ‘groping in the dark’ and frankly out of their depth when it came to that clear and authoritative identification of threat, and allocation of resources to deal with it, which ordinary and informed citizens are used to seeing. The military, globally, was being beaten by a single strand RNA Nano organism that had no weapons in its arsenal other than an ability to attach itself to a host and replicate rapidly. It was the R0 of the virus that weighed heavier versus the F35s and other such numbered weapons platform designations that forces possess and display as part of their deterrence. The virus was unimpressed.

Along with the pandemic has come an “infodemic” of misinformation and insidious spread of ideas and thoughts that have very little to do with stemming panic and fear arising from a lack of knowledge of the disease, but are targeted at reducing the effectiveness of governmental control, or, in authoritarian countries, to further tighten restrictions on free movement and increase surveillance on their citizens. This is an unintended consequence of the ongoing crisis.

So, to those at the helm of affairs and in the military, what leadership lessons do they derive from the ongoing worldwide crisis? That what is taken for granted is a chimera? Or that threats policymakers and instruments of state prepare for in their quest for protecting national interests, can vanish overnight; replaced by challenges for which they seem to be ill-equipped and ill prepared to tackle! Uncertainty, ambiguity, and an ever descending fog over events that unfold is the order of the day. This is a classic VUCA scenario. But that is what strategic leaders are expected to be ready for at all times. A nation expects them, and its armed forces, to be up to the challenge to meet all these threats and accomplish new tasks. So whether strategic leaders and professionals in uniform accept it or not, while protecting defined national interests and war fighting would be their primary role, it would be these sudden, life changing events that would throw down the gauntlet to strategic and military leadership (at all levels) to prepare at short notice and execute complex tasks in a manner befitting their responsibilities.

No single individual, even if he’s the most decisive, capable and charismatic leader, political or military, can fathom and fully grasp the enormity of the COVID-19 challenge to a nation like ours.

Today we are seeing a level of challenge by this pandemic to military preparedness and readiness that forces the world over have not faced probably since the Spanish Flu (that had nothing to do with Spain) of 1918–21. As the pandemic reaches its crescendo, in varying rhythm and timing in different countries, we have the captain of a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, of the US Navy declare that it is incapable of mission worthiness. In our own country the COAS has rightly declared that force protection is his primary mission, even as the Army and the other two services stand by to undertake challenging tasks of looking after quarantine centres they have set up, reinforcing medical capabilities where most needed and even in maintaining law and order so that essential services are not affected. The IAF has already undertaken crucial sorties to deliver essential medical supplies to critical locations and extracted Indian citizens stranded in COVID-19 hotspots.

The fight and challenges this virus poses are by no means over. Social unrest in the country is a possible scenario given an extended lockdown, or a loss of earning potential for the poor and marginal workers, due to the threat of this disease’s spread. The CAPF and the armed forces may well have to come to the aid of the administration to keep the peace on the streets. It is the author’s considered belief that the lockdown and uncertainty associated with the threat of the COVID-19 is a true test of our leaders’, the people’s and its military’s tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. From ensuring that troop strength is not depleted for conventional threats, to being on standby to assist the government at the central and state level, and having the military’s own logistical and healthcare systems geared for the long haul, leaders have to think ahead, ensure a clear understanding of their intent and pass instructions to subordinates with plans ready for contingencies that will arrive and change all existing assumptions of force protection, training and deployment.

In the end, we have to realise the fact, so clearly articulated by Richard Danzig where he says: “Twenty-first century technologies are global not just in their distribution, but also in their consequences. Pathogens, AI systems, computer viruses, and radiation that others may accidentally release could become as much our problem as theirs.” No single individual, even if he’s the most decisive, capable and charismatic leader, political or military, can fathom and fully grasp the enormity of the COVID-19 challenge to a nation like ours. Decisions taken now will continue to reverberate with second and third order effects for years to come. The nation’s leaders truly have to rise to the multifarious challenges this pandemic has directed their way and overcome them.