War metaphors have their uses, but they cannot hide the failure of governments to prevent and contain the devastation of the pandemic. This article was originally published in Pandemic Discourses.
With the spread of coronavirus, the war rhetoric has been deafening. In the United States, the health crisis was dubbed the Pearl Harbor moment. In France, Emanuel Macron repeatedly hammered the “we are at war” line. In the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, first dismissing the threat of the virus only to be taken sick to an emergency ward, has been comparing himself to Winston Churchill. From every podium and newscast, war metaphors are abundant; medical workers are the frontline heroes fighting against an invisible enemy.
COVID-19 is unknown and deadly, and dangers for the public’s wellbeing are devastating. Yet, let’s be honest, most of us fight it sitting on a couch, not in the trenches.
The current wars are plenty, of course, but for many, we are at peace. And for these countries at peace, the narratives of war stem from their abject unpreparedness for the pandemic—lack of hospital beds, ventilators for the sick or gloves for medical staff. There has been little support for doctors and nurses, who should have had basic protections such as gowns and scrubs given that the world has already gone through H1N1, SARS, and Ebola in previous decades.
“For these great powers—the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia—evoking World War II is particularly pointed as the crisis came at a time when all of them should have been celebrating the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazism. Macron called “for a global truce to focus on fighting the coronavirus” as the nations did during that war, but not all countries are willing to sidestep the competition for the common good.”
By using rhetorical flourishes, many governments hide their incompetence. With NATO countries and Russia developing every weapon imaginable, they have been unable to muster masks. A barrage of information about the “airlift” of the US Patriots football team plane on its run to China to acquire needed equipment does not amount to war sorties. But by employing war propaganda governments try to trick scared nations into feeling they need to rally behind the flag to survive.
Ebola or SARS largely broke out elsewhere and therefore were appropriately termed exceptional health crises, not battles with enemies. But the threatened “Great Powers” require grand language; moreover, the war footing adds geopolitics to the pandemic.
For these great powers—the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia—evoking World War II is particularly pointed as the crisis came at a time when all of them should have been celebrating the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazism. Macron called “for a global truce to focus on fighting the coronavirus” as the nations did during that war, but not all countries are willing to sidestep the competition for the common good.
The US “war president” Donald Trump has sought to deflate responsibility for delays in readying the country, in turn casting blame on the shortcomings of the previous Barack Obama administration or bickering with China on Twitter and cutting funds to the World Health Organization for “promoting Chinese ‘disinformation’ about the virus.” Moreover, there are fears that his “America First” approach will hinder efforts for the global cooperation on pharmaceutical research, development and distribution, which some have already dubbed a “vaccine nationalism.” In China, a newer great power, where the virus was said to have originated, the war narratives are no less deafening, though its leaders promote their international generosity—not self-centered biases—to divert attention from the crisis origins. President Xi Jinping repeatedly spoke of a “people’s war” against the virus, also stressing the country’s success in stemming the infections. In contrast to the US, China is touting its efforts to provide aid globally and has pledged support for poorer countries.
In Russia, where hospital preparations against the pandemic are referred to as “world war” and President Vladimir Putin as supreme commander, war rhetoric was more than just propaganda to camouflage inadequacies. Early on, confident that Russia would escape Europe’s alarming infection rate—the Kremlin ordered closing its border with China back in January, ahead of almost everyone else—Putin sought an opportunity to strengthen his global standing. With Russia’s crisis originally less dire than in Western Europe and the US, which he was quick to brag about, the Russian president was swift with grand geopolitical gestures.
In March, flexing its oil muscle, Russia withdrew from a deal with Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, also known as OPEC, refusing to cut oil production in order to salvage its prices damaged by the COVID-19 lockdowns and diminished demand. In the Kremlin scheme, the drop in oil prices was supposed to ruin the shale industry in the United States, but the risky calculation backfired, ruining Russia’s own currency, the ruble, instead.
Putin’s reasoning was that the West, particularly the US, became dominant in world affairs by taking advantage of others when it could and by using the democracy rhetoric as a shield. Not that he is wrong—just wars in Afghanistan and Iraq prove his point—but every time Russia tries to respond in kind—to undermine American standing—it creates more problems than benefits for itself. In the end, Putin had to sign the OPEC production-cutting agreement, with Russia scoring no points, moreover, appearing an arrogant loser.
In a more benevolent display of geopolitical importance, the Kremlin—following the Chinese example—dispatched military planes with medical equipment to Italy and other countries and an aid plane with supplies and ventilators to the United States. But again, the efforts were almost futile. Italy, while accepting the aid, noted that it was not entirely adaptable to the country’s needs. And America decided not to use the Russian equipment after at least six COVID-19 patients died in St. Petersburg and Moscow hospitals in early May due to a ventilator bursting into flames.
These failures notwithstanding, the Kremlin continues to see the fight against the epidemic as a systemic competition. Who’d prove more effective—authoritarian China, and Russia as its ally, or democratic West?
Russia, busy with its own slide towards authoritarianism, had a stake in having more repressive countries winning the COVID-19 battles. Just before the pandemic began its march across the globe, the Kremlin supported a sudden (though not unexpected) move to annul Putin’s previous term limits in order to keep him in power for another 16 years in addition to the current 20. The country-wide constitutional referendum aimed to garner public support for the move was to be held on April 22. On May 9, an even greater event was to take place, a Victory Day parade to commemorate the World War II anniversary. Both occasions have been postponed until at least June, the virus showing little respect for the authoritarian timetable.
For the first time since 1941, when Nazi troops stood near Moscow, public places were closed and people’s movements have been controlled. And with the Red Square empty of the May parades and marches first time since 1945, Putin had a lot riding on his leadership. He, after all, had been ratcheting up weapons and tanks for a daunting display on Victory Day, but it was hospitals and test labs he should have been building. The Soviet Union defeated Nazism, yet his Russia has been losing a war to the virus.
To arouse patriotic response, Putin announced Russia’s special path—a “separate civilization,” he said—evoking memories of the war, sacred to the Russians. Losing more people than any other nation—over 20 million—the Soviet army liberated most of Europe, a constant source of its pride.
Originally downplaying the pandemic, Putin seemed detached, instead delegating regional authorities to deal with the fallout of the delayed reaction. His role model was, once again, the Chinese president, who stayed above the fray, only rarely appearing on TV to assure his subjects that the situation in China was being handled masterfully.
Russia is not China, however—it doesn’t have its own civilizational response to any historic development. Firmly within the European cultural space, it is an offspring of Western traditions. Yet, Russia’s other tradition is to repeatedly dispute this belonging and to fashion itself as an antithesis to the West. Still, being of the European continent, it always ends up mimicking Western patterns rather than following Asian models. Just think of the construction of St. Petersburg in 1703—the city is an aggrandized copy of Venice and Amsterdam. Or the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution—Vladimir Lenin applied Marxist theories of the European proletariat to reform the largely peasant Russian communities.
“In a more benevolent display of geopolitical importance, the Kremlin—following the Chinese example—dispatched military planes with medical equipment to Italy and other countries and an aid plane with supplies and ventilators to the United States. But again, the efforts were almost futile.”
A product of Russian culture, Putin is hardly an exception. After trying out the Xi authoritarian example, the Russian president ended up behaving like Angela Merkel of Germany, Emmanuel Macron or even Italian Giuseppe Conte, whose approval numbers increased because they offered leadership to the scared population. In the past month, Putin, too, has been showing that he is informed and in charge during his now regular appearances with their Commander-in-Chief feel.
But Putin’s problem is that Russia is neither a fully free Europe nor a fully controlled China, so his approval numbers have been decreasing, not increasing like Merkel’s or Macron’s. Putin’s COVID-19 geopolitical acrobatics have been uniformly mocked. The more infections in Russia grow—from just a few thousands in April to 380,000 as of May 28, the third place in the world after the United States and Brazil—the less Putin’s “indefinitely staying in power” plan appears certain.
Though the severity of the crisis may allow him to cancel the referendum altogether, the president now needs to prove his leadership worth even more. But with his approval rating falling to 59%, the lowest number in decades, he is unlikely to play a global savior like China, all rhetoric about Russia’s liberating role in World War II in vain.
On May 9, instead of welcoming the crowds and the parading troops, the Russian president stood alone next to the Kremlin wall in front of the fallen soldiers memorial with the eternal flames flickering behind him. He spoke of victory and perseverance but didn’t mention coronavirus, the very reason there was no public or military celebration. He did not want to invite a comparison—Russia defeated the Nazis and he is losing a war to the virus.
Indeed, propaganda doesn’t help to win the COVID battle. Excess masculinity may allow “supreme commanders” to pose as tough, diverting attention from their abject failures. It can sway public opinion for a while as in the case of Johnson or Conte. But inability to contain the virus as Johnson did in Great Britain, or in Conte’s case lacking a viable plan for Italy’s opening, already has their numbers falling.
In the meantime, there are leadership examples to celebrate—in countries run by women. Merkel’s Germany has seen less deaths than many other European nations. As The Atlantic recently put it in a headline, Jacinda Ardern, “New Zealand’s Prime Minister May Be the Most Effective Leader on the Planet,” because her country acted swiftly against the virus spread. In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon outdid the Churchill-obsessed Johnson with her more functional COVID-19 response. And prime ministers of Norway and Finland, Erna Solberg and Sanna Marin respectively, kept death numbers in the low hundreds versus thousands in the neighboring Sweden. And of course, no one has topped the performance of Her Excellency Tsai Ing-wen, president of Taiwan, the country of 24 million people, which saw 440 confirmed cases and just seven deaths. And this is despite China’s insistence that this bordering nation is, in fact, Chinese territory.
As another The Atlantic article pointed out, these successes are not necessarily the result of women being better leaders then men—there have not been enough women leaders to make this statement with certainty. It is because women—as they do in many other instances—deal with a problem in front of them instead of grandiosely playing war games.
The virus is not Nazi Germany, it is not afraid of Putin’s armies. It is not a political adversary, and won’t be intimidated by a tweet despite Trump’s daily efforts. The virus demands actions, not rhetoric, and painstaking preparedness for the next pandemic to come.
Nina Khrushcheva is a Professor of International Affairs at The New School; her latest (co-authored) book is In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for a Soul of an Empire across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones.