The 'War' On Covid-19 Is Not A War! Adam Leong Kok Wey

In the last few weeks, when Malaysia was under Movement Control Order (MCO), a form of lockdown to prevent the worsening Covid-19 outbreak in Malaysia, a lot of people started framing that we are at ‘war’ with Covid-19.[1] We even have experts talking about using robots to fight the war on Covid-19[2], and preparing a ‘war-time production’ in the ‘war’ against Covid-19[3].  It is always tempting to call a serious crisis, be it health or crime, as a war. For example, we have ‘war’ on dengue, ‘war’ on Mat Rempit and now, a ‘war’ on Covid-19.  It looks as if calling a reaction to a crisis as a war would make it sound more serious as opposed to saying something bland like ‘managing the Covid-19 outbreak’. For students of war and strategy, it must be frustrating to know that the term ‘war’ has been misused so often until it has lost its meaning.

So, then, what is War? Let’s set the record straight by understanding the real meaning of war, its purpose, and what a war is really like.  This is important as we need to frame a proper meaning and analogy to prevent misunderstanding resulting in wrong responses to a crisis.

War has many definitions but the most useful, and widely, used was by Hedley Bull which stated that war is “organized violence carried on by political units against each other”[4]. War is planned violence against a political unit by another political unit.  A political unit, for example, can be a modern state or a non-state actor like an international terrorist organization or a kingdom or an empire. Hence, war is conducted between political actors using tools of violence to cause deaths and destruction, for a political purpose – whether to gain control of a piece of land or water area or a group of people.

The precept that war serves political purposes set by political units was influenced by the early 19^th century Carl von Clausewitz. He wrote and posthumously published the famous book, On War.  Clausewitz wrote about a lot of issues related to war, strategy and tactics in his magnum opus but his most famous catchphrase that has been widely quoted (and often misunderstood) was, “War is a continuation of politics or policy by other means”[5].  Clausewitz wrote his book in Prussian and there is no direct English translation of politik and hence its meaning could either be politics or policy. The debate on what he really meant continues today but for our heuristic purpose, we understand that war is about politics (since policy is the output of politics).  Hence, war is a political tool (amongst others such as diplomacy, economic aid, statecraft, and others) to play politics. War is used as a tool to achieve a political unit’s objectives – as mentioned, and for parsimony - to gain influence or control over territory and/or resources, and/ or people. Thus, the current ‘war’ on a virus does not fit into the actual meaning and purpose of war.

What if Covid-19 is man-made and deliberately spread, as some conspiracy theorists would want us to believe? Then if it is, Covid-19 is just a ‘bioweapon’ used by a state or non-state actor to achieve its political objectives. We should call it a war on the state or the non-state actor involved in using Covid-19 as a weapon.  If we call it a war against Covid-19 is akin to calling a ‘war against a tank’ or a ‘war against an aircraft carrier’!

The importance of defining and terming an issue as war is intensified when there was an argument that Malaysia should prepare its economy for ‘war time production’[6]. This is a fallacy. As mentioned above, war involves violence such as the killing of people and destruction of material.

In a real war, if Malaysia is attacked by a state with a modern and powerful military, these may happen: in the first few hours of hostilities, air strikes by cruise missiles and aircraft will destroy key military targets (priority to destroy Malaysia’s air defence assets and gain air superiority) and also strategic nodes such as our power grid, power stations, water plants, and telecommunications towers. We will not have electricity, no TV to watch, no telephone connection, no internet, no WhatsApp or Telegram or Instagram, and no freshwater from our water taps to drink or shower. Certain highways, roads, civilian airports, ports, and bridges will also be destroyed. Factories manufacturing arms and strategic materials will also be targeted. These will be destroyed even before a ground invasion will start. 

There is not much of an industrial base and infrastructure left to sustain Malaysia’s war-time production. There will be mass panic and exodus of Malaysian civilians out from dangerous areas and cities which will see large and long columns of refugees seeking out safer areas. This fear is created for a purpose by the enemy – to cause massive gridlocks and choking up traffic in the few useable roads and highways not destroyed yet, to block and restrict the movement of Malaysian ground troops using the same lines of communications. When the Malaysian ground forces are held up in these chokepoints and massed up due to compression, it will present a set of easy targets for the next wave of interdiction and tactical air strikes.

This is war.

There is a lot more violence that the enemy will unleash in the next few days but suffice to stop here to get the point across.  The current ‘war on Covid-19’ will not see our factories, infrastructure, strategic nodes, and military assets destroyed. Most of us are enjoying our ‘stay-at-home’ sojourn with unlimited TV and internet access in safety with our families, and when the MCO is partially lifted (as of writing), factories and businesses will run again.

There is a big difference between what a real war is and the current management of Covid-19 outbreak.  We can do better by understanding what war really means and refrain from misusing the term for it may create a wrong understanding of what war (and warfare) actually is, and confuse ourselves about the different responses and strategies for war as opposed to ‘managing a public health crisis’.

[1] https://www.malaymail.com/news/what-you-think/2020/03/20/in-malaysias-war-against-covid-19-we-need-a-national-narrative-shazwan-must/1848273

[2] https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2020/04/09/covid-19-robots-may-become-heroes-in-war-on-coronavirus

[3] https://www.malaymail.com/news/what-you-think/2020/04/02/war-time-production-that-underpins-the-future-liew-chin-tong/1852963

[4] Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Red Globe, 4^th edn, 2012), pp. 178-192.

[5] Antulio J. Echevarria II, ‘War And Politics: The Revolution In Military Affairs And The

Continued Relevance Of Clausewitz”, Joint Forces Quarterly (Winter 195/96), https://clausewitz.com/readings/Echevarria/ECHJFQ.htm

[6] https://www.malaymail.com/news/what-you-think/2020/04/02/war-time-production-that-underpins-the-future-liew-chin-tong/1852963

Dr Adam Leong Kok Wey is Associate Professor in strategic studies and Deputy Director of Research in the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies (CDISS) at the National Defence University of Malaysia. His latest book is Killing the Enemy! Assassination Operations During World War II, published in 2020 by Bloomsbury, London.