President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence during a March press briefing with members of the Coronavirus Task Force at the White House. PHOTO: YURI GRIPAS/REUTERS
Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Pandemic Stands to Force Changes in U.S. Spy Services
After years of underplaying soft threats like disease and climate change, national-security establishment faces calls for a new approach
WASHINGTON—U.S. intelligence agencies have long failed to make detecting global pandemics a priority, current and former U.S. officials say, posing a challenge for the incoming Biden administration, which has pledged to step up the government’s ability to prepare for biological dangers.
In the wake of a global pandemic that has killed more than 250,000 Americans, there is growing support among President-elect Joe Biden’s advisers for broadening the definition of national security within spy and defense agencies and upgrading their ability to detect, analyze and respond to pandemics.
“We are looking at whether our intelligence resources are appropriately focused on something that’s very important,” said a senior foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Biden.
Congress, which is likely to hold hearings next year on the U.S. response to the pandemic, is also taking a closer look at the intelligence agencies’ role.
A House Intelligence Committee report in September found that U.S. spy agencies pay insufficient attention to so-called soft national-security threats, such as infectious diseases and climate change. It recommended a review of the $85 billion intelligence budget and said the Central Intelligence Agency and other spy agencies should increase support to U.S. public-health agencies.
On paper, the intelligence community has acknowledged that infectious diseases present a significant threat. A report in 2000 by the National Intelligence Council said that new and re-emerging diseases could endanger U.S. forces deployed overseas and pose a risk for the American population.
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WNU Editor: Lies and deceit from China in the beginning on the severity of the Covid-19 coronavirus, thereby delaying a response by six to eight weeks. The slow and incomprehensible response from WHO on the dangers of this disease at the beginning of this outbreak. 1.4 million people dead and counting. Economic costs running in the trillions. Instability on a global scale. No arguments from me. Pandemics are a security threat. Unfortunately, I think this crisis will be used to prioritize the intelligence agencies to focus more on climate change and other issues that are important to the incoming Biden administration, rather than on pandemics
