Special Commentary: The Impact of COVID-19 

on Civil-Military Relations

May 12, 2020 | Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff

INTRODUCTION

There has been a great deal of speculation regarding how the current COVID-19 pandemic 

could affect civil-military relations in the United States. Oona Hathaway observes that after the 

terrorists attacks on September 11, 2001, which killed approximately three thousand Americans, 

the United States “radically re-oriented” its security priorities and embarked on a two-decadelong global war on terror that cost $2.8 trillion from 2002 to 2017. Given that COVID-19 could 

kill more than one hundred thousand Americans, she argues that it is time to re-orient those 

priorities again.1

Of course, simply re-orienting security priorities by themselves will not be transformative. 

Nora Bensahel and David Barno, for example, argue that diminished defense budgets resulting 

from shrinking revenues will make less funds available to maintain expensive forward bases and 

legacy weapons programs. Moreover, they argue, the increased sense of vulnerability will give

the National Guard and reserve components a greater priority than active forces given their 

more prominent role in addressing the current crisis.2 They are probably right that these things 

will occur. However, a smaller active force and an empowered National Guard and reserve

components will not fundamentally alter the role the military plays in American society. That 

kind of transformation requires not only taking on new missions, but more importantly, taking 

on new expert knowledge.

Since a profession’s status is contingent on a distinct body of expert knowledge, and the 

autonomy to apply that knowledge within a given jurisdiction, prioritizing human security will 

require developing expertise in more than the use of force. Doing so will shift the military’s focus 

from lethality to the prevention, or failing that, the alleviation of suffering, potentially blurring 

the lines between military and civilian realms. Of course, such an outcome is not inevitable and 

the US military has played a role in disaster response before without re-orienting its security 

priorities. However, the COVID-19 pandemic may prove a pivotal moment but not simply 

because of reduced funding for military expenditures or increased vulnerability to pandemics. 
Diminishing external security threats, due in some part to the effects of the virus, coupled with 

increasing demand to assure human well-being both in the United States and abroad, could lead 

to a rethinking of the military’s role in American society. This rethinking could include the 

redistribution of roles between the military, civilian agencies, and other organizations, which

extends beyond simply decreasing funds spent on defense.

THE MILITARY AS A PROFESSION

Fundamentally, the field of civil-military relations is about the division of labor between 

civilian government and the military profession in providing for national security. As Samuel 

Huntington put it, the primary problem of civilian-military relations is to find a balance between 

the functional imperative arising from the demands of external defense and social imperatives 

arising from “social forces, ideologies, and institutions” that shape the society. Prioritizing the 

functional imperative risks subordinating social values to military imperatives. Prioritizing 

social values risks undermining the military’s ability to defend the state.3

Fundamental to that balance is the establishment of a military profession subordinate to the 

state. In Huntington’s view, professional status is contingent on a body of expert knowledge, 

used in service to society, over which the professional has autonomy and jurisdiction to provide 

that service to clients.4 In the military context, that skill is the “management of violence.” Unlike

professions such as medicine and law, whose clients are typically individual members of society, 

the military’s client is the state, which acts as a proxy for the people.5 For Huntington, the 

civilian leadership’s role was to tell the military when to use force; the military’s job was to 

figure out how. In this way, the military could defend the country without too much disruption 

to civil life.

There are, of course, a number of different aspects to this relationship. In the United States, 

the core principle of civilian control over the military is one that the military is unlikely to 

challenge owing to the COVID-19 pandemic or any related crisis. First, this principle is one 

deeply held by the military so it would take considerable pressure for it to change. Second, if the 

military takes on broader security responsibilities, it will do so to be more responsive to civil 

authority. So as long as American democracy holds, so will civilian control over the military.

Having said that, professions are social constructions and social conditions change. The 

driving factors of such change are outside the profession’s control, but they still affect the 

profession’s expertise, jurisdiction, and autonomy. As James Burk observes, the rise of the 

medical profession depended on the rise of science as a source for legitimate abstract 

knowledge.6 In the military context, the political requirement to address ethnic cleansing in 

Bosnia in the 1990s led to the US Army taking on peacekeeping as a core mission, which 

required adopting new expertise and new organizations.

7

So, the difficulty for Huntington’s civil-military division of labor is that, as the COVID-19 

pandemic has clearly shown, managing violence is not the only thing that militaries can do. Of 
course, simply having a useful, non-lethal capability does not entail a rethinking of the military’s 

functional imperative. In fact, the US military has a long history of responding to domestic 

civilian crises, as it did to provide relief to victims of flooding in Mississippi in the 1920s or 

Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

8 More to the point, the military’s response to the Ebola pandemic in 

Liberia in 2014, where it deployed more than three thousand troops, several treatment units, a 

twenty-five bed hospital, and six medical research labs, did not fundamentally alter the nature of 

the profession.9

The reason, of course, these events did not ultimately distract the military from its role in 

external defense is that these crises were relatively short lived and affected, again relatively 

speaking, a limited number of persons. More to the point, the military’s response did not require 

it to acquire new expert knowledge. It just required that the military apply the expertise it had to 

a novel situation. So while the military provided an important “surge” capability, it returned to 

its primary missions after the crisis subsided or civilian agencies and organizations caught up to 

the crisis’s demands. 

The COVID-19 pandemic could be a first step in changing that dynamic. If COVID-19 

enlarges what Americans conceive of as security to include pandemics, it is easy to see how 

responding to a pandemic at home could expand to responding to a pandemic abroad. It is even 

fewer steps from conceiving of a pandemic as a threat to conceiving of anything that threatens 

human well-being as a security matter. However, much will depend on the pervasiveness of the 

virus and its effects, including not just the severity of future waves but also the enduring social 

and economic impact.10 Such change will also depend on what further threats to human wellbeing follow. If the COVID-19 pandemic is a “hundred year event” like the 1918 Spanish flu,

where the military was victim and vector but played little role in recovery, then the impact to 

civil-military relations will be small. 

Broadening security to include human well-being is not a new idea, so the likelihood of such 

change is not negligible. The idea, often referred to as “human security,” is a two-fold concept: 

freedom from want and freedom from fear.11 It shifts the focus of security from the state to the 

individual and thus from securing borders to securing the environment, including protecting 

people’s access to food, water, health care, and other necessities. Human security requires 

governments to address conditions associated with anything that might prevent individuals and 

communities from obtaining basic needs.12 The notion of fighting enemies “over there,” so we do 

not have to fight them “here,” applies just as well to viruses as it does terrorists. As such, the 

military may find itself in the position of being the only agency that can meet the operational 

and logistic challenges required to address such broad security requirements. Calling on the 

military to meet those requirements will not only change what the military does; it will change 

what the military is.

Of course, the slope described here is not that slippery. Adversaries like Russia, China, and 

Iran will continue to threaten vital interests of the United States and its partners. This will 

require the ability to project overwhelming military force globally. Russia could decide to assert 
itself in its near abroad, requiring the United States to come to the defense of NATO allies. 

China could threaten US partners over disputes regarding the South China Sea, also requiring a 

military response. And as Iran has recently shown, it remains a threat to US partners in the 

Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia—against which it has been waging a proxy war in Yemen 

since 2011. Thus, it would be optimistic for any human security enthusiast to believe the 

Department of Defense will be trading in its aircraft carriers, attack aircraft, and armored forces 

for more medical equipment any time soon. 

Having said that, the slope is slippery enough. Russia and China’s ability to power-project 

even in their near abroad is extremely limited, more so as a result of the pandemic, opening up 

questions about how significant a threat to US interests they really are.13 Iran’s ability to 

challenge the United States militarily is similarly limited, as it consists largely of terrorist attacks 

by proxies. While one should not discount such threats, there is very little conventional forces 

can do about them. This point does not mean it is not useful to have a carrier group and a 

bomber wing or two stationed in the Persian Gulf. However, doing so would not preclude 

rethinking what counts as security and what the military’s role should be over the long term. 

More to the point, the military has already slid part of the way. The Defense Logistics Agency 

has provided $688 million in support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and 

Health and Human Services to provide personal protective equipment, ventilators, and test 

components.14 In addition to the deployment of the hospital ships USNS Mercy to Los Angeles 

and USNS Comfort to New York, the Army Corps of Engineers is assisting with the construction 

of eight hundred alternate care facilities and other construction projects to help with the 

overflow of patients in the hardest hit areas.15 By the end of April, 44,500 National Guard troops 

had been mobilized in all fifty states to perform functions ranging from population control to 

delivering food and other critical supplies to supporting testing and delivery of health care.16

Despite this effort, there have been demands for more of a military role. Even at the 

beginning, the administration was criticized for not mobilizing the military immediately to 

address pandemic-related requirements.17 In fact, former New Jersey governor and presidential 

candidate Chris Christie argued in a recent Washington Post editorial that the administration 

should use the Defense Production Act “to take control of the supply chain” to produce tests kits 

as has already been done for ventilators and personal protective equipment.18 Once money 

moves through the Department of Defense to address the health and safety of individual 

Americans, the defense industry, which is in the best place to navigate the Department of 

Defense’s byzantine contracting requirements, will soon get involved. That is not necessarily a 

bad thing; however, if an industrial base evolves to address human security requirements, 

momentum will increase for the military to take on an expanded role in meeting those 

requirements. 

Whatever happens, there are two likely paths for the military should human security 

demands reprioritize or even replace those of national security. If the military does not take on a 

new, broader role, its budget will shrink and go to building civilian capability. Given the 
expected budget impact, such a diversion of resources will very likely result in decreased 

military spending and consequently capability, as Bensahel, Barno, and others suggest. Should 

adversaries like China and Russia suffer similar shortfalls, then the result will likely be a small 

military, even more isolated from the public, much like that in the interwar period between 

World Wars I and II. 

If it does take on the new role, then the profession’s expertise, jurisdiction, and autonomy 

will change. A military designed to respond to human security has to do more than manage 

violence. It needs to understand what human security needs are, how to identify threats to those 

needs, and how to marshal a response. Doing so will require new expertise necessary not just to 

respond to such crises, but also to recognize the conditions that cause them. It will also require 

new thinking to devise methods to prevent crises before they occur. These requirements will 

shift priorities away from the combat arms to operational support and sustainment capabilities. 

Moreover, taking on this role will expand the military’s jurisdiction into areas currently held by 

civilian agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention. However that competition resolves itself, the result will be a very 

different military than the one we have today.

Neither evolution is inevitable, nor will it necessarily be conscious. Rather, it will be the 

function of countless decisions—big and small—by the active, reserve component, and National 

Guard forces as they seek to maintain resourcing and legitimacy in a post-COVID world. It will 

also be a function of the severity of the current and future crises and how the executive branch 

chooses to respond. Yet, when it comes to professions, the client gets a vote on the value, if not 

the nature, of the service the profession provides. To the extent pandemics and other threats to 

human well-being proliferate, what is certain is that the profession—and the society it serves—

will have to divert more resources to addressing human suffering. Equally certain, the evolving

capabilities of the military ensures the civil-military status quo will not likely survive.

ENDNOTES

1. Oona Hathaway, “COVID-19 Shows How the U.S. Got National Security Wrong,” Just 

Security, April 7, 2020, https://www.justsecurity.org/69563/covid-19-shows-how-the-u-s-gotnational-security-wrong/.

2. David Barno and Nora Bensahel, “Five Ways the U.S. Military will Change After the 

Pandemic,” War on the Rocks, April 28, 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/04/five-waysthe-u-s-military-will-change-after-the-pandemic/.

3. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of CivilMilitary Relations (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1957), kindle edition, loc 199 of 10658.

4. Huntington, loc 249 of 10658.

5. Huntington, loc 291 out of 10658.
6. James Burk, “Expertise, Jurisdiction, and Legitimacy of the Military Profession,” Lloyd J. 

Matthews, editor, The Future of the Army Profession, 1st Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 

2002), 23.

7. Don Snider, John Nagl, Tony Pfaff, Army Professionalism, the Military Ethic, and 

Officership in the 21st Century (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 1999), 21.

8. David Vergun, “DOD COVID-19 Response Continues Long History of Aiding Civilians,” 

Department of Defense, April 27, 2020, https://www.defense.gov/Explore/Features/Story

/Article/2165897/dod-covid-19-response-continues-long-history-of-aiding-civilians/.

9. Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis, Operational UNITED ASSISTANCE: The DOD 

Response to Ebola in West Africa (Washington, DC: US Government Press, 2016), 5, JCS 5.

10. Lydia Denworth, “How the COVID-19 Pandemic Could End,” Scientific American, April 

28, 2020, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-covid-19-pandemic-couldend1/.

11. Mahbub ul Haq et al, Human Development Report 1994 (New York: United Nations 

Development Programme, 1994).

12. Shannon D. Beebe and Mary Kaldor, The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon: Human 

Security and the New Rules of War and Peace (New York, Public Affairs, 2010), 7-8.

13. Ann M. Simmons, “In Russia, Putin Wrestles With Economic Impact of Coronavirus,” 

Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-russia-putin-wrestles-witheconomic-impact-of-coronavirus-11588696059?mod=itp_wsj&ru=yahoo. 

China’s military capabilities appear less affected than Russia or the United States; however, 

the internal crisis created by the pandemic will likely keeps its leaders and military focused 

domestically for the time being. See Minxin Pei, “China’s Coming Upheaval: Competition, the 

Coronavirus, and the Weakness of Xi Jinping,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2o2o, 

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-04-03/chinas-coming-upheaval.

14. Defense Logistics Agency, “Coronavirus Information,” April 24, 2020, 

https://www.dla.mil/Info/Coronavirus/CoronavirusSupportNews/, accessed April 27, 2020.

15. Department of Defense, “Coronavirus: Rumor Control,” April 15, 2020, 

https://www.defense.gov/Explore/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Rumor-Control/, accessed April 27, 

2020.

16. Howard Altman, Latest Guard update: 44,500 troops mobilized with 83 percent on Title 

32 order, Military Times, April 27, 2020, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/coronavirus/

2020/04/27/latest-national-guard-covid-19-update-44500-troops-mobilized-with-83-percenton-title-32-orders/.
17. Charlie Dunlap, “Why militarizing the coronavirus response is a bad idea ... for now 

anyway,” Lawfire, March 19, 2020, https://sites.duke.edu/lawfire/2020/03/19/whymilitarizing-the-coronavirus-response-is-a-bad-idea-for-now-anyway/.

18. Chris Christie, “Five actions we need to take to restore the American way of life,” 

Washington Post, April 24, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chris-christiedont-let-our-covid-19-response-be-governed-by-extremes/2020/04/24/6a5e030c-8642-11ea878a-86477a724bdb_story.html.

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