Faced with the Covid-19 pandemic, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about wars. The parallels between the same and our reality are eerie. This Global Pandemic has similarities with the wartime economies. As with war, a percentage of our population is fighting on the front, in this case, Medical practitioners. We are facing an invisible enemy in this war on the home front. The destructive and alarming situation is reminding countries of the importance of public health.
During the Vietnam war, Hanoi dismissed that success would be military combat and believed that the outcome could be achieved away from the battlefield. North Vietnamese used guerrilla warfare tactics and a network of tunnels to covertly move supplies and house troops and lay traps and mount surprise attacks. The rail system and its ports were used to receive foreign military aid shipments. They mobilized their existing resources and equipment to come up with alternative strategies to survive and defeat Americans until their eventual withdrawal in 1972.
Today we aren’t producing guns and tanks but we are facing a task to manufacture and stock medical supplies/equipment to battle the contagion. The country is trying to use its resources to tackle this unprecedented challenge. From the use of rational use of personal protective equipment (PPE) to defense forces building more quarantine centers and the Government turning trains and stadiums for the same, to domestic companies like My Lab developing India’s first testing kit and Diageo India pledging to produce hand sanitizers to help cope with the demand. Various Indian companies have united to help citizens, and the Government fights the Covid-19 outbreak in the country by contributing funds. India is focusing entirely inwards and trying to mobilize all its stakeholders to fight this pandemic with limited resources.
We are also seeing that nothing like this virus has ever hit the world at this rapid scale and speed incurring unimaginable human costs. People didn’t take social distancing very seriously across the world, and that is costing them their lives directly or indirectly. Similarly, during the Vietnam War, the Americans took the logistical terrain of Vietnam for granted, and that added majorly to the defeat of the US against North America.
Shutdown fears, work from home has driven demand and induced hoarding of consumer goods, even though retailers and FMGC Companies have assured that there is no shortage and they will speed up supplies at the earliest. During the Vietnam War, goods such as bread, cake, ham, and lima beans were rationed as they were deemed essential to the war effort. In his books, Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975, Max Hastings talks about how C4 explosive was used to heat the ration tin by punching holes in it. Hoarding collapses the fair price system. And now, pictures of empty supermarket shelves show that fear has won over our economic thinking.
In such situations, insurgents rely on neighboring countries with which they share good relations for help and sanctuary. North Vietnam was helped by China and South Vietnam was helped by the US. For dealing with Coronavirus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also mooted an integrated regional approach. At the same time, President Trump calling COVID 19 as the ‘China Virus’ and China not very far behind in calling the crisis as the handwork of American Conspiracy reflect the traps of geopolitics.
The virus hasn’t caused mass destruction of property and equipment. Thus, there will not be any rebuilding effort. And as the case of young people dying in the war, it’s the elderly who are more vulnerable because of the virus.
Between 1961 and 1971, mixtures of herbicides were utilized by the US military forces against the North Vietnamese forces. Agent Orange was used to deprive Vietnamese forces of crops to eat and forest canopy in which they hid. This herbicide hurt the Vietnam foliage and animal life; the horrors of which are believed to exist even today. Whereas, India breathes easier because of the lockdowns ordered to combat the spread of the coronavirus. In New Delhi, the world’s most polluted capital city, the Air Quality Index sank to 45 (good air) as compared to averaged AQI around 161 (unhealthy) in March 2019, according to IQAir.
Hence, the resemblance of the situation with the war in no way asserts that recovery would follow the same trajectory. We can only hope that people follow the guidelines issued by the Health Ministry and the WHO to avoid the spread of the virus until a vaccine is discovered. With a cure also found, there are many barriers before global immunization is feasible. In times like these, social distancing is a must to slow the spread of the virus to manageable levels. It’s high time we get this clear as Trump has got it too. Only recently has President Trump seemed to realize the gravity of the situation-“I am a wartime President. This is a war. There’s a different kind of war that we have ever had.” To which John Oliver said, “It’s like the Vietnam War only this time Trump is actually taking part”.