COVID-19 pandemic is a national emergency. In that sense, it differs from the 34 active national emergencies. As it turns out, national emergency declarations are yet another way the national security establishment perpetuates working-class insecurity by ignoring crises of healthcare access, social mobility, student debt, and climate change.
Read MoreCoronavirus is scary, and self-distancing will be difficult. But this can also be a time to build solidarity with friends and neighbors. We can also use it to reap a cultural and intellectual dividend. At SPRI, we’ll be using the lockdown to revisit our reading lists as we continue to develop new ideas to build a foreign policy for the left.
Read MoreAdam Smith condemned Trump’s corruption, but as Smith’s own campaign warchest demonstrates, much of ‘national security’ funding has an afterlife propping up the campaigns of members of Congress who are friendly to the industry. The ranking Democrats’ impeachment inquiry was never about corruption per se, but rather about which forms of corruption ‘national security’ permits.
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