Future Biowar: What the Bad Guys Have Learned and How to Combat It

Shoshana Bryen, Senior Director of the Jewish Policy Center, joins Secure Freedom Radio to discuss her chapter in the Center for Security Policy’s groundbreaking new book, Defending Against Biothreats: What We Can Learn from the Coronavirus Pandemic to Enhance U.S. Defenses Against Pandemics and Biological Weapons.

In this exclusive interview with Secure Freedom Radio, Bryen assesses the spread of coronavirus and how it created a playbook for adversaries to use in the future.

“What matters to us in the present and in the future is what the Chinese have learned from the spread of the virus. Let’s say it was accidental: if it was accidentally set out and it was meant to disable the U.S., it didn’t. As a military weapon, it is not a good biological weapon. However, there are outcomes that must make the Chinese communist government happy. If you look at our response, our first responders, our systems, our shortage of medical supplies that we faced in the beginning, the change in our military deployments specifically in the pacific oceans, all of these things make the Chinese Communist Party happy.”

If this was simply an opportunistic event which has had certain windfall benefits for the Chinese Communist Party and their agenda, what insights can we take from this affair?

“We have a ton of biological research with China, some of which was strictly civilian but some of which really flops over that line between things we can’t do and things we cannot do. Since the line moves we have to stop doing a lot of biological research with China. We also should look at international systems. Yes, the President has withdrawn us from the World Health Organization but we should still be demanding that Taiwan get in, because Taiwan has research that should be part of the international system. So, Communist China out, Taiwan in.”