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Strategic Vision vol. 10, no. 50 (September, 2021)
Vaccine Diplomacy Great-power rivalries open door for other states to employ health diplomacy A.D. Gnanagurunathan
photo: Salifa Magnan A shipment of vaccines prepares to depart for the Seychelles as part of India’s Covishield effort.
I
t has been almost two years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus was first reported on December 31, 2019. As the virus outbreak metamorphosed into a global pandemic within just a couple of months, the world suffered a significant disruption of socioeconomic and political life. Governments were forced to meet enormous challenges in controlling and containing COVID-19. It has intensified great-power discord, ignited domestic political turmoil, reduced international cooperation, and increased tensions with global health institutions,
governance, and health diplomacy. Historically, disease outbreaks and pandemics have played a crucial role in shaping world politics, be it changing the outcome of wars or in colonizing new territories. The spread of plague in Athens, for example, at the crucial juncture of the Peloponnesian War in 430 BC ruptured the social fabric of the citystate, contributing to its defeat at Syracuse. Likewise, Justinian’s Plague in the sixth century thwarted the rise of the Byzantine Empire, and the smallpox and measles that ravaged the Incan and Aztec civiliza-
even as each state had to deal with the mounting death toll of its citizenry. In this context, it is useful to understand the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced global politics, global health
tions facilitated Spanish conquest of the Americas. Politics and technology have also increased the rate at which diseases spread, with railroads and steam ships carrying the Spanish flu to the remote corners
Dr. A.D. Gnanagurunathan is a non-resident fellow at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies in Taipei, Taiwan. He can be reached at gnanagurunathan@gmail.com