Don’t Use the Army to Fight Ebola

President Obama’s plan to send 3,000 troops to Africa to fight the Ebola epidemic places a serious risk to the U.S. military both at home and abroad.

According to the White House, “At the request of the Liberian government, we’re going to establish a military command center in Liberia to support civilian efforts across the region… It’s going to be commanded by Major General Darryl Williams, commander of our Army forces in Africa. … our forces are going to bring their expertise in command and control, in logistics, in engineering.”

The Administration has failed to provide any information about what protective gear the troops would be issued, and what percentage of the three thousand would have at least basic training in dealing with epidemic outbreaks.

While experts maintain that Ebola is mainly transmitted through body to body contact, no epidemiologist is willing to guarantee that the disease will not mutate and become infectious through airborne means such as coughing or sneezing. In fact, Ebola has been transmitted through airborne means in cases found in pigs and monkeys.

There is no practical means to ensure the safety of our servicemen and women. Add to that disturbing fact is the reality that symptoms of infection may not be evident for up to three weeks, according to the World Health Organization , which stresses: “No licensed vaccine for EVD is available. Several vaccines are being tested, but none are available for clinical use…”
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There is little doubt that international aid is desperately required. The National Center for Communicable diseases notes that “The scale of this outbreak is unprecedented and has not been brought under control, with all three affected countries reporting new cases and deaths. Of concern is the dramatic surge in new cases in all three affected countries, which reflects on going transmission of infection in the community and in healthcare facilities. This is likely due to inadequate treatment facilities, insufficient human resources and, in some areas, persistent community resistance to instituting preventive measures.”
But while trained medical professionals are urgently required, and perhaps some protective services to assist them, the provision of three thousand U.S. soldiers, as well as some British military personnel, may be providing more risk than reward.

Consider the possibility: An individual soldier becomes contaminated. Troops deployed in the region live in close quarters, giving the disease a good chance of spreading. Some will be rotated out of Africa or otherwise travel back home, providing a dangerously efficient means of spreading Ebola throughout both the U.S. military as well as the civilian population.

In an interview in the military newspaper States and Stripes, Bruce Aylward, The World Health Organization’s assistant director, said “This health crisis we face is unparalleled in modern times. The gravity of the situation is difficult to get across with just a few numbers… With the number of cases, 4,985, and deaths, 2,461, doubling in the past 14 days, ‘you start to get a sense of the rapid escalation we’re seeing of the virus from what was a linear increase in cases to now an almost exponential increase,’ Scientists from Fort Detrick say the number of Ebola cases in West Africa is much larger than official estimates indicate.”

Unease with the White House move began to grow following a New York Times article written by Michael Osteholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. According to Osterholm, “The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done. … virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air. …The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.”

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.