INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE: The Time to Prepare for Next Pandemic Is Upon Us.

• Author: King, William E.

The following is an excerpt from a speech delivered by William E. King TV, director and senior fellow at Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., at the annual Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense Conference and Exhibition in Baltimore.

The Joint Force and military industrial complex is at an inflection point during what will be a decisive decade. Geopolitical relationships are shifting, economies are rising and falling, rapid technological advances are fueling militaries' modernizations at scale and external factors like climate change and pandemics are changing the way people live, work and go to war. An undeniable and intentional international violation of sovereignty has shocked the international system and status quo. Large-scale combat has now been introduced into strategic competition between autocracies and democracies, further stressing the rules-based international order. For the first time in our nation's history, the United States faces two major nuclear powers that may employ nuclear coercion as a way to meet their national objectives. Both China and Russia possess the will and the means to pose an existential threat to our way of life.

The current environment requires the Joint Force to strengthen and integrate deterrence across domains, theaters and the spectrum of conflict; modernize the nuclear enterprise; assure allies and partners; and prepare to prevail in great power conflict. The United States must meet this challenge with enthusiasm, discipline and fortitude--the window to seize strategic initiative is now.

To do so may require us to prioritize the future over the present in a careful deliberate balance. A careful balance between executing required current operations while rapidly building bold future warfighting advantages immediately to deter now and reduce future risks.

In May 2021, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Miley said it best: "We are now in the 76th year of the great power peace following World War II, and the structure is under stress. We can see it fraying at the edge. And with history as our guide, we would be wise to lift our gaze from the never-ending urgency of the present and set the conditions for a future that prevents great power war."

Military power today is increasingly projected through access to data earlier and at all levels, through software, computing and networking infrastructure, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. Infrastructure, technology and data architecture that enables senior leaders to make timely, informed decisions and apply the critical required forces at the time and place of need are the true enablers of victory and...