Citation:
Date Presented:
February 4Abstract:
In October 2014, President Obama characterized the Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa as a “top national security priority.” The President went so far as to say that an American intervention in the region should not be interpreted as purely humanitarian; rather, it was a response to the threat that the political and economic implications of Ebola posed to US security. To some, the deployment of 3,000 American troops to Liberia in the name of US national security appeared puzzling. However, since 2008 the Defense Department’s (DoD) US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has explicitly connected its health operations and engagements with particular security outcomes. Indeed, in expressly linking its disease prevention and response efforts to its overall strategic objectives—through the AFRICOM command surgeon’s motto, “Stability through health”—DoD articulates/advances a particular understanding of how diseases in sub-Saharan Africa bear on US national security.
Where did this conceptual framework come from? By exploring the defense community’s strategic thinking on these issues, I argue that the relationship between security and infectious disease has a much longer and more complicated history than contemporary geopolitics would suggest. Employing a qualitative mixed-methods approach that combines archival research, primary and secondary source analysis, and key informant interviews, my thesis investigates the distinct logics and conceptual frameworks that have underpinned DoD disease-related programs for civilians. In so doing, I demonstrate—in contrast to much of the literature on this topic—that AFRICOM’s ideological commitment to “stability through health” is not a function of the confluence of the AIDS pandemic and 9/11. Rather, my research indicates that there was both a much more recent context that has informed this perspective, as well as a longer historical backdrop at play.