Civil-Military Engagement During Public Health Emergencies: A Comparative Analysis of Domestic Responses to COVID 19

Despite the central role that domestic militaries regularly play in supporting civilian disease outbreak responses, the dynamics of civil-military coordination during major health emergencies remain largely under-explored in public health, humanitarian, and security literatures. Previous research has found, furthermore, that existing international civil-military guidelines hold limited relevance during pandemics, especially at national and local levels, which is currently evidenced by the observable lack of coherence and high variance in domestic military approaches to COVID-19 worldwide. This article presents a comparative analysis of three of these approaches—in the United Kingdom, China, and the Philippines—and maps these countries’ military contributions to the COVID-19 response across a number of domains. Analysis of these case studies builds knowledge and provides important insights into the ways that humanitarian civil-military engagement exists in unacknowledged contexts and forms; how militaries are often ‘first responders’ rather than a ‘last resort’ in crisis contexts; the confusion surrounding how to understand various non-military armed and security actors; and how pandemics represent a unique domain for humanitarian civil-military engagement that tests both the international system and international norms. This paper concludes with policy, guidance development, and research recommendations for improved practice during localised humanitarian civil-military engagement.