In 2003, a new strain of flu found in geese and other migratory birds had jumped into 120 humans and killed half of them. Migratory birds migrated. That same year, a new coronavirus had moved, probably from an animal called a masked palm civet, into humans, infecting eight thousand people and killing eight hundred. A mutation here or a mutation there, and either one of these viruses could have wreaked havoc on American life. Yet in national security policy circles the threats posed by nature remained someone else’s problem. Then Bush read John Barry’s book, and asked, What’s our strategy? “We
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