Realism and the Pandemic

Literature Review
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Literature Review
Many nations have developed national health policies meant to address the situation in their country, depending on the extent of infections among the citizens. These policies are meant to thwart the spread of the virus among the citizens (Bargain and Aminjonov, 2020, p. 104316). One of the measures adopted by various nations is stopping international travel, and ensuring that travelers from various anions are vaccinated before entering the hosting nations.
There has been a general tendency to adhere to the policies proposed by the WHO and integrate the proposals into the national policies in many countries. These measures include sanitizing, wearing masks, and even getting vaccinated (Busby, 2020, p. 2020). Many nations have adhered to the health standards set by the international organization. Therefore, there has been impressive cooperation among nations towards stemming the spread of the novel virus. Research from various institutions across the globe has enjoyed support from nations, private entities, and even international institutions such as the WHO (Alam, Rampes and Ma 2021, p. 312). Hence, many nations have chosen to work with an international organization and commit their resources towards the needed medical and health research.
Many nations have received support from the adverse economic effects of the pandemic by international entities such as the World Bank and even some individual nations. Some nations received support in form of financial aid, food, protective masks, and even medical equipment (Dunn et al., 2020, p. 40). The sense of care is based on the rising need to care for humanity and stem the adverse effects such as hunger, deaths, and even economic strife among many people.
The global community has shown tremendous effort towards stemming the virus, as indicated in measures such as vaccinating the global community. Many vaccines are not sold, and an appreciable fraction of the global community has already been vaccinated (Tulloch, Roldan de Jong, and Bardosh, 2021). Despite the pressure from the high demand for vaccines, the few nations making the vaccines have committed a good fraction of the vaccine to most affected countries (Singer, 2020, p. 123). The efforts illustrate a positive gesture towards improving international relations and unity towards a common goal.
Due to the hardship emanating from the pandemic, many nations have received support from the well-off nations to improve their condition. Such support is in the form of donations, grants, and even tax holidays to improve the economic situation of the most affected nations (McKibbin and Vines, 2020; Sadikova, M., 2020. P. 3; Song and Zhou, 2020, p. 23). These efforts illustrate a change towards improved international relations, where diverse nations care for the welfare of their counterparts.
Theoretical Framework
Realism in international relations is among the most practical models in analyzing trends of international relations in the course of a global pandemic. Realism insists that every nation in the world is operating to enhance its power and influence in global trends. Nations horde power to stay more influential over their less influential counterparts. Additionally, nations that compete to take global leadership horde power to stay ahead of their competitors. In realism, the fight for power is ever-present. The realism framework in international relations further indicates that nations are growing to preserve themselves. Any powerful nation stands a chance of preserving itself from attacks on the global platform. Through self-preservation and power hoarding, nations can influence social, economic, and political agendas. To the extent of realism inputs, global pandemics can be a platform to horde power and exercise more influence in global activities.
The realism extends its inputs in international relations by assessing the pursuance of high moral grounds and strategies that nations employ to stay powerful. In its natural form, the world trends can barely allow nations to mater the moral high grounds. To that extent, governments resort to deceit and violence as tools that effectively advance national interests. Maintaining moral righteousness in the eyes of international organizations can take a backseat to enacting a foreign policy that will increase the country’s worldwide reputation; now that homeland defense has been elevated to the greatest priority.[Arndt, C., Davies, R., Gabriel, S., Harris, L., Makrelov, K., Robinson, S., Levy, S., Simbanegavi, W., van Seventer, D. and Anderson, L., 2020. Covid-19 lockdowns, income distribution, and food security: An analysis for South Africa. Global Food Security, 26, p.100410.]
Realism and the Pandemic
The footprints of realism are marked at every stage of the pandemic. Right from the onset of COVID-19, nations developed strategies that would steer their power while also protecting the support from their citizens. The origin of COVID-19 was among the most debatable topics on the international platform. The first known infections were recorded in Wuhan, China. However, the source of viral transmissions to humans remains unknown to date. The information about whether the virus became pathogenic before or after the spillover even also remains unknown. However, the fact that most of the first victims of the virus were workers at the Wuhan seafood market, it was assumed that the virus originated from that market.[Dunn, C.G., Kenney, E., Fleischhacker, S.E. and Bleich, S.N., 2020. Feeding low-income children during the Covid-19 pandemic. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(18), p.e40.]
The assumptions about the origin of the virus precipitated into a sound ground for a global power hoarding platform. China is a global socioeconomic and political powerhouse whose influence in the world keeps rising. The faster economic growth of China, its growing influence in the developing world, and its strategic alliances with nations such as North Korea, Russia, and Syria make it an enemy to the west. With the onset of the virus assumed to be Wuhan, nations that compete with China for global influence took the opportunity to horde power. The US was strategic in handling the situation to tilt the trends to their advantage. That happened in various aspects. For instance, the US effectively labeled COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus”. The implications of labeling would be a lost trust in China by various nations. Labeling the virus as a Chinese factor created a ground for blame games. While protecting their people, nations started blaming one another for the implementation of various protocols to protect against the spread of the virus. Primary among the protocols were restrictions on global travel. Most nations offered travel advisories to tame their citizens from visiting the hotspots such as China and Italy.[Alam, A., Rampes, S. and Ma, D., 2021. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on research. Transl Perioper & Pain Med, 8(1), pp.312-314.] [Song, L. and Zhou, Y., 2020. The COVID‐19 pandemic and its impact on the global economy: What does it take to turn crisis into opportunity? China & World Economy, 28(4)19]
The blame games escalated to multiple conspiracy theories that would define the deceit by which nations seek power as indicated in realism. The breakout of the virus was immediately followed by guidelines from the WHO. The guidelines would advise on human interactions in the wake of the virus. Notable among the guidelines was the suggestion that people wear masks. Healthcare facilities were also encouraged to direct more of their resources towards addressing COVID-19 issues. China was largely blamed for starting the virus to boost its economic growth while also enhancing its influence on the international platform. One area in that China prospered to substantiate the allegations was in the supply of medical equipment. China was the chief supplier of some medical equipment during the virus. Given the massive shortage of personal protective equipment, hospital gowns, and masks at the onset of the virus. The production of masks in China increased 12 times before its production before the outbreak to hit 116 million masks daily. With such an economic opening, China was selling to most nations, including the US, Europe, Africa, and South America. Much of the world relied on supplies from China. The Chinese coming out as saviors during the pandemic elevated their position.[Arndt, C., Davies, R., Gabriel, S., Harris, L., Makrelov, K., Robinson, S., Levy, S., Simbanegavi, W., van Seventer, D. and Anderson, L., 2020. Covid-19 lockdowns, income distribution, and food security: An analysis for South Africa. Global Food Security, 26, p.100410.]
The course of the pandemic was also accompanied by the race to find solutions. Most nations were accused of deceit in an attempt to cement their position as global leaders. As noted in realism, deceit and violence are used as tools to fuel global relevance. On February 5, 2021, China reported having only 25 new cases of the virus. The rest of the world, led by the US, reacted by indicating that China was deceiving the world and their numbers could not be that efficient. The same accusations were echoed at the onset of the virus where the Chinese were accused of giving false numbers to imply better COVID-19 management mechanisms relative to the western nations whose numbers were souring. There were also reports about Russia claiming to stay ahead in finding the vaccine for the virus. Deceit was used as a tool to fuel power and influence among individual nations.[Sergunin, Alexander, Valery Konyshev, and Gao Fei. "International Relations Theory and the BRICS Phenomenon." Journal of China and International Relations (2020): 67] [Banda, J.M., Tekumalla, R., Wang, G., Yu, J., Liu, T., Ding, Y., Artemova, E., Tutubalina, E. and Chowell, G., 2021. A large-scale COVID-19 Twitter chatter dataset for open scientific research—an international collaboration. Epidemiologia, 2(3), pp.315-324.] [Davies, S.E. and Wenham, C., 2020. Why the COVID-19 response needs International Relations. International Affairs, 96(5), pp.1227-1251.]
The development and dissemination of the virus is another stage of COVID-19 that showcased relatable reliance on realism. The coronavirus vaccine opened an opportunity for nations to redeem themselves and regain global authority. The opportunity came as a cold war-like race where nations wanted to outdo one another in developing the virus. The US, Australia, France, and Russia were among the most mentioned as being in the advanced stages of developing the vaccine. Just like the supply for medical equipment, the development of the vaccine opened a platform for nations to create, innovate, and sell. Merely five months after the first case of coronavirus, there were more than 90 vaccines under different developmental stages. Six were already undergoing safety tests. Even so, every week came with newer vaccines from different countries. While the development of the vaccines was a natural reaction to the impacts of the virus, nations also competed for who would lead the race. To a large extent, the relationships among nations that developed the vaccines deteriorated with each advancement in the stage of innovation. That is a show of realism in which nations use the opportunity they find in the global platform to source more power and stay influential in the international relations platform.[Song, L. and Zhou, Y., 2020. The COVID‐19 pandemic and its impact on the global economy: What does it take to turn crisis into opportunity? China & World Economy, 28(4)19] [Busby, J., 2020. What international relations tells us about COVID-19. E-International Relations, 26, p.2020.]
The global distribution of the vaccines marked the ultimate stage in the understanding of realism and its influence in international relations. The developed nations had an advantage going into the management of COVID-19. Right from the onset, nations in the European Union, the US, China, and Japan, among others, had the resources to combat the virus. That was not the case with the developing nations. Most developing nations did not have the resources abilities to address their needs. In addressing the spread of the virus, developed nations attempted to influence the developing world by offering support. During the pandemic, the developing world advanced its influence in the developing world. Nations such as the US, the UK, and China led the world in offering both financial and material support to nations. The distribution of vaccines attracted...