Analysis: How US disease control shaped colonial power politics in the Caribbean

Dr Alex Goodall (UCL History) looks at how Covid-19 could change the global balance of power, and historical examples of diseases impacting on geopolitics in the USA. A year ago, it would have seemed bizarre to suggest that a virus could reorder the global balance of power. But today, many are wondering whether the US failure to manage COVID-19 and the aggressive moves of the Chinese in the wake of their relative success in controlling the disease, marks a turning point in international relations. It wouldn't be the first time that epidemics shaped geopolitics. When the US first emerged as an international power at the start of the 20th century, expanding into the Caribbean and Central America, disease control played a crucial part in its rise. Epidemics pulled the US into the region and weakened the European powers they were displacing. In the late 19th century, outbreaks of yellow fever spread across the southern states of the US with devastating regularity, causing havoc and destruction.