The United States is rich in resources and poor in foresight. When Covid-19 arrived, the Strategic National Stockpile lacked a sufficient supply of N95 masks to equip the country’s critical workers through even a mild pandemic, let alone the reusable, pandemic-proof equipment that a more severe outbreak would demand. The available evidence suggests we are no better prepared today. This neglect exacerbates one of our greatest security vulnerabilities, as technology is only making it easier to engineer pandemics. But the same preparedness deficit recurs wherever critical goods are expensive to hold, seldom needed, and catastrophic to lack. The causes may seem obvious: markets underprovide public goods, and the state fails to fill the gap because policymakers are discouraged from investing in preparedness for events that probably won’t happen while they’re in office. Yet this clean story cannot explain why there are no private stockpiles contracted to supply private buyers…

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