Not fighting the last war?

I believe that the pandemic will change our world forever - if we are open to it.

We need to remind ourselves of the expression, “Generals always fight the last war.” This has meant believing in and using a strategy that has been successful in the past but is no longer a relevant tactic in the present. History tells us about the Maginot Line, the fortifications which protected their border with Germany, which was a winning move in WWI but never helped in WWII, when Germany flanked the Maginot line and invaded from the North across an unprotected border from Belgium.

So what war should we prepare for? What change should we want, after the pandemic? The health crisis is not only showing cracks of our past but building further cracks for our future.

It’s highlighting how the world is (even more) unequal. We must question how we battle not the health crisis alone, but the nutrition crisis, the obesity crisis, the processed sugar crisis, the plastic crisis, the carbon crisis, the imbalance between profit at the cost of people and planet crisis and most important the world we will leave behind for our children.

Should we, together, build a different future? One where People, Planet, and Prosperity thrive best, together, not at the cost of each other?

We have taken this inspiration into our Dole promise that we will hold ourselves accountable to. We may not have all the answers but we are committed to finding them.