It’s September 2023, and markets have become battlefields, as economics and geopolitics become ever more closely intertwined. Many think that we are returning to the Cold War, but we’re not. Back then, the military had the materiel and commanded the view of war. Now, after thirty years of globalization, it’s very often business that commands the resources, fundamentally changing the balance of power. Whether the U.S. fulfills its national security ambitions doesn’t just depend on its armed forces, but its relationship with firms. The recent revelation that Elon Musk used his control of the Starlink satellite system to unilaterally decide the limits on a Ukrainian offensive is just one example of how business can, quite literally, call the shots.
How did this happen? At the height of globalization, the U.S. government and its allies handed over control of key communications networks to business, never thinking that these networks would become crucial strategic assets in shooting wars. The Internet—which came into being as a side-product of Pentagon spending—was turned over to a non-profit corporation dominated by private interests. Allies’ national telecommunications champions were privatized and U.S. giants, like Lucent, sold to foreign firms for spare parts. The submarine fibre cables that tied the world together were mostly laid by consortiums of for-profit companies. As new communications technologies such as cloud computing emerged, they were dominated by a few firms like Amazon and Microsoft.
This all meant that innovation happened faster than would have been conceivable during the Cold War. Government fell far behind the leading edge of many key technologies, leaving critical communications infrastructures under the control of the private sector.
That didn’t present national security concerns so long as the world was at peace. But now that geopolitics is back, the U.S. government faces a basic dilemma. How does it ensure national security in a world where the private sector holds many of the levers of power? Of course, it can turn to business for support. And where it can demand that support, the U.S. can sometimes do far more than it ever could during the Cold War (using telecommunications companies’ international reach, for example, to help it surveil the world). But sometimes, business may prefer to stay politically neutral, prioritizing profits for its shareholders, or, even worse, cosy up to geopolitical adversaries such as China or Russia.
Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “What Happens When Tech Bros Run National Security?,” Time, September 20, 2023.