The Future of Power by Nye Jr. Joseph S

Author:Nye Jr., Joseph S.
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781586488925
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Published: 2011-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

The cyberdomain is both a new and a volatile human-made environment. The characteristics of cyberspace reduce some of the power differentials among actors and thus provide a good example of the diffusion of power that typifies global politics in this century. The largest powers are unlikely to be able to dominate this domain as much as they have others, such as sea or air. But cyberspace also demonstrates that diffusion of power does not mean equality of power or the replacement of governments as the most powerful actors in world politics. Even the small United Arab Emirates was able to force the maker of the BlackBerry to compromise. “Research in Motion is learning a lesson that other companies have learned before. As we saw in 2000 with Yahoo’s failed attempt to maintain a forum to sell Nazi memorabilia in France, and with Google’s repeated attempts in recent years to deliver uncensored search results in China, no provider of information services is exempt from the power of the state. The stakes are simply too high for governments to cede the field to private interests alone.”86 But although companies have an incentive to obey laws, other nonstate actors such as criminals and terrorists are not similarly constrained.

Although cyberspace may create some power shifts among states by opening limited opportunities for leapfrogging by small states using asymmetrical warfare, it is unlikely to be a game changer in the power transitions that we will turn to in the next chapter. However, while leaving governments the strongest actors, the cyberdomain is likely to see an increase in the diffusion of power to nonstate actors and network centrality as a key dimension of power in the twenty-first century.

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