IT as Politics by Other Means

IT plays an outstanding role in political conflicts within states, but also and especially on the international stage. Cyber War has become a subliminal everyday occurrence, but also serves as a deliberate intermediate stage in the escalation process of conflicts. Digital infrastructures are simultaneously means and vulnerable targets of the conflict. The war in Ukraine has had a catalytic effect on state and privately organized “IT armies” and has made them significantly visible. Elections are manipulated by external and internal forces, inadequate mudslinging on the net puts the operators of social platforms in the unwanted role of political actors. The digital arms race, which aims to strengthen both defensive and offensive capabilities in Cyber War, is taking place more subtly. The systemic conflict between the West and especially China is clearly evident in the struggle for high-tech dominance and the pursuit of independence in semiconductor production. The allocation of state IT subsidies, legal restrictions on corporate investment decisions, and China’s “repatriation” of its tech companies from American stock exchanges back to its own country are further expressions of this struggle. The disentanglement of the world in economic and political areas is a very worrying consequence of this. The world computer “Internet” is threatened with fragmentation into spheres of influence, an Iron Curtain 2.0 is emerging. The worldwide network of fiber optic cables, which dates back to its historical predecessors in the nineteenth century and through which the world’s data streams flow, has become the object of conflict.