A Double-Edged Sword?

1. A Double-Edged Sword? The Implications of Cyberspace on U.S. World Hegemony

2. Cyberspace as Contested Territory • Hong Kong Blondes • Hacker break-ins to the Pentagon – over 20,000 last year • Direct attacks against corporations have cost billions of dollars in sales and theft • Attacks during warfare • Palestinians on Israelis • Serbs on NATO

3. U.S. National Security November 2000: President Clinton gave order for the military to initiate a cyberwarfare strategy plan and a chain of command Head of the National Security Agency (NSA), Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden: • “Information is now a place. It is a place where we must ensure American security as surely as … sea, air, and space.” • “[Information] has taken on a dimension within which we will conduct operations to ensure American security.” (CNN.com, 10/17/2000)

4. Why are states – particularly the U.S. – primary targets? Is there any significance to why attacks are happening now? Is political activity in cyberspace effective? What does this mean for state security? And what are the implications for continued U.S. power? Questions from the Chaos

5. Statement of Problem • To what extent does the Internet secure the United States’ continued role as hegemonic power, and to what extent does the Internet undermine that rule? • Broader Question: Is cyberspace ushering in a new metageography, and if so, what politics will this new metageography entail?

6. Nodal Network Virtual world defined as a space with an infinite amount of interconnected nodes, Interconnected within cyberspace but also to points in the real world Borders do not exist in the virtual world, and Borders in the real world are easily circumvented by connections within the virtual world What is Cyberspace?

7. Approach World-Systems Theory (WST) because: It is able to integrate economic, social, and political processes while looking at a number of geographic scales. It also provides the ability to look at events in a temporal and spatial context.

8. A Brief Overview of WST • Neo-Marxist Theory: ceaseless accumulation of capital drives the world-economy, • The Three Elements of the World-Economy: • One Economy – capitalist (social system) • Many States – institutional products of the capitalist mode of production (political systems) • Three Tier Hierarchy – core, semi-periphery, and periphery (economic division of labour) • Occasionally change in hierarchical position but only rarely • This hierarchy exists in all institutions of the world-economy (i.e., states, classes, peoples, and households)

9. WST Adaptation to Political Geography Peter Taylor, Political Geographer • Saw Wallerstein’s hierarchical structure as a horizontal division by area • Introduced a vertical division by processes at different scales: • Scale of Reality / World-economy / Capital Accumulation • Scale of Ideology / Nation-state / Filter • Scale of Experience / Locality / Where we experience economics

10. Hegemonies Hegemony: a state that possesses a majority of economic, political, and social power in the world-system There have been three hegemonies • United Dutch Provinces 1600s • Great Britain 1800s • The United States of America 1900s A hegemony always promotes free movement (i.e., free trade), in order to extend its dominance over other sovereign states

12. Hegemonic Process • After a hegemony achieves superior economic position in: production, trade, and finance, • It needs to exert its influence over the world economy. This requires extending its power over other countries’ sovereignties, often through the establishment of various institutions (e.g., the IMF, United Nations, NATO, etc.) • Due to their economic position, hegemonies stand to accumulate the most capital by an open market • But how do they expand their sovereignty, often without armed conflict, so easily?

13. Modernity Modernityis the embedded and taken for granted belief that we are modern. – Peter Taylor Modernity lies at the heart of Hegemonic power: • A hegemony possesses the Prime Modernity, • Which initiates change in what is considered modern – sets the standard • Modernity is exported to the world, often through the arts, and sets up an image of how “modern people” should live • Its not just an economic way of life but social system (e.g., gender roles, suburbia, et cetera) • Other societies consume the hegemonic social, political, and economic ideals in hopes of becoming like the hegemony • Through institutions, like the IMF, the United States accumulates capital off of other state’s desire to be “modern”

14. Modernity continued… Modernities change, of course, as can be seen in the arts – Bewitched lifestyle versus The Simpsons Hegemonies possess the perfect discipline system: No need to use a stick to bring states in line, just set up an image of how it is to be modern and how other states can achieve modernity

15. Metageographies Metageography: describes the geographical structures through which people order their world (Lewis and Wiggen) Traditional role of the state: to protect the national economy and ceaselessly accumulate capital: • Two aspects of sovereignty: • Political control over a territory, and • Economic control within a territory The nodal network of cyberspace circumvents the economic sovereignty of states in the capitalist world-economy.

16. Change in Metageography John Agnew and Peter Taylor suggest that we may be on the verge of a new metageography: • World cities are replacing certain roles that once belonged to states (i.e., accumulating production, trade, and financial elements) • World cities are centers of new information and knowledge production capabilities • The virtual world is reshaping the way humans view and organize the real world, from a mosaic of polygons (states) to a series of interconnected nodes (cities)

17. Last of the Hegemons Some argue that the U.S. will be the last world hegemony. Geohistorical analysis argues: • A hegemony will always promote the expansion of free trade because it benefits its quest for capital accumulation • The expansion of free trade will undermine a hegemony, because other states, in pursuit of the prime modernity, become more efficient at production, trade, and finance. • Trade has undermined national-economies (there are no “American” businesses anymore) to the point of possibly undermining the rise of any new hegemonies.

18. Hegemonic Advantages from the Internet: U.S. companies provide a vast majority of all online sales U.S. has an edge in Internet accessibility and infrastructure for communications Internet and computer company headquarters are primarily located in the U.S. Hegemonic Headaches: Unparalleled virtual access to the United States from around the world People are mad about U.S. cultural and political imperialism Internet is beyond state control – nonterritorial The Double-Edged Sword

19. Expected Outcomes of Analysis • United States dominance of e-commerce is the process of expanding free trade – a geohistorical process • State sovereignty is changing as bordered, national economies become less relevant in the world-economy • World cities are beginning to take over the role of capital accumulation due to a new, nodal metageography, ushered in by cyberspace • The change in metageography and economic sovereignty is ushering in new forms of politics – not territorially bounded, more ephemeral and dynamic than before • Many of these new politics are directed against United States hegemony, a backlash against its extraterritorial dominance and/or modernity

20. Methods Case Study of anti-United States Haktivist Group: • Study of a particular haktivist group through web site, interviews, and public record • Benefits: insight into beginning formations of new political group, virtual functionality, real world territorial diaspora, and methods of political activity Interviews with government officials, as well as international and domestic hackers: • Will use Internet chat rooms and email to communicate with hackers • Interview government officials at the NSA and FBI about state government activities to establish order in cyberspace Archival research of past hegemonic rise and decline

21. Significance of Study • Question political and economic changes that continued United States hegemony entails? • The emergence of a new metageography – is it reality or perception. Is cyberspace really helping to usher in political change for a new world political map?