CYBERGEOPOLITICS AND CYBERGEOSTRATEGY – EMERGING STUDY FIELDS

Abstract

For some time now, mankind has entered a new phase of evolution, with physical space (land, sea, air, cosmic) being doubled by the virtual one, cyberspace – the global network of interconnected information technologies – and geopolitics and geostrategy could not fail to take into account this new phase in the evolution of history, with the emergence of subfields such as cybergeopolitics and cybergeostrategy, with some authors already anticipating cybernetocracies or cyber powers. It should only be added that cyberspace can be both an environment for the 'new' power (the geopolitical logic being the same) and a weapon – the cyberweapon (the use of cyberattacks as a geostrategic tool). The aim of this study consists in identifying the main components (definition, subject matter, terminology) of the two emerging areas, namely cybergeopolitics and cybergeostrategy. The results of this qualitative research are based on the critical analysis of the specialized literature, in order to summarize the specific phenomenology and to theorize the concept of cybergeopolitics and its dervates.