Tech titans, cyber commons and the war in Ukraine: An incipient shift in international relations

Abstract

After years of highlighting the importance of cyber elements to the battlefields of the 21st Century, many observers are perplexed to see how conventional the war in Ukraine seems to be. We argue, nonetheless, that the war in Ukraine is another step in an incipient shift in international relations and international security inextricably linked with the cyber era. The cyber era has ushered in a key change in the sense that companies, in addition to nation-states, now play a role with meaningful and substantial consequences for the geostrategic upshots of the conflict. Key elements in this new IR reality are formed in the vision and spirit of the tech titans – Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon. The cyber commons, which includes elements that had not existed as shortly as two decades ago, and that are almost purely a product of the inventiveness and entrepreneurship of the tech titans – such as cloud computing or social media – is now part and parcel of the way states identify themselves, recognize their friends and foes, protect themselves and attack others, and operate internally and externally.