The Geopolitics of Digital Space

Following our extensive discussion in Futuribles of the dilemma we face in the trade-off between protecting our individual and collective liberties and achieving security, often by digital means, we are opening a new chapter here on the geopolitics of the digital sphere, which, though representing an instrument of power today, may, like many technologies, be both an opportunity and a threat. As Henri d’Agrain explains, the notions of boundary, identity, duration, value etc. that prevail in the physical world assume a different meaning in the digital space, in cyberspace. Within that space are unfolding, in new forms, clashes and conflicts between states — the main guarantors of international order — and supra-state organizations that are likely, in many ways, to carry cyber-threats. Security in this digital space is becoming a major issue, then, as is attested, for example, by attacks intended to breach and paralyse information systems, or by data theft. This is why we need to be vigilant in this regard and implement a national and European digital security strategy which, as d’Agrain argues, must be developed along four axes. These are the development of cybersecurity technologies, the adaptation of policing and judicial-system capacities, the development of specialist capacities in terms of cyber-defence (eminently vested in national governments), and doing away with the “singular status” of the digital industry in the European market.