From Global Village to Virtual Battlespace: The Colonizing of the Internet and the Extension of Realpolitik

From the earliest years of the Internet's creation, cyberspace has been distinguished from other types of political space because of three unique qualities: (i) its ability to mobilize users, particularly ''outsiders'' including those who have not been easily included in political systems using conventional means; (ii) its ability to quickly provide large quantities of information of uncertain or unregulated quality; and (iii) its ability to shrink distances between users, in some sense rendering conventional physical geography irrelevant. This paper presents three lenses for interpreting the significance of these developments: utopian, liberal, and realist. Evolving doctrines of cyberwarfare as put forth by China, Russia, and the United States in particular stress the ways in which cyberspace presents a unique security threat which may present greater advantages to nonstate actors engaged in unconventional warfare. Differing economic, political, and security policies derive from each lens.