Global Security, Libya, North Korea and the South China Sea.
Realpolitik in international relations through the technological domain
‘He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight’ - Sun Tzu
Introduction:
Our world is one ruled by violence, deployed to maintain a clear global hierarchy (Jensen 2007: IX). Using technology to harness this violence has been key to the military power of nations when maintaining security, a cornerstone of global power and politics in the 21st century. Innovations in the digital realm, whether serving civilian or military applications, have presented new threats to global stability and security. Now, the use of technology has become a central element of citizens' everyday politics while also being utilised by the state for national security. Indeed, these critical technologies underpin the global economy and society at large (Gaida, et al. 2020).
We now see nation-states reacting to new perceived threats in order to best serve their national security interests. There have been further moves towards a structural realist approach, where an individual nation's power is the most important factor when determining foreign policy and relations. This is a shift away from previous notions of idealism or future global harmony - even if such ideas were manufactured to create illusory trust between nations. The current dynamics of many nations' foreign policy resemble characteristics of realpolitik, an approach that weighs up the costs and benefits of specific actions for a nation, a calculated, rational way of operating where ‘the problem of morals does not enter’ (Emery 1915:449). This approach is ‘based on given conditions rather than ideological aspiration, a form of practical and hard-nosed international relations whose calculus rests upon pragmatism as opposed to idealism’ (Ogden 2019).
While there may have been a veneer of global goodwill via diplomacy in the past, this seems less present today. Advancements in technology have seen the continuation of violence manifested through military force in ways never witnessed before. The use of nuclear weapons in World War II by the US killed over 140,000 people instantly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Anderson 2011), changing war and global politics forever. In the nuclear age, we see realpolitik ideology embodied in classical deterrence and perfect deterrence theory which are rooted in rationality (Quackenbush 2011:748). This is reflected in the concept of strategic sustainability, where nuclear-armed countries perceive neither an incentive to conduct a nuclear strike first, nor an incentive to build up their respective nuclear forces, known as arms race stability (Bugos 2023:6). This belief system is embodied in the global military-industrial complex. Since World War II, we now have nine nuclear powers globally (ICAN 2023:4). This is a world where governments spend more and more money on weapons programmes under the rationale of national security. Now, military technologies overlap with civil applications, and this race, in the technological domain, is the new battlefront.
In this article, I explore the rise of realpolitik in recent times and the factors that contributed to it with respect to technological advancement. It begins with a recent overview of the rationale behind this approach, focusing on key events in modern times that have shaped the current climate. The article then considers an example where military deterrence played a key role in US foreign policy, specifically how experiences in Libya have influenced other nation-states’ behaviour and policy, such as North Korea. It then explores advanced technologies and their new complexities, foregrounded with an example of the tensions between the US and China in the South China Sea. Finally, it examines a key contemporary example of realpolitik playing out today: the critical role of semiconductors in the political and economic relationships between the US and China. The piece concludes by presenting how realpolitik influences policy and diplomatic relations weaved within multiple facets of the technological domain.
Global security, Libya and North Korea:
Global politics is complex, and foreign policy is shaped by many factors, including military, diplomatic and economic. To understand the current political climate, it is first important to consider the events that have led to this. The early 21st century saw a series of conflicts which impacted the global community and foreign policy trajectories. The attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 was a pivotal turning point as it shifted the perceived global safety of those living in the West. This event led the Bush administration to increase US aggression, using military force and imposition worldwide. This was followed by further intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya by the Obama administration. Before Libya shifted away from a nuclear program and weapons development, they were a strong, oil-rich nation, the first to renegotiate old exploitative agreements with Europe. In the 2000’s, sanctions on the country were taking a toll, causing civil unrest. A combination of factors including Iraq played a role in Gaddafi dismantling Libya’s weapons programs (Leverett 2004).
The Arab Spring was a further turning point in the region. Barack Obama stated there were threats to peaceful protestors and that the ‘violence must stop,’ (Obama 2011). It was also suggested that Colonel Mummar Gaddafi would use weapons of mass destruction on the domestic population. Libya had a history of oppression and violence (Oliveri 2013:VIII), which was used as a pretext for intervention. Ironically, the intervention was a failure and a better policy would have been to avoid intervention altogether, because peaceful Libyan civilians had not actually been targeted (Kuperman 2015:2). Political commentators have highlighted oil trading and Libya’s plan of dropping the US dollar for a gold standard, furthering tensions and a potential motivating factor in their decision to destabilise the regime (Swanson 2011).
Practical politics operates on many levels. Economics influences the technological future of a country and its ability to maintain power through innovation. Gaddafi gave up Libya’s weapons program and their search for military technologies for a more prosperous nation. Regardless of motivations, the result led to a military invasion of the country. Libya’s lack of power in the technological domain hindered military applications on a global level and its ability to deter threats. The nation’s lack of a nuclear program or weapons of mass destruction meant there were no major military risks for a US and NATO offensive. The benefits outweighed the risk, and resulted in the decision to invade. This is realpolitik in action, calculated in the technological domain, expressed through military action. Since then, Libya is arguably worse off and has experienced more violence, continued mass displacement, and dangers caused by newly-laid landmines (from the Wagner group) and the destruction of critical infrastructure, including healthcare and schools (Roth 2022).
The world and global powers took notice. We ‘have witnessed three states give up nuclear weapons programs or weapons: Iraq, Libya, and at least nominally Ukraine only to later suffer a devastating attack’ (Narang & Sagan 2023). This outward force made other countries wary of the US and the consequences of military conflict with them. North Korea’s foreign ministry said Libya had been ‘duped’ in 2003 when it abandoned its nuclear program in exchange for promises of aid and improved relations with the West. They stated they believed it to be ‘an invasion tactic to disarm the country’ and that it was ‘teaching the international community a grave lesson’ (Mcdonald 2011). North Korea and Kim Jong Un have rejected denuclearisation. They believe their nuclear program is required for their survival. This is a sentiment echoed by former Australian Prime minister Paul Keating who plainly stated:
‘I have long believed, especially after the unprovoked Western attack on Iraq and the ransacking of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, that North Korea would not desist from the full development of its nuclear weapons program, despite threats and sanctions from the West and even from China’ (Massola 2017).
The role technology plays in military power is central to the security of nations like North Korea. It greatly affects foreign policy attitudes towards them. North Korea is in a different situation to Libya, having a much more powerful military arsenal and nuclear capabilities. It is this level of technological military power that creates deterrence and gives a country bargaining power. It has become an integral element of the regime’s political legitimacy at home as well as abroad; giving up nuclear arms would put that legitimacy at risk (Bowen & Mowan (2018). Realpolitik can be seen clearly when countries assess other countries' military power and the cost to their military. We see this clearly in Libya and how it has influenced North Korea's position. Insecurity not only stems from technology with sole military applications - it can be influenced by civilian technologies with possible future military applications that give a nation strategic advantages.
Advanced technology and the South China Sea:
We can further see a shift to realpolitik in more recent times given the ever-increasing role of new digital technologies in global affairs. 5G telecommunications networks, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and semiconductors are dual or omni technologies, meaning they serve military and civilian applications (Williams 2020:2). When it comes to global security and power struggles, ‘the capacity to construct and use new proprietary technologies has become the contested source of economic strength and military security’ (Warren and Hillas 2022:281). Advanced technologies are influencing foreign policy more than ever before. In 2016, for example, the Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed the potential for technology to be used to manipulate elections. These technologies can shift discourse, trust, cause confusion and obscure the truth. We now see threats from world leaders, displays of power and insecurity played out in a digital domain.
Advanced technologies are vital to a nation's future power, and the key strategic manufacturing region for all these technologies is the South China Sea. During the Obama administration, we saw a shift in the US relationship with China. Obama had stated the administration supported ‘a strong, prosperous and successful China that plays a greater role in world affairs’, and that the US did not seek to impede China’s trajectory. The South China Sea, however, then became a site of tension and a key strategic region for policy in the Asia-Pacific. The US has become a dominating power in the ‘Orient’ and replaced European powers in that role in the 19th century (Said 1978:285). China first made claims over the South China Sea in 1947 and has slowly been making moves within the region since (CFR 2023). In 1979 the Taiwan Relations Act, passed 1979, states clearly that:
‘The United States shall make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capacity’ (Tara 2022).
Tensions have continued to escalate. China’s moves in the region to sustain its assertive strategies have been seen by the US as incendiary (Warren and Bartley 2021:150). Chinese companies have been penalised for aiding the Chinese military in building islands in the South China Sea. These bans were on Chinese companies' access to all American products ‘whether a toothbrush or a semiconductor’ (Swanson 2020). These moves spell out the needs of each nation acting to pursue their respective strategic positions for key resources and control in the region.
Semiconductors and US / China relations:
China has not hidden its plans to be a global technological super power with less dependence on foreign products. Even with international agreements in place, cyber attacks by Chinese hackers have continued for over a decade, costing the US an estimated $225 billion a year in IP (Mcdonagh, Dominik Dov Bachmann 2023). No other nation has had such a steady and steep economic, technological, and political rise as China, the only UN Security Council country to continue increasing its nuclear stockpile. The US has viewed China for some years as a rising superpower that may be poised to dominate world affairs, unlike the rest of the world which largely adheres to US policies (Chomsky 2022). It signals that China wants to be treated as an equal with its main competitor, the US (Meier and Staack 2022:14).
A key component in the race for advanced AI are semiconductors. It is US intellectual property that is vital to the manufacturing of these chips. Yet it is China and East Asia that supply the majority of raw materials and inexpensive labour force for their production, which the West gladly exploits. One contributing factor to China's recent prosperity and ability to retain manufacturing is the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative to establish economic ties with developing states as a critical means of expanding their potential control of minerals and resources (Cordesman 2023:2). Taiwan holds a key role in manufacturing the most advanced semiconductors on the planet, vital to the production of any cutting edge technology - this ‘provides a powerful deterrent against invasion, since China has little interest in destroying its largest source of microchips’ (Schmidt 2023:44). Realpolitik is embodied in this balance of power in the region expressed through China’s actions.
The threat of China’s advances in technology has prompted moves from the US government. In 2019, the Trump administration added Huawei to an export ban list for selling sanctioned materials to Iran. Further restrictions in 2020 led to Huawei losing its leading market share in phones, dropping from 18% to 2% and crippling the company. In 2023, the US continued to move against China, introducing economic sanctions and bans on access to advanced semiconductor silicon chips (Palmer 2023). This action which goes against traditional US free market economics, aims to prevent China’s continued technological advancement. Recently, the Biden administration signed an executive order that will prohibit certain US investments in China for sensitive technologies like computer chips (Freifeld, et al. 2023). The Biden administration's actions to restrict Chinese access to technology are the latest in a larger geopolitical, economic battle and a clear example of realpolitik in action.
China’s recent economic downturn may have been impacted by these moves and its deteriorating relationship with the West (CSIS 2023). The restrictions may accelerate their road down a path of innovation by necessity. It is a complicated relationship, one of dependence and self-interest. The ‘US dependence on China for critical components and products in the global semiconductor supply chain puts it at considerable strategic and economic risk’ (Diamond, et al. 2023). This has prompted the US to adopt a strategy to increase its own production capacity and reduce its reliance on imports. The future of these chips could be life or death for China or the US; China’s supply of raw materials to semiconductor manufacturing is a pressure point that could come into play in future disputes. The US-China technology hegemony is expected to intensify, which will have a profound impact on the international economic order (Eunkyo 2022:34). The coming years and beyond will be a time when we may see a shift in global technological power or a further strengthening of US dominance. The outcome will have a profound impact on the balance of global power.
Conclusion:
This article has shown the complexity of realpolitik as it has come to bear on several contemporary and historical global tensions. Firstly, it highlights recent history whereby relinquishing weapons left Libya vulnerable and prone to attack. If violence and threats to a population alone are cause for military inventions, there are a host of territories where such intervention is arguably necessary, from West Papua to Palestine. However, the ethical and moral obligations stated by the Obama Administration to justify the invasion of Libya do not extend to these nations. There is more to such calculations than the rhetoric of heads of state. What happened in Libya caused nations around the world to take notice. With North Korea, we see realpolitik embodied in the driving force for increased development of technologies with military application. Libya and North Korea are examples of how military capabilities in the technological domain can shape foreign relations by calculating costs and benefits in realpolitik framework.
Secondly, we have seen the significance new digital technologies play in global affairs, and how these technologies have begun shaping and influencing politics in ways we have never seen before. We have also seen the US and China take action in the South China Sea, made in the strategic interests of each nation. These moves are about controlling the region and access to Taiwan, which plays a critical role due to its strategic significance and technological manufacturing power. We see realpolitik clearly embodied in the actions of China and the US in the region.
Finally, we see realpolitik played out further in US-China tensions. Recent US sanctions are a threat to China’s economy and may have slowed its advancement for now, but it has also sparked China’s need for innovation and investment in developing its own production capacity. The use of sanctions to limit access to US technology affects its economy and capacity to further develop technology that could translate to military power. This is realpolitik working on multiple levels. There is a continuing debate among scholars about the potential decline of US global hegemony, as well as the implications of the ascendancy of China (Costigan, et al. 2017:116). This will play out in the coming years and decades.
Nation States are well aware of the importance new technologies will play in the role of global politics in the future. Currently, there is a war for the future of economies and power. It is a race for supremacy in AI, quantum computing, 5G telecommunications networks and other advanced technologies. A return to a realpolitik approach has become clearly visible and embodied in foreign policy with respect to this technological domain. Perhaps such a mode of operation never really ended, and we are merely witnessing an era when the illusion of diplomatic politeness has evaporated to give us a clearer view of the true workings of an age-old system.
‘The violent will not come to a natural end’ - Lao Tzu
Patrick Marks (2023)
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