On the Google Vs. China War
The question of if China’s attack on Google was espionage or warfare is predicated on if Skynet Google is a national US asset.
I haven’t seen any indications that it is. It largely functions independent of the nation state by:
- empowering individuals and small scale networks, (HUGE user base)
- providing independent infrastructure (you can get a business off the ground with Google easier than with your state)
- and subsuming government infrastructure or rendering it obsolete (through absorbing government operations through sales)
- operating independent of nation-state boundaries (hiring, offshoring etc)
- and taking steps to break its geographic bounds in the form of offshore floating databanks.
This is in contrast to the United Fruit Company type approach. Which leads me to argue that the Chinese attack was a state going to war with a network.
Of course, this could just be an irrelevant semantic issue, but I imagine that knowing this is war results in more appropriate response than treating it as espionage. In essence, Google has to deal with this itself rather than turning to or in cooperation with the US state – which can’t do what Google did – stop engaging the Chinese state.
The USG IC-NSC should use the moment to co-opt Google as a strategic client
Wait, that would require….initiative and prescience….F***k.