The Twenty-First-Century Terrain of Uncertainty

• Main Author: Sims, Jennifer E.
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York 2022
• Subjects: Arctic; Climate change
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197508046.003.0014; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/47120853/oso-9780197508046-chapter-14.pdf

Abstract The twenty-first century terrain offers two broad types of uncertainties: those related to traditional forms of power (military, territory, demographics, and wealth), and those having to do with nontraditional forms related to intelligence (capacities to learn, whether through a traditional intelligence system or not). With respect to the former, the United States, Russia, China, and Europe will remain the principal great powers coping with their conflicting interests, changing power relationships and the effects of climate change, such as mass migration and a warming Arctic. The information revolution—the second basket of uncertainties—has affected states’ relative capacities to manage instability and disorder. The rapidly advancing, intelligence-based forms of power will allow hacker-enabled nonstate actors and wealthy corporations such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Alibaba to influence international politics at an unprecedented scale. They will vie with traditional intelligence services over control of competitive learning, and will punch above their weight as they buy and sell intelligence services to states. Countries that foster innovation and private-sector alliances will likely gain intelligence advantages over others. Without wise pursuit and careful management of such alliances, however, authoritarians will have growing capacities for social and political influence, deception, and cyberwar.