Lhe disruption of international relations has revived a key concept of political theory, the sovereignty of States. Pandemic and war in Ukraine explain the inflation of its use in political discourse, applied to areas suffering from strong vulnerabilities: energy, food, technology.
On this last point, cyberspace is playing an increasing role in bringing the world into crisis, putting a new form of technological power at the heart of sovereignty issues. But in France the possibility of exercising this power is compromised by a strong dependence on the United States. Only a systemic shock would free it.
Contrary to the prophecies of American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, no “end of history” is on the horizon. The first decade of the 21ste century has seen the emergence of unprecedented keys to the distribution of power between States and new hybrid entities, the technological giants (Gafam, SpaceX, Palantir) shattering the concept of sovereignty.
A more realistic approach to strategic autonomy
The Entente Cordiale is organized as follows: to the State, security prerogatives (territorial sovereignty), to Big Tech economic and social issues in all possible variations provided that they are commercial (functional sovereignty). At the start of the 2020s, the technological race now plays a leading role in the hegemonic competition between empire-states pushing the boundaries of conflict to a polarized cyberspace that symmetrically translates the ongoing geopolitical recomposition.
Technological sovereignty therefore becomes a crucial political dimension. It implies a capacity for each State to impose within its borders its choices on all the layers of a cyberspace by definition interconnected. For France, this presupposes an ability to counter Chinese or American extraterritorial laws, to maintain control of its information ecosystem and to neutralize cyber operations (attacks, espionage) on the part of allies, partners or adversaries.
The goal is to maintain balance in a double movement, both offensive and defensive against foreign interference of any form and from any part in a militarized cyberspace. Given the strong interdependencies, this maximalist approach – impossible to achieve even for the United States or China – is replaced by the more realistic concept of strategic autonomy which consists in being able to deploy fallback solutions in the event of a crisis affecting the smooth running of the State or, in a tense international context, to maintain a balance of power, on the condition of being able to rely on its own strategic positions.
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