Market Data 
The private players with their substantial investment in research and innovation without ideological shackles and political bottlenecks and with the resultant expertise in information technology, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence are becoming more powerful actors than the government in the arena of national security since they can bring in to use these tools more quickly, efficiently and effectively than the latter in the age of information storage and transmission. The cyber domain has become critical during the active warfares as well as for ensuring strategic objectives and score strategic gains against enemies. States increasingly resort to stealing of sensitive data and classified documents by hacking the computer systems and mobile phones of adversarial powers that is turning into a modus operandi to delve into strategic planning and preparedness of enemy states. Towards the end of 2024, a Bejing-backed cyber-operation called ‘Salt Typhoon’ broke into the information systems of many telecommunication and infrastructure firms in the US as well as other countries and gained access to texts and phone calls of high-level officials including the President and Vice President of the US.
The state actors are increasingly taking the assistance of private companies and their experts to execute wars and formulate strategies for deterrence. Some of the companies have become immensely helpful to stabilize Ukraine against the Russian invasion and destroying military campaign since February 24, 2022. The private players in Ukraine fulfilled many of the objectives that the US and West European countries sought from them to strengthen Ukraine. The companies even provided their valuable services in many cases without being paid for these. The cost of all this aid is nonetheless significant. For instance, Microsoft hosted Ukraine’s data on its cloud free of cost which involved more than $500 million of costs/worth of services. Much in a similar vein, SpaceX provided worth of services amounting to more than $80 million on Starlink terminals and services. However, it would be far-fetched to argue that the national interests of states and the corporate/commercial interests of these companies would converge all the time. In Ukraine, the personal equations between the US government officials, private actors and Ukrainian officials converged on the need to defend Ukraine and most of the corporate leaders believed that the assistance they would render would be of short-term. When the war dragged on some of the firms transferred the costs of the services to the US government and desired the war to end soon.
Without any larger and ethical framework of technological regulations, interactions and collaborations between the government and private firms, the private sector’s involvement in foreign policy and security issues could be quite dangerous. The private players with their technological expertise, software and artificial intelligence tools could begin to define national security and major foreign policy priorities of a country. Under the Trump 2.0 administration, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the US was primarily designed and formed to reduce the personnel and budgetary pressures on the federal government and led by billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and his team of experts have ensured that they got sweeping access to critical systems that handle sensitive and classified information at several government agencies. An article in Foreign Affairs notes that President Trump has provided enough of leeway to this group of engineers with no prior “government experience, who have not gone through standard personnel vetting and training processes, and who work for an unelected figure with extensive personal financial interests” putting the national security of the country at stake. To put national security and interests at the mercy of private actors and their corporate interests could spell the doomsday for the raison d’etre of nation-states. Generation of requisite trust, training in national spirit, generation of desired regulations, ethical and people-centric use of technology must be prioritized. Disinformation, misinformation, digital espionage, theft and deepfakes are increasingly becoming more prominent issues. Succumbing to corporate interests could take new forms of how technology can be used to advance the interests of narrow groups of people which would prioritize profit over the nation. The recently concluded Paris Summit is a step in the desired direction of debating various ways as to develop ethical norms of regulating AI.
Underlining the significance of AI and realising the growing imperative to regulate it at the global level Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi remarked while co-chairing the AI Action Summit with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, : “AI is developing at an unprecedented scale and speed. And being adopted and deployed even faster. There is also a deep interdependence across borders. Therefore, there is a need for collective global efforts to establish governance and standards, that uphold our shared values, address risks and build trust.”
Trump 2.0 Would Make Common Global Norms to Regulate AI More Difficult to Evolve
US President Donald Trump sees the world around him as a burden that seeks to take a free ride on the American largesse. President Trump seems to be reflexively ignorant of the fact that It was the America and developed countries of Western Europe whose brainchild – neoliberalism was imposed on Asian and African countries to financially benefit their own economies rather than the third world countries. It is a cliché to argue that third-world countries have long been the destinations of market, cheap labor and raw materials for the first world including the US. The US economy has benefited immensely from outsourcing jobs to low-cost economies. The dollar has gained the status of global currency largely because of the interdependent global economy – a byproduct of liberal international order which Trump would hardly be interested in sacrificing. International financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank still privilege the US and other developed economies to further their subtle exploitations through institutionalized mechanisms. The US has taken enough benefits from its permanent membership in the UN Security Council.
On the contrary, President Trump believes economic interdependence and the rules-based world order of which the US was a harbinger is a threat to the US itself. Trump wants the US’s traditional allies in NATO to make more contributions to defense expenditure, offset the economic imbalances through weaponizing tariffs and control the illegal trafficking of people and drugs to the US. At the same time, Trump 2.0 seeks to adopt a version of the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere which is clear from his annexation plans for the Panama Canal and Greenland and bludgeoning approach towards Canada and Mexico.
India, a strategic partner of the US has begun witnessing that the Trump 2.0 has begun deporting illegal immigrants using the military and forcing them into flights with handcuffs as if they had committed crimes in the US mainland. While the US as a sovereign state has a right to identify and send back illegal immigrants from its territory to their home countries, Trump 2.0 conveniently ignores all humanitarian principles and the history of interdependence and acts presumptuously in self-interest. Hence, xenophobia along with a distorted and myopic economic vision that Trump 2.0 carries to reorder the world around ‘America First’ principle clearly ignores the pressing challenges that the market is poised to bring against the state in the arena of information technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
[Header image: Falcon 9 lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Florida, delivering 60 Starlink satellites, via Wikimedia Commons]
Dr. Manoj Kumar Mishra is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, SVM Autonomous College, Odisha, India. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
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