The superpowers of technology and security risks

An excerpt from the fourth chapter of National Security in the New World Order, which investigates the birth and evolution of the concept of national security, from its origins in Lycurgus' Sparta to today's consequences of cyberwarfare

Purple hacker a smartphone (Getty Images) This is an excerpt from the fourth chapter of National Security in the New World Order published by Routledge India and written by Andrea Monti and Raymond Wacks. The book investigates the birth and evolution of the concept of national security, from its origins in the Sparta of Lycurgus to its modern interpretations practiced in the West and in the East and the way in which information technologies have heavily influenced the theme. For the first time in human history - this is one of the cornerstones of the essay - people have the opportunity to break the social pact and create economic value, justice and security without the need for states. But at a price: that of handing one's life into the hands of Big Tech and their industrial strategies. The anarchist dream of the protagonists of the digital revolution has broken on the wall of social singularity - the atomic fragmentation of society - because of a structural instability in the relationship between citizen and state. National security is at the heart of this debate. As long as it remains a purely political and legally indefinite concept, it can be used to justify any use - and abuse - of information technologies. Giving it a normative sense, this is the final thesis of the essay, is the only way to balance the interests of the state with individual rights and finally respect Cicero's warning: legum servi sumus, ut free esse possimus. We are servants of the law in order to be free.

4 - Technology and destabilization