Obama: Silicon Valley rather than Putin
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Research Fellow at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI)
There have been some turns in American diplomacy that we would do well to pay more attention to. In Minsk, where Russian, Ukrainian, German and French heads of state recently met to negotiate an end to the crisis in Ukraine, the United States was absent for the first time in seeking a resolution to a conflict in which Moscow is involved. A few days later, Obama broke his silence by raising another “European” issue –standing up for the interests of US Internet giants, he accused Europe of protectionism in the IT sphere.
There have been some turns in American diplomacy that we would do well to pay more attention to. In Minsk, where Russian, Ukrainian, German and French heads of state recently met to negotiate an end to the crisis in Ukraine, the United States was absent for the first time in seeking a resolution to a conflict in which Moscow is involved. A few days later, Obama broke his silence by raising another “European” issue –standing up for the interests of US Internet giants (the GAFA – Google-Apple-Facebook-Amazon), he accused Europe of protectionism in the IT sphere.
These words are not just innocent chatter. After the revelation of the American PRISM surveillance program, tensions between the White House and Europe increased, as well as leading to a stiffening of relationship between Washington and the Silicon Valley. Snowden’s leaks showed for the first time to what level the National Security Agency (NSA) had violated the keystone of the Internet – the trust of its users. These revelations continue to penalize the big players in the IT sphere, with countries like China having given preference to its national IT industry. Today, in the aftermath of Snowden’s leaks, tensions have crystallized around data security, and have led to the tightening of encryption standards by IT companies, something that deeply irritates Washington and the intelligence community. It is no accident that the CEOs of these major players recently boycotted a conference on cyber security chaired by Obama, and it is hardly surprising that a Yahoo executive has publicly disagreed with the head of the NSA on data encryption measures.
These distances reveal the unprecedented power of the Silicon Valley – whose corporations have been in business less than 20 years! Their role is reminiscent of the large European “East India” Companies of the 17th and 18th centuries – sometimes allied with, and sometimes in rivalry with their governments, and at times indifferent to the laws of their countries. The recent statement made by Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook page was nothing less than an expression of hubris: “We follow the laws in each country, but we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world.” We should recall that the market capitalization of GAFA surpasses $800 billion, which is equal to the GDP of Saudi Arabia, and their total turnover equaled that of Denmark in 2013.
Therefore, for Barack Obama, it is now more important to talk to GAFA than to Vladimir Putin. The US IT-industry has become a key priority, both in terms of economic redevelopment, which is structured around these actors, and in terms of the country’s security strategy. Like bin Laden after the September 11 attacks, Snowden is contributing to the reshaping of the US security mechanisms, which redeployed to concentrate on electronic surveillance of the planet by the NSA and “cyber operations”, thus replacing costly and risky external interventions. The Internet is also involved in the containment strategy against China and the isolation of Russia, through control of networks, the definition of international standards, protectionist measures against Chinese equipment, the capturing of data and the conclusion of Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific trade agreements that exclude these two countries.
The current institutional system allows the United States to maintain an unprecedented legal influence via the supremacy of their soft law and the English language. Debates over Internet governance are, unlike in Europe, followed at the highest levels in Washington; the careful maintenance of the status quo in the management of critical resources helps keep the “world from turning in a direction detrimental to the United States”. In a more global sense, as vectors of an American culture – and especially Californian – a spirit, a vision of the world – the GAFA are creating a new form of power, whose contours and implications are still difficult to outline. Obama understands this perfectly: he is somehow the “chosen one” of this “e-civilization”, which is not only shaking up political powers, but also, more and more jobs and industries.
In the end, this intertwining between public and private resources directly serves the interests of the White House. This has created a comprehensive and unrivaled powerhouse, allowing the USA to orchestrate “interpenetration imperialism” reinforced by questionable rhetoric about “Internet freedom”, all designed to encourage the opening up of markets to US capital. In 2015, one should keep this in mind when dealing with the United States.
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