Description
Cybersecurity is a field dominated by concepts of ‘resilience’ and ‘vulnerability’. Governed by understandings of the need for public-private partnership and the sharing of security as a common goal, a significant body of cybersecurity scholarship has focused upon the technicalities of cooperation, the proliferation of agencies and the linking of cybersecurity to broader security goals, such as those relating to organised crime, migration and combating terrorism. This article argues, however, that the interactions between cybersecurity and ‘real’ security goals are far more complex, and far more politically contentious than assumed. Using the example of the trade war occurring in the microprocessor industry, this article seeks to explore how concerns over digital sovereignty are shaping geopolitics beyond the field of cybersecurity narrowly defined. As conflict between the US and China grows, and with the EU seeing itself as caught in the middle, the securing of microprocessor supply chains has been seen as critical for three regional actors seeking to secure their position in the context of current geopolitical tensions. As the securing of physical assets important for digital connectivity becomes central to the EU’s cybersecurity policy through initiatives such as the Chips Act, trade mercantilism is reinforcing regulatory mercantilism, and vice versa. The key contribution to this special issue therefore is in demonstrating how lines between ‘cyber’ and ‘physical’ security are blurring to the point that they become increasingly meaningless, requiring cybersecurity’s scope to move beyond protection of information systems, and international relations’ consideration of security to include ‘cyber’ as standard, political and contentious, rather than as a niche area of technical interest.
