The first full-blown internet war: what will the digital confrontation of the United States with China turn out to be for the world

Against the backdrop of all the conflicts that are unfolding in the world today, the full-scale Internet war between China and the United States stands out.

This is stated in the material of the German publication Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

In the publication, this confrontation is called the “cold technological war” for the right to dominate the Internet, and it can have serious consequences at the global level. In particular, one of the negative effects could be a split in the global network into separate local segments.

“The sphere of trade, the sphere of security, all spheres of life – now all this is connected with technology. That’s why we are talking about a large-scale cold war of several blocs, ”said Samir Saran, head of the Indian ORF research institute, as part of the discussion at the thematic site of the World Economic Forum created by the German publication.

According to the Indian expert, the events unfolding in the digital arena can be called the “Internet Balkanization”, when a single system is divided into several small ones.

Chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies John Chipman, in turn, did not miss the opportunity to point to the “Russian Internet threat”. Thus, the head of a London-based organization noted that Russia, Iran, and North Korea also “opened up opportunities to strike at their enemies via the Internet.”

At the same time, Michelle Zeitlin, the founder of Cloudflare, noted that the segmentation of the global network will have serious and adverse economic consequences. This is due to the emergence of many separate systems with their own rules and standards.

“If this happens, it will provide many benefits to large companies. With an impressive resource, they can easily adapt to such conditions, ”she explained.

At the same time, small companies will face many challenges. In fact, they can be squeezed out of this market. In the best case, their activities will be limited within one of the networks.