The End of Hegemony

The era of US global hegemony is drawing to a close. Within the next quarter century, revolutionary technological developments and new military capabilities will fracture the geopolitical strategic landscape, propelling today's near peer states into a parity position with the US. A shift to an information-centric globe will see ongoing conflict over the control of information through the new global commons of space and cyberspace. Technological advances in these areas coupled with the deterrent value of nuclear weapons will reduce the effectiveness of US conventional forces, and US interests will be challenged on a global scale. A new reality of continuous conflict over information will emerge in space and cyberspace where it will not be possible for a single state to maintain dominance. Through a deliberate focus on information and space control technologies, China and Russia are positioned to gain strategic military parity with the United States, resulting in the emergence of a new tri-polar world. Three examples of technologies critical to the conflict over information control are explored: information warfare, space operations, and nuclear weapons. The Chinese have embarked on a campaign of "Informationization"; to attain mastery of both the electromagnetic spectrum and the global cyber sphere. This approach includes the attempted dominance of air, space, and cyber mediums, through cyber operations, information operations, electronic attack, and kinetic attack.