ABSTRACT
For students of warfare and interstate politics, power is the sun around which our theoretical planets orbit. But power is best conceived as a three-fold wheel rather than a ladder. It comes in kinetic, economic, and ideational forms, each with comparative advantages and disadvantages depending on context and conflict domain. This chapter explores two consequences of mistaking the wheel for a ladder. First, it highlights the link between war and social constructions of power and security that essentialize imminent lethal physical harm; placing it on the ladder’s top rung. Second, it shows how our interactions in cyberspace elevated ideational power and incentivized domestic and interstate fights over who will control history and reality. The plummeting costs of idea communication have led to a global power shift away from states who have mastered the physical killing power, and towards state and non-state actors who have mastered the use of cyberspace and social media to persuade, motivate, and convert. The net effect has been a political shift in democracies toward the far right, increasing the distribution of democratic-authoritarian conflict dyads and, as a result, increasing the likelihood of major interstate war.
