Yves here. John Ruehl’s generally informative piece on how the US and China are seeking to secure their technology spheres of influence is marred by at least one historical inaccuracy. Ruehl asserts that the former Soviet Union relied on a “militarized approach” to extend its reach. In fact, the USSR in Africa and I assume other parts of the world cultivated friends and allies by providing economic assistance with no military strings attached. That was a big reason most African states were willing to defy the US and EU during their shock and awe sanctions against at the start of the Ukraine conflict, that the USSR’s residual good will extended to modern Russia.
Ruehl in passing makes a point that came up in our recent discussion of the near-impossibility for the US of restoring domestic manufacturing at meaningful scale: that power projection via diffusion of operations (as in having allies run technologically important activities) also diffuses expertise.
By John P. Ruehl, an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C., and a world affairs correspondent for the Independent Media Institute. He is a contributor to several foreign affairs publications, and his book, Budget Superpower: How Russia Challenges the West With an Economy Smaller Than Texas’, was published in December 2022. Produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute
The U.S.-UK technology deal announced in September 2025 promises to accelerate Britain’s AI sector, but critics warn it will happen at the expense of national tech sovereignty. It reflects the steady trend of U.S. government and private interests extending a technologically driven form of hegemony, employing communications, data, and AI systems to deepen dependence on American networks and weaponize against rivals.
China has built a parallel structure of influence through its own technology exports, manufacturing base, and integrated supply chains, challenging the American model without the costly global military footprint. And unlike earlier empires, Washington’s and Beijing’s systems increasingly overlap: Spain, long considered a reliable partner for American tech firms and data security, has faced U.S. pressureafter contracting with Chinese company Huawei in July to store judicial wiretap data.
Yet both tech-driven networks face a growing diffusion of capability. Advances in manufacturing, resource mapping, and digital development are making it easier for smaller states to build industries that have until now been dominated by major powers—“Small countries like Taiwan and the Netherlands have curated specialized offerings in niche parts of the global AI supply chain,” stated an article in the digital law and policy journal Just Security. A more balanced and competitive order could emerge, though the U.S. and China still retain major leverage.
The U.S. has maintained a strong foreign presence for more than a century. When Elihu Root became Secretary of War in 1899, he had already spent decades cultivating the nation’s elites as a lawyer and once in office, he modernized the army for sustained overseas operations. Subsequent American expansion in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines was framed as paternal administration—to spread the “civilizing mission” to those less fortunate in need of a long period of paternal tuition—rather than colonial conquest. Yet military power remained central to advancing government and private American interests.
After World War II, the collapse of European empires left the U.S. and the Soviet Union with competing spheres of influence. Unlike Moscow’s more militarized approach, “Washington’s forms of control were more in accordance with the will of the local populations,” creating what scholars called an “empire by invitation,” according to Norwegian historian Geir Lundestad. Military and subversive power were often used to promote U.S. interests, but many states partnered voluntarily to receive financial and technical assistance.
With the Soviet collapse in 1991, the U.S. entered a new phase of expansion. Technologies like GPS, which reached full global coverage in 1993, expanded American power as a “silent utility” providing an increasingly essential service. The rapid spread of the internet under U.S. oversight further extended American standards and control across global communications, while the rise of tech giants like Microsoft, Intel, and Google embedded U.S. software and hardware at the center of globalized technology systems.
Even as global military demobilization followed the Cold War, Washington demonstrated its continued combat and technological dominance through limited conflicts in the Persian Gulf and precision strikes in the Balkans. Dominating global arms exports, it deepened leverage by integrating more countries into U.S. weapons systems and defense supply chains.
Yet within years, the failures in Afghanistan and Iraq exposed the limits of invasions and occupation, which no longer guaranteed control over resources or populations. As of March 2025, America had 1.3 million personnel stationed abroad, reflecting an outdated emphasis on physical presence. With nearly 90 percent of corporate assets in advanced economies now intangible, such as software, patents, and intellectual property, the same logic applies to power projection. Digital networks and remote capabilities have replaced much of what permanent garrisons once represented.
Trump’s October 2025 suggestion to reclaim Afghanistan’s Bagram airbase to counter China, if genuine, reflects the durability of that older strategic thinking. Analysts noted that most of the surveillance and strike capabilities he referenced are already met through long-endurance drones, sensor arrays, and satellites. The vulnerability of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea to drones and missile strikes during the war with Ukraine further shows the new limits of fixed bases in contested regions.
Under the Obama administration, the U.S. had already adjusted military strategy toward targeted strikes, digital surveillance, cyber operations, and space-based surveillance, collectively known as “triple canopy.” These measures expanded under the Trump and Biden administrations, with the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) unveiling major advances in biometric drones that are capable of more effectively identifying and targeting individuals.
Space has regained its centrality to reducing the sprawling American military burden. In September 2025, the Space Development Agency launched the first phase of its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a mesh of low-orbit satellites for global surveillance and communication.
Other programs like the Golden Dome, building on Reagan’s “Star Wars” and Obama’s triple canopy concepts, seek to fuse space, land, and cyber networks into an automated U.S. defense grid integrated with the private sector. AI and autonomous ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) systems have steadily outsourced more decision-making to code.
Much of this technological architecture extends beyond the military. Dual-use systems like Starlink and integrated AI tools have become indispensable to governments and populations alike. Many countries host their public data on American cloud servers, while their citizens communicate through WhatsApp and pay for services through Google Pay—daily dependencies maintained without a single U.S. soldier in sight.
China’s Challenge
China is also building counterspace weapons and satellite systems to resist U.S. orbital dominance, and its military capabilities are similarly matched by strategic and commercial components. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013, and its digital extension, the Digital Silk Road, have grown to rival U.S. initiatives. For the first time, Washington faces a competitor able to offer countries comparable material benefits on a scale that not even the Soviet Union’s foreign infrastructure projectsever achieved.
Despite Western alarm over the security risks associated with Chinese technology, many developing and emerging countries continue to adopt Chinese digital infrastructure. High-quality equipment, low costs, and state-backed financing have made Chinese systems indispensable even for governments aware of the surveillance and dependency potential, which is also true of U.S. technology.
China’s digital infrastructure is deliberately designed for interoperability with subsequent Chinese technologies, ensuring that upgrades and maintenance depend on continued Chinese support.
As economist Dev Nathan noted, one of the major ways 21st-century imperialism operates is through global value chains (GVCs) and global production networks. China’s specialization in production means its GVCs extract value without directly exporting capital. By flooding markets with essential technologies to undercut competitors in smartphones, power grids, payment apps, and communication technologies, it is creating layered dependencies across industries.
The manufacturing and logistics dimension of China’s overseas influence is evident across Europe, once the center of global industrial and imperial power. Belgium’s port of Zeebrugge is now 85.5 percent owned by China’s Cosco, which also holds stakes in nearby Antwerp, Rotterdam, and other European ports. Automated Chinese cranes unload Chinese cargo guided by Chinese logistics softwareand tracking platforms, giving Beijing a presence at every level of the supply chain.
U.S. influence remains entrenched, however, and Washington has pressured European allies to block Huawei infrastructure projects and restrict Chinese access to advanced technology sectors. American-based platforms, from social media to cloud infrastructure to software systems, continue to dominate Europe’s digital ecosystems, and under U.S. pressure, Denmark recently seized a China-owned chipmaker operating in the country, Nexperia, citing “serious governance shortcomings.”
While China has met strong resistance to expanding its technological footprint in Europe, it has emerged as the development partner of choice for much of the Global South. Companies such as Huawei and ZTE now dominate the global 5G market, supplying infrastructure and equipment to dozens of countries. “China is now a major force in the digital development of Global South countries, with important implications for their digital economies, societies, policies, etc.,” stated an article in the journal Information Society.
Chinese exports of electronics and electric vehicles have also surged, with more than half now going to non-OECD countries. In the first eight months of 2025, exports to Latin America and the Caribbean rose 11 percent compared to 2024, while shipments increased by 72 percent in the Middle East, 75 percent to ASEAN countries, and 287 percent to Africa compared to last year. In renewable energy, China leads in solar panel and wind turbine production, driving down global costs and accelerating green transitions.
These are emerging technologies where China is gaining an early lead, creating dependencies that could last for years.
While China maintains no formal military presence abroad, security measures nonetheless help support its aspirations. Its Global Development Initiative for infrastructure-led growth is complemented by the Global Security Initiative for cooperative stability. Chinese policing programs also provide training and joint security patrols in partner countries, while private military companieshelp secure BRI infrastructure alongside local and national forces.
Diffusion of Tech Power
Breaking the U.S.-China tech infrastructure duopoly is a formidable challenge, and Russia’s war in Ukraine illustrates how dependent Moscow remains on the old paradigm of territorial control, spurred partly by its limited ability to compete through modern, networked influence.
Even so, Russia has experimented with tech services-based model of empire, achieving some success in providing tech surveillance in Belarus and Central Asia, and with its GLONASS global navigation service. In 2024, Russia also signed agreements with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to supply satellites and telecommunications systems, while Russian aerospace firm Bureau 1440 is attempting to develop a global broadband network.
Despite these efforts, Russia lags behind, and its window to expand influence may be closing as a wider flattening of technological capabilities takes hold. Factories, technologies, and resources have become easier to localize, eroding the advantages once held by major powers.
“Lights out” automated factories, for example, reduce the appeal of foreign labor, while factory construction has become more streamlined. During the Biden administration’s reshoring and friendshoring manufacturing initiatives, for example, China quickly established industrial plants in Mexico. While this demonstrated China’s manufacturing dominance, it also highlighted how easily industrial capacity could be replicated abroad. India and Southeast Asian countries have similarly scaled up their manufacturing in recent years, diffusing China’s previous concentration of power.
The same decentralizing trend is visible in financial technology. Brazil’s Pix system, unveiled in 2020, shows that middle-power countries can now develop independent digital payment networks without relying on Chinese or American financial infrastructure.
Resource control is likewise losing its traditional strategic weight. Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, for example, was once seen as a critical prize for conquest, but now matters less as renewable energy and advanced minerals mapping technologies have expanded supply. After years of focus on South American lithium reserves, Germany recently announced one of the world’s largest deposits, and it is unlikely to be the last breakthrough discovery.
As scarcity potentially declines and technology and manufacturing become more widely distributed, the competition for resources and the monopolies that once defined empire may finally begin to ease. Yet the collapse of technological empires means military force could once again become the main instrument of power, as Russia has demonstrated.
Another issue lies in American and Chinese entities simply consolidating their technological dominance, stifling or hijacking innovation, and blocking new systems from emerging. Even as capabilities begin to flatten globally, both powers remain invested in preserving their rivalry rather than allowing a more open order to emerge.
