Geopolitical-economic conflict and network infrastructures

This article explicates three basic aspects of the conflicted history of transnational communications networks: How extraterritorial communications have functioned since the nineteenth century as a primary axis of expansion for a transnationalizing capitalism; how geopolitical pressures and rivalries have helped break down and reconstitute network infrastructures; and how contemporary US–China relations in respect to the Internet may be set within this historical framework. The longstanding dominance of the United States over extraterritorial networks was itself a historical outcome, and today it faces escalating – but still far from successful – challenges.