Information Sharing and Information Hoarding
Some thoughts at the Diplomat on the dilemmas of “knowledge statecraft”
The Biden administration has inherited from its predecessor some of the most tricky problems of information statecraft to face the United States since the end of World War II. The problems go to the core of how the technological foundations of the U.S. economy, and by extension the global economy, function. On the one hand, the Biden administration needs to maximize the development of technology and scientific expertise in order to increase economic growth and properly lay the foundation of what almost seems to be a tech industrial policy. On the other hand, the administration is under enormous pressure to undercut Chinese efforts to compete technologically with the United States and its allies.
Unfortunately, these two goals stand in tension with one another.