6. The Ideology of the Global Commons

The degradation of commons, as non-terrestrial spaces accessible to all and owned by none, is a very well known tragedy explored by political theory and IR. But such a tragedy extends environmental issues. Nowadays, their militarization and even their weaponization shows a new interest for these commons, beyond the indifference that explains many behaviors towards them. The United States and the emerging powers tend to appropriate these global commons from high sea to extra-atmospheric space and of course cyber. A new front line arises between freedom of navigation in these spaces and the will of balkanization for protecting sovereignty by several States that adopt access denial grand strategies. A global state of war results from this opposition. It suggests new types of warfare (more opaque and clandestine). This context nourishes a contestation of american domination but also an unprecedented concern: global commons do not embody an object of disinterest but a source of confrontations per se beyond the quarrels of territories which punctuated the history of international relations in modernity.