Imperialism’s Handmaidens: Cultural Hegemony and Information Warfare

ABSTRACT

The war in Ukraine manifests a major crisis both for US imperialism in its struggle to maintain and expand its hegemony against challenge, here primarily but not exclusively, Russia and for international capitalism itself. How this crisis will play out is unknown but at this stage three characteristics are evident. Firstly, the use of proxies; Ukraine for the military struggle and Europe to a large extent for the economic one. Secondly, the primacy of economic instruments, such as sanctions rather than direct military power. Thirdly, undergirding and legitimizing the other two, the expanded role of information warfare. Information warfare sits on two pillars. One is cultural hegemony, the soft power to mold perception because of the esteem in which the provider of information is held by the recipient. The other is the organizational framework, or architecture of information collection, creation and dissemination to manage perception.

KEYWORDS:

• US imperialism
• cultural hegemony
• information warfare
• Russia
• China

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See https://language.chinadaily.com.cn/columnist/2018-01/09/content_35465364.htm.

2 See https://warontherocks.com/.

3 EUobserver is a European online newspaper, see https://euobserver.com/static/about.

4 See https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2022/03/james-risen-u-s-intelligence-says-putin-made-a-last-minute-decision-to-invade-ukraine/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tim Beal

Tim Beal is a retired New Zealand academic who has researched and written widely on Asia and in particular its interaction with the West. He has a special focus on US imperialism and the Korean peninsula within the context of policy towards East Asia. His most recent publications include “Korea and Imperialism” in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-imperialism (edited by Immanuel Ness and Zak Cope; Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_92-2#copyright-information), and “The Angler and the Octopus” (Monthly Review, November 2019, https://monthlyreview.org/2019/11/01/the-angler-and-the-octopus/). He maintains the Asian Geopolitics website: http://www.timbeal.net.nz/geopolitics/.