From the former news policy lead at Google, an âinformative and often harrowing wake-up callâ (Publishers Weekly) that explains the high-stakes global cyberwar brewing between Western democracies and the authoritarian regimes of China and Russia that could potentially crush democracy.
From 2016 to 2020, Jacob Helberg led Googleâs global internal product policy efforts to combat disinformation and foreign interference. During this time, he found himself in the midst of what can only be described as a quickly escalating two-front technology cold war between democracy and autocracy.
On the front-end, weâre fighting to control the softwareâapplications, news information, social media platforms, and moreâof what we see on the screens of our computers, tablets, and phones, a clash which started out primarily with Russia but now increasingly includes China and Iran. Even more ominously, weâre also engaged in a hidden back-end battleâlargely with Chinaâto control the internetâs hardware, which includes devices like cellular phones, satellites, fiber-optic cables, and 5G networks.
This tech-fueled war will shape the worldâs balance of power for the coming century as autocracies exploit 21st-century methods to redivide the world into 20th-century-style spheres of influence. Without a firm partnership with the government, Silicon Valley is unable to protect democracy from the autocrats looking to sabotage it from Beijing to Moscow and Tehran. Helberg offers âunnervingly convincing evidence that time is running out in the âgray warâ with the enemies of freedomâ (Kirkus Reviews) which could affect every meaningful aspect of our lives, including our economy, our infrastructure, our national security, and ultimately, our national sovereignty.