Nation-states will fight over information as they once fought over territory.

Evidence

Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhapsthe major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control of access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor. A new field is opened for industrial and commercial strategiesontheonehand,and political and military strategies on the other. — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 113

Categorization

• XREF: Pre-echoes modern information-warfare discourse and data-sovereignty debates; a notable 1979 foresight. — connects to: Global South states demanded collective ownership of information alongside natural resources — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 196