The core message of the session is that cybersecurity professionals should treat cyberspace as a geopolitical domain: the practical questions are who controls technology, infrastructure, data, access, and eventually the sphere of influence from which an organization operates. The speaker frames the present as a “liminal phase” by quoting Antonio Gramsci on an interregnum where the old world is dying and the new one cannot yet be born. He compares today’s situation with the interwar period, arguing that the postwar order built around the United Nations, international law, and American-led Western dominance is fading, while its replacement has not yet stabilized.

He then describes several transitions: from international legal order toward “might makes right,” from Western dominance toward a more multipolar world, and from globalization toward fragmentation. The UN Security Council is used as evidence of an outdated structure: the United States, China, Russia, France, and the UK hold permanent seats, while India, Brazil, Germany, and the African continent lack equivalent representation. For the Netherlands, this creates a specific dilemma. The country wants to defend international law and institutions such as the International Criminal Court in The Hague, yet it is also dependent on the United States, whose recent rhetoric about “our hemisphere,” “spheres of influence,” and Venezuela is presented as conflicting with the international legal order the Netherlands says it supports.

The speaker connects these geopolitical tensions directly to cyber and technology. He argues that a vessel emphasizing Chinese identity in the Strait of Hormuz is seeking protection from a superpower, illustrating how power projection now shapes basic operational risk. In cyberspace, the same logic applies: cybersecurity is geopolitical because control over platforms, infrastructure, algorithms, and denial of access is an exercise of power. He cites the politicization of artificial intelligence terminology under Trump, the participation of major tech CEOs in that norm-setting, and the small number of women visible in that setting as examples of how technology norms are now shaped through political influence rather than neutral expert consensus.

The final portion of the available transcript shifts from concern about the United States to an even stronger warning about China. Drawing on Clingendael research, the speaker says Dutch public perceptions of China and the United States have become nearly similar, but argues China is still farther from Dutch and European core values. He points to Chinese support for Russia, digital espionage, economic dumping, mass surveillance, and explicit rejection by China’s highest judge of Western ideas such as constitutional democracy, separation of powers, and judicial independence. The available transcript ends as he stresses that China will not simply bow to Western values and that the period of uncontested Western dominance is over.