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Global Perspectives

“Quantum 3.0”: What Will It Mean for War, Peace, and World Order?

James Der Derian, Stuart Rollo

Published Jan 1, 2024• 5 citations

Abstract

Without quantum mechanics, the nuclear and information revolutions of the twentieth century would not have happened. In this article, we examine how new quantum technologies are coming to reshape war and peace in the twenty-first century. Research and development across quantum computing, communications, and sensing has taken on the dynamic of a “quantum race” between major powers, big tech, and academic institutions. A quantum advantage in these areas could radically reshape political and economic as well as strategic balances of power. In a world already marked by global entanglement, deep uncertainty, and superpositional states of war and peace, quantized modes of understanding need to expand from the natural and physical sciences into the social and political sciences, which remain stuck in causal, linear, and deterministic worldviews inherited from the seventeenth century. We use this article to begin to push beyond the classical limits of traditional international relations to consider new epistemic tools, ethical frameworks, and geopolitical strategies for a world order transformed by Quantum 3.0.

DOI: 10.1525/gp.2024.93888

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Quantum mechanics has not only revolutionized our understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe, but has also transformed modern computing and communications technologies, leading to our current information age. The inherently nondeterministic nature of the theory is now leading to radical and powerful new frameworks for information processing and data transmission. This new quantum revolution raises social, political and ethical questions, but also provides an opportunity to develop quantum-inspired frameworks to examine and build the quantum information era.

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