In The Technological Republic (2025), Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska explore Western, particularly U.S., anxiety over China, framing it as a strategic concern rather than a mere cultural or economic rivalry. The authors argue that this anxiety stems from a fear of losing technological, military, and geopolitical dominance at a time when the West faces internal divisions, ethical ambivalence, and growing complacency. China’s rapid rise highlights the West’s vulnerabilities in belief, coordination, and the will to project power. As Karp and Zamiska warn, the real danger lies in assuming that the West has already secured victory in the global arena.
The Strategic Fear of Technological and Military Decline in the Age of AI
In The Technological Republic (2025), Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska identify a defining Western—especially American—anxiety: the possibility of losing technological and military preeminence as the character of power undergoes a fundamental transformation. This concern is not reducible to economic rivalry or geopolitical competition alone. Rather, it reflects a deeper fear that the foundations of military superiority are shifting away from traditional weapons and toward software, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems—domains in which China is advancing with striking speed.
China’s leadership in artificial intelligence, particularly in surveillance technologies such as facial recognition, crystallizes this unease. The authors note that several of the world’s leading firms in this field are based in China, signaling not merely commercial success but strategic advantage. Mastery of such technologies enhances state capacity across military, intelligence, and internal security spheres, reinforcing the perception that technological dominance now translates directly into geopolitical leverage.
Western anxiety is further intensified by China’s progress in autonomous warfare. The Chinese military’s pursuit of drone swarms and AI-enabled combat systems reflects a shift in military doctrine toward large-scale, algorithmically coordinated operations. In this emerging model of conflict, speed, adaptability, and software superiority outweigh traditional measures of force. As Karp and Zamiska emphasize, future wars will be decided less by physical hardware than by code, data, and machine-driven decision-making.
This transformation marks what the authors describe as a transition from the atomic age to a “software century,” in which technological edge determines military credibility and deterrence. China’s integration of AI into its military strategy exposes the risks of Western complacency and hesitation. The underlying fear is stark: that the United States may confront a future in which a strategic rival controls the decisive technologies of war, leaving the West struggling to recover an advantage it once assumed was permanent.
Hesitation and Resolve: The Strategic Divide Between the West and China
In The Technological Republic, Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska repeatedly contrast the deliberative nature of Western democracies with the decisiveness of China’s political system. They argue that this divergence has become a central source of strategic anxiety for the United States, particularly as emerging military technologies—most notably artificial intelligence—reshape the foundations of power. The concern is not merely about capability, but about speed, coordination, and willingness to act.
Western states, the authors contend, tend to approach new military technologies through prolonged debates over ethics, legality, and public perception. While these considerations reflect democratic values, they also slow decision-making and delay deployment. In an era where technological advantage is fleeting, such hesitation risks translating moral caution into strategic vulnerability, especially when rivals operate under fewer internal constraints.
By contrast, China’s political system enables rapid alignment between government, military institutions, and the technology sector. This centralized coordination allows for swift development and integration of advanced technologies into military doctrine. The authors emphasize that this structural advantage gives China an edge even in cases where underlying technical capabilities may be comparable, creating an asymmetry rooted in resolve rather than innovation alone.
Karp and Zamiska warn that this imbalance carries serious consequences. They argue that hesitation—whether real or perceived—in applying AI to military contexts will not be met with restraint by adversaries. China, they note, will not pause for ethical debate or public deliberation when strategic opportunities arise. The resulting fear is stark: that while the West debates, China acts, steadily converting decisiveness into lasting strategic advantage.
Complacency After Victory: The West’s “End of History” Illusion
In The Technological Republic, Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska trace a significant portion of Western anxiety about China to a legacy of post–Cold War overconfidence. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Western leaders came to believe that liberal democracy had secured a permanent and uncontested victory. This assumption fostered a sense that history itself had reached a stable endpoint, diminishing the perceived need for sustained strategic vigilance.
According to the authors, this mindset produced tangible consequences. Western states reduced their investment in hard power, relying instead on economic globalization, market forces, and moral authority to preserve influence. Military readiness and technological competition were often treated as secondary concerns, premised on the belief that serious rivalry among great powers had become a relic of the past.
Karp and Zamiska argue that this certainty was not merely mistaken but dangerous. The conviction that history had “come to an end” encouraged cultural hesitation and strategic inertia, reinforcing the assumption that the West had already secured its position in the global order. As the authors warn, this sense of having already won dulled the urgency to prepare for new forms of competition and conflict.
China’s rise decisively disrupts this illusion. Its assertive return to power politics forces the West to confront a world in which geopolitical rivalry has not vanished but evolved. In doing so, China exposes how deeply unprepared Western societies are for renewed strategic competition—revealing complacency not as a temporary lapse, but as a structural weakness inherited from decades of misplaced confidence.
Internal Fragility and the Erosion of Western Purpose
In The Technological Republic, Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska argue that Western anxiety over China is not directed solely outward but is equally a reflection of internal weakness. The rise of China exposes fissures within Western societies—particularly in the United States—where cohesion, purpose, and strategic focus have eroded. Fear of China, in this sense, is inseparable from a deeper unease about the West’s own loss of direction.
The authors point to Silicon Valley as a central symbol of this inward turn. Rather than channeling its immense technological capacity toward national security or collective welfare, much of the tech sector has prioritized consumer applications and short-term commercial gains. This shift, they argue, reflects a broader disengagement from projects tied to long-term national or civilizational goals, leaving critical areas of strategic importance underdeveloped.
Compounding this problem is a cultural resistance among many engineers to work associated with the nation-state or the military. Karp and Zamiska describe a generation of technologists who have distanced themselves from public service, viewing state power with suspicion or moral discomfort. While ethically motivated, this withdrawal weakens the link between technological innovation and national strategy at a time when such integration is increasingly decisive.
China stands in sharp contrast. Its political system deliberately aligns technological talent with state objectives, ensuring that innovation serves strategic national goals. The resulting imbalance fuels American anxiety: the United States fears China not only because of its growing strength, but because the West appears fragmented, distracted, and uncertain of its own mission in a renewed era of great-power competition.
Why Moral Legitimacy Alone Cannot Sustain Western Power
In The Technological Republic, Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska challenge a core Western assumption: that moral authority and adherence to democratic values are sufficient to secure global leadership. They argue that while ethical legitimacy is important, it does not, by itself, deter adversaries or shape strategic outcomes in an increasingly competitive world. Western reliance on values without corresponding strength, they suggest, reflects a dangerous misreading of power politics.
The authors emphasize that history consistently demonstrates the centrality of power—especially credible military power—in determining outcomes. Moral restraint has meaning only when it is paired with overwhelming capability, allowing ethical societies to choose restraint rather than have it imposed upon them by weakness. Without such capacity, appeals to norms and legality risk being ignored by adversaries willing to act decisively.
Karp and Zamiska underscore that even weapons wielded by ethical societies deter effectively only when they exceed the capabilities of potential rivals. Deterrence, in this view, is not rooted in intention but in credibility. A technologically and militarily inferior force, regardless of its values, cannot rely on its moral standing to prevent aggression.
China’s willingness to employ force and disregard Western norms exposes the limits of moral authority as a standalone strategy. By demonstrating that power, not virtue alone, governs international outcomes, China challenges the West to confront an uncomfortable reality: ethical leadership endures only when it is backed by hard power capable of enforcing stability and deterring conflict.
Why China Provokes Deep Strategic Anxiety in the West
Taken as a whole, The Technological Republic presents Western anxiety over China as more than fear of an external rival. It is the unease generated by the rise of a technologically ambitious, highly coordinated, and strategically determined power that shows little hesitation in pursuing its national objectives. China’s ascent is unsettling precisely because it combines technical capability with organizational unity and a willingness to act unconstrained by the ethical and political debates that slow Western decision-making.
This anxiety is sharpened by the West’s own condition. As China advances, Western societies appear increasingly divided, strategically hesitant, and overly confident in the permanence of past victories. Internal fragmentation, moral self-doubt, and complacency inherited from the post–Cold War era weaken the West’s ability to respond decisively. In this context, China does not merely threaten Western power; it exposes the erosion of Western coherence and resolve.
China thus functions both as a formidable competitor and as a mirror. Its rise reflects back to the West the consequences of strategic neglect, cultural division, and misplaced confidence. The resulting anxiety stems not only from what China is becoming, but from what the West fears it has ceased to be.
Summary & Implications
Western anxiety over China ultimately reflects a deeper fear of asymmetry: a disciplined, technologically driven, and strategically resolute rival is ascending at precisely the moment when the West has grown uncertain of its own power, purpose, and capacity for decisive action. Having internalized the belief that history’s great struggles were already settled, Western societies have allowed confidence to harden into complacency, leaving them ill-prepared for renewed competition. China’s rise therefore unsettles not only the global balance of power, but also the West’s assumption that moral authority and past victories alone are sufficient to secure the future.
References
- The Technological Republic Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. Alexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. Zamiska. 2025