Rowland Manthorpe, technology correspondent

It was a time of technological marvels. New machines were upending centuries-old ways of working, transforming the very fabric of daily life.

Politics was changing, too. Across the world, a new order was emerging, in which weight of arms was no longer the determining factor. A new military and economic force had intervened - ideas, crystallised in technology.

In Britain, the centre of this 18th-century Industrial Revolution, the strategic value of the new science was very clear. The British treated industrial knowledge as a state secret, even going so far as to ban mechanics from emigrating in case they took their techniques to rival nations.

Image: New technologies upended centuries-old ways of working during the Industrial Revolution

For Britain's former colonial subjects in the new US, this was a problem. Without the latest science, how could they hope to compete?


Enter Alexander Hamilton, America's first ever treasury secretary, who proposed a simple solution: break the law and steal the technology.

Putting the full weight of the treasury behind the effort, Hamilton sent spies to observe British industry. He granted passage and patents to immigrating British mechanics. As his biographer Ron Chernow writes, during Hamilton's tenure as treasury secretary "the US government condoned something that, in modern phraseology, could be termed industrial espionage".

In his musical about Hamilton's life, Lin-Manuel Miranda presents "the ten-dollar founding father" as the ultimate self-made man, inventing America even as he invented himself. In reality, Hamilton borrowed from everyone around him - and, when he could not borrow, he stole. He founded a nation of entrepreneurs with a series of ingenious thefts.

Image: Alexander Hamilton sent spies to Britain during the Industrial Revolution

Now, over 200 years later, history is repeating itself. Only, this time, the US is the superpower having its technological secrets stolen.

According to the FBI and the State Department, Chinese hackers are stealing the keys to the second Industrial Revolution. In December last year, the two agencies accused the Chinese government of directing a systematic campaign of "economic espionage" against the US and its allies, burglarising its intellectual property on a massive scale.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a news conference: "China's goal, simply put, is to replace the US as the world's leading superpower - and they're breaking the law to get there… they want what we have so they can get the upper hand on us."

In one sense, this simply shows how little has changed. Nations steal from each other - what's new about that? Yet something is different about this latest wave of thefts, beyond the tools used to perpetrate them. Like so many other industries before it, state conflict is succumbing to digital disruption.

To see the change in action, consider the case of Huawei. The US has been pressuring its allies to ban the Chinese company from supplying technology to their 5G networks - and, slowly, countries are coming round. Australia and New Zealand have blocked local firms from using Huawei kit. Germany, France, the UK and Canada are all considering similar moves.

What do these countries think Huawei will do? The risk is not just that it will pass information back to China, but that it will give the Chinese government the ability to turn off the network with a flick of a button. Yet it is hard to distinguish one threat from another, because there is no substantial difference in the intrusions that make them possible. When every item in a hospital or a power plant is connected to the internet, a theft of intellectual property can evolve seamlessly into a life-threatening attack.

This is what makes our present conflict different to the one Hamilton pursued against Britain. As William Davies shows in his book Nervous States, 17th-century thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes established a novel distinction: "A clear separation between situations of 'war' and those of 'peace'... between military and civic violence."

Image: Huawei is one of the world's largest technology firms

The institutions of the modern state - everything from police forces to prisons - were built on this foundation.

Now, this border is breaking down. As Davies puts it: "As society has been flooded by digital technology, it has grown harder to specify… what is peaceful dialogue and what is conflict." Instead, he observes "individuals and governments living in a state of constant and heightened alertness". The enervating tension of social media has spread to every part of life.

Thefts of personal data illustrate this pattern. In December, a few weeks before it issued its indictments against the Chinese hackers, the US government confirmed reports that Beijing-linked hackers were responsible for a giant data breach at the Marriott hotel chain. Over 300 million guests had their personal details stolen, including more than 25 million passport numbers.

History is repeating itself. Only, this time, America is the superpower having its technological secrets stolen.

What did the hackers want? Once again, the concern was simultaneously the broad fear of surveillance and the precise fear of threats to national security. Perhaps the hackers were looking for US agents or government figures. Perhaps they were tracking scientists and technologists. Perhaps, some speculated, they weren't certain themselves, but were simply collecting information to exploit at some future date.

As former senior director for counter-terrorism at the National Security Council Joshua Geltzer put it recently, it's possible "Beijing doesn't even know why or how it might be able to use this data set, yet nonetheless figures that it's worth acquiring it now, with an anticipation of putting it to use later".

As with Huawei - which, at this point, has not done anything to interfere with as-yet-unbuilt 5G networks - it is impossible to identify any deed which might be considered a declaration of war. The risk is hypothetical; it expresses a fear, rather than evidence of a crime.

Other kinds of cyber conflict follow the same pattern. Take the notion of "hybrid war", used to describe "weaponisation" of social media by foreign actors. Is it war? No - but nor is it peace. It is the place in between: a constant circling argument, in which motives are unclear and the nothing can be finally settled.

It is easy to see how security services get sucked into this narrative. Yet, in its vagueness and all-pervasiveness, the new cyber conflict bears an uncomfortable resemblance to George W Bush's "war on terror", an inchoate crusade that could never be won, or even finished, yet justified an endless expansion of military capacity, searching for risks that might never materialise.

In the face of immediate threats, it's hard to reach for calm. But, when war is disrupted, so is peace itself. When every digital part of life is capable of being weaponised, where can peace be found? When the front line is everywhere, where is free from war? These are the questions that never get asked, yet most urgently need answering, as we lurch towards the future.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Beth Rigby - Brexit isn't just a crisis, it's far more than that