Cybernetic States: Communication, Control, and State-Space in the Advanced Research Projects Agency

Abstract

While political geographers have researched state restructuring extensively over the past forty years, few have explored the role of cybernetics in this process. Conversely, although a wide spectrum of scholars outside of geography have shed light on aspects of cybernetic governance, they have yet to incorporate insights from political geography. In both cases, the political geography of cybernetic state power remains largely unexplored. To bridge this gap, the article explores the nexus of cybernetics and state restructuring in the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), a Cold War US defense research agency, circa 1958 to 1969. It analyzes Congressional testimonies by ARPA-sponsored scientists and engineers alongside their academic publications and other papers to grasp how they conceived of and actively sought to transform state-space. The article makes two arguments. First, while geographers treat state restructuring as a function of neoliberalization or War on Terror securitization, the process was set in motion near the start of the Cold War. It was then that ARPA's appeal to cybernetics to resolve geopolitical conflicts cemented the logical, organizational, and technical foundations for neoliberal and War on Terror state mutations. Second, the main thrust of ARPA responses to Cold War crises involved restructuring state-power in the mode of a cybernetic feedback control system. These efforts bring into relief a distinct object of analysis, the state control system (SCS), which offers geographers fresh perspectives on state restructuring and opens new pathways for interdisciplinary research.

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