The Value Challenge of Interconnectedness in Cyberspace for National Security

The current phase of the information age is characterized by more intense and more comprehensive interconnection in cyberspace. This feature of technology promotes changes at the societal level, including consequently the value model. These changes require the adaptation of national communities and, thus, represent a challenge for the national security. This paper starts from the observation of parameters of the interconnectedness of things, people and processes in cyberspace, and their impact on social organization within the technologically advanced states. That impact is analyzed in regard to the stability of the common value concept of nation-states. The interconnectedness in cyberspace manifests the trend of multiplication in scope. In the leading technological countries, centralized development centers are arising. This results in attracting financial flows towards the most developed countries, and the rise of the technological elite as an actor in the social power structure. Adapting to the interconnectedness (and the speed) in cyberspace requires improving the individual capacity of perception, which can be achieved through value-oriented education. Re-composition of social power within a community requires implementing democratic mechanisms in cyberspace, and the precondition for this is a strategic national approach to protection and normative regulation of critical information infrastructure.