// Comparison

Cyberstratégie vs Technopolitique: Which Should You Read?

Two cybersecurity books on Geopolitics, compared honestly: who each is for, what each does best, and which to read first.

Intermediate

3/52012

Cyberstratégie

L'art de la guerre numérique

Bertrand Boyer

An early French military-strategic treatment of cyberspace as a theatre of operations — doctrine, deterrence and the determinants of a national cyber policy — by a French officer and strategist.

Intermediate

4/52024

Technopolitique

Comment la technologie fait de nous des soldats

Asma Mhalla

A sharp, current essay on how digital technology, AI and platform power have turned citizens into actors in a permanent informational and geopolitical conflict, by a prominent French tech-politics scholar.

Read this if

Readers interested in the strategic and military dimension of cyber: doctrine, statecraft, deterrence, and how cyberspace fits into conflict. Strong on the French/European strategic perspective often missing from US-centric accounts.

Readers who want a contemporary French framing of the politics of technology — surveillance, AI, platform power, information warfare — at the intersection of geopolitics and daily life.

Skip this if

Technically-minded readers wanting attacks or defence; this is strategy and doctrine, not tooling. As a 2012 book, some examples predate the last decade of cyber-conflict.

Readers wanting technical or security how-to; it's a political essay and big-picture argument, not a practitioner's text.

Key takeaways

A foundational French-language text on cyber as a domain of warfare and statecraft, not as a technical discipline.
Brings a French/European strategic lens to a conversation usually dominated by American voices.
From 2012, so read it for doctrine and framing rather than current events — pair with newer reporting for the post-2014 era.

A very current (2024) French framing of technology as a domain of permanent geopolitical and informational conflict.
Mhalla is a widely-followed voice on tech politics — the argument is sharp and contemporary.
Big-picture and political: read for the framing of AI/platform power, not for technique.

How they compare

We rate Technopolitique higher (4/5 against 3/5 for Cyberstratégie). For most readers, that means Technopolitique is the primary pick and Cyberstratégie is a useful follow-up.

Both books target intermediate-level readers, so the choice is about topic, not difficulty.

Cyberstratégie and Technopolitique both cover Geopolitics, Strategy, so reading them in sequence reinforces the same material from different angles.

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