CAI Cuihong and LI Yuhua，“The Tech Right and the Transformation of U.S. Technology Security Strategy”，Journal of International Security Studies，No.3，2025，pp.3-34.

[Abstract] The return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2025 has cast renewed spotlight on the tech right, a rising force within American politics that is loosely defined as a coalition of nontraditional Silicon Valley elites, venture capitalists, and technocratic entrepreneurs. This article investigates the ideological profile of this coalition and its growing influence on the transformation of U.S. technology security strategy. Rooted in techno-financial capital and guided by libertarianism, the tech right promotes market-driven innovation, accelerationist visions of technological progress, and elite-centric governance approaches. By advocating deregulation, reinforcing technological monopoly power, and increasing political engagement, the tech right seeks to redefine the institutional contour of U.S. technology security strategy. The rise of the tech right is enabled not only by the political shifts in the U.S. but also by the global structural forces, including the decline of globalization and the return of geopolitical rivalry. With this coalition moving from the background to forefront, it has increasingly penetrated the U.S. political system through capital infiltration, policy lobbying, and media manipulation in its efforts to drive a multidimensional transformation of the U.S. technology security strategy: reconceptualizing its security logic, redesigning its institutional framework, and reshaping its national capacities. At its core, this strategic shift represents a convergence between techno-financial interests and national security imperatives. While the tech right’s focus on technological monopoly and America-first stance may reshape the global technology competition and digital governance, this trajectory also faces challenges such as domestic tensions, fraying alliances, and possible technological backlashes. This article reveals the capital-state interplay underlying U.S. technology security strategy and offers a novel lens for examining how emerging techno-political forces are reconfiguring the global order.

[Keywords] tech right, U.S. technology security strategy, techno-financial capital, libertarianism

[Authors] CAI Cuihong, Professor, Center for American Studies, Fudan University; LI Yuhua, Ph.D Candidate, School of International Studies and Public Affairs, Fudan University (Shanghai, 200433).