A Programmatic Statement of the American Ruling Class
In September 2026, the Council on Foreign Relations’ flagship journal, Foreign Affairs, published an article whose importance goes beyond the immediate policy debate it seems to address. Its author, David S. Cohen, is more than an academic or minor commentator. He has a career that places him at the heart of the connection between Wall Street, the intelligence community, and the Democratic Party: he was deputy director of the CIA under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, served as Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, and is now a senior partner at WilmerHale, a leading Washington law firm. Cohen’s background makes it hard to dismiss his words as mere speculation or bureaucratic quirks. Instead, they represent a clear statement from the American ruling class during a serious crisis.[1]
Cohen’s argument is stark and remarkably frank. He advocates that the CIA and NSA should be officially incorporated into the profit-driven activities of American companies. He argues that these intelligence agencies should collect proprietary data overseas and pass it directly to US businesses in key sectors such as semiconductors, AI, aerospace, and weapons production. Essentially, the spy agencies should act as R&D arms of corporate America, providing exclusive intelligence to firms whose success is critical to the strategic competition with China.
This proposal signals a new phase in the decline of American capitalism and the rise of global conflict. It reflects how an imperialist power, facing economic downturn, tries to offset this by deploying its coercive tools—military, intelligence, and financial assets. As the U.S. can no longer sustain leadership through industrial or technological edge, it increasingly depends on its unmatched coercive measures: its military strength, surveillance systems, and dominance over global finance. Cohen’s idea encapsulates this strategic change.
The article’s importance lies not in its novelty but in its honesty. Over many years, the US has used its large surveillance networks to collect intelligence that supports American corporations. The European Parliament exposed the ECHELON network in the late 1990s; it intercepted communications from European companies that competed with US firms. In 2000, ex-CIA Director James Woolsey confirmed that the US monitored European businesses. The 2013 Snowden revelations revealed NSA efforts to target Petrobras, hack Huawei’s servers, and follow trade negotiations. At the time, WSWS noted that NSA actions against Huawei resembled Washington’s accusations that Huawei was spying on the US.
Cohen proposes to openly acknowledge what has long been practised: removing the pretence that intelligence gathering and sharing with private corporations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, or Nvidia are separate. The supposed distinction was always a fiction. Now, Cohen insists on discarding this illusion. This change signals that the American ruling class is preparing society for the acceptance of intelligence agencies operating on behalf of private corporations, which is a characteristic indicator of imperialist decline.
View this development within the wider context of American capitalism, the evolution of the intelligence sector, and the international crisis of imperialism. Cohen’s suggestion is not an anomaly but a natural outcome of long-standing trends: the merging of finance capital with the state, the militarisation of economic policy, and the adaptation of intelligence agencies into tools for corporate strategy.
The United States faces a world where its economic dominance is diminishing. China has overtaken the US in manufacturing and leads in several industrial sectors, while rapidly advancing technologies vital to military strength. The American elite sees this not as a challenge to address through investment, planning, or social reforms, but as a threat that requires coercion. The “all tools” approach Cohen mentions reflects war-preparation language. The sectors he highlights—semiconductors, AI, aerospace, weapons systems—are exactly those central to the Pentagon’s planning for potential conflict over Taiwan.
Cohen’s proposal signals more than a policy change; it clearly declares intent: intelligence agencies will serve corporate interests directly, and the corporate sector will become part of the war effort. The lines between the state and capitalism, foreign policy and corporate strategy, national security and profit are blurring. To understand the full significance of this shift, we need to consider the historical role of intelligence agencies, the structural crisis facing American capitalism, and the global spread of imperialism. Cohen’s article highlights a deeper process: turning the United States into a war economy and undermining democratic rights both domestically and internationally. In this context, the purpose and risks of Cohen’s proposal become apparent.
The Myth of “Self‑Prohibition”: The Historical Record of US Economic Espionage
Cohen’s central claim — that the United States has nobly refrained from economic espionage — is not merely misleading but demonstrably false. The historical record leaves no room for ambiguity. For decades, the US intelligence apparatus has been systematically deployed to gather proprietary information abroad for the direct benefit of American corporations. This is not an aberration or a matter of isolated incidents; it is a structural feature of US imperialism.
The ECHELON surveillance network, exposed by the European Parliament in the late 1990s, revealed that the US and its Five Eyes partners intercepted communications of European firms competing with American companies for major contracts. US corporations received intelligence gleaned from ECHELON, giving them decisive advantages in international bidding processes. In 2000, former CIA Director James Woolsey openly admitted in the Wall Street Journal that the US spied on European companies, justifying the practice as “levelling the playing field.” His admission was remarkable not for its content — which had long been suspected — but for its brazenness.
The 2013 Snowden revelations provided further irrefutable evidence. The NSA targeted Petrobras, Brazil’s state‑owned oil giant, infiltrated Huawei’s servers, and monitored trade negotiations. These operations were not conducted for abstract “national security” reasons but to secure strategic advantages for American firms and shape global markets in line with US interests. The WSWS documented that the NSA was doing to Huawei precisely what Washington accused Huawei of doing to the United States.
Against this backdrop, Cohen’s claim of a “self‑prohibition” collapses entirely. The distinction between intelligence gathered to “shape policy” and intelligence handed directly to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, or Nvidia was always a fiction — a fig leaf designed to obscure the reality of state‑corporate collusion. Cohen’s proposal removes the fig leaf. It is not a new departure but an open avowal of longstanding practice, now elevated to official doctrine.
ECHELON and the European Parliament’s Investigation
In the late 1990s, the European Parliament launched a formal investigation into the ECHELON network, a global surveillance system operated by the United States and its closest intelligence partners—the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—collectively known as the Five Eyes. ECHELON had long been rumoured to exist, but the investigation was the first systematic attempt by a major political body to uncover its scope, purpose, and implications. The inquiry revealed a surveillance apparatus far more expansive than anything Washington or London had publicly acknowledged, with operations extending well beyond traditional national‑security concerns.
The European Parliament’s report concluded that ECHELON was not merely a tool for intercepting diplomatic or military communications. It had been used to monitor the commercial activities of European firms competing with American corporations for major international contracts. The program intercepted, analysed, and—crucially—passed telecommunications data, satellite transmissions, and private corporate communications to US companies. This intelligence gave American firms privileged insight into competitors’ bids, pricing strategies, and technological capabilities, giving them a decisive advantage in securing lucrative deals.
The investigation highlighted several concrete cases. European aerospace companies, for example, repeatedly lost contracts to US rivals under circumstances that raised suspicions long before ECHELON was formally scrutinised. The Parliament’s findings confirmed what many suspected: US intelligence agencies were deployed not simply to protect national security but to advance American corporations’ commercial interests. The line between state power and private profit had blurred to the point of being indistinguishable.
The ECHELON revelations were politically explosive. European governments protested, and the Parliament issued warnings about the implications for sovereignty, privacy, and fair competition. Yet Washington responded with denial and deflection. US officials insisted that any intelligence gathering was aimed at combating corruption—specifically bribery by European firms—rather than securing commercial advantage. This justification was as self‑serving as it was implausible. The notion that the CIA and NSA acted as global anti-corruption watchdogs strained credulity, especially given the documented pattern of intelligence flowing directly to American corporations.
The ECHELON affair exposed a fundamental truth about US intelligence operations: economic espionage was not an aberration but a structural component of American imperial strategy. The United States possessed unparalleled surveillance capabilities, and it used them not only to shape geopolitical outcomes but to tilt the playing field of global capitalism in favour of its own corporations. The intelligence agencies functioned as instruments of state‑corporate power, gathering information that could be weaponised in commercial competition.
This historical record directly contradicts David S. Cohen’s claim that the United States has nobly refrained from economic espionage. The ECHELON investigation demonstrated that such restraint never existed. What Cohen calls a “self‑prohibition” was always a fiction—a rhetorical device designed to obscure the reality of state‑sanctioned corporate espionage. The distinction between intelligence gathered to “shape policy” and intelligence handed directly to American firms was a fig leaf, and ECHELON tore it away.
ECHELON’s significance lies not only in what it revealed about past practices but in what it foreshadowed. By the end of the 20th century, the fusion of state surveillance and corporate interests was already well advanced. Cohen’s proposal in Foreign Affairs does not mark a new departure but formalises a long‑standing reality. The intelligence agencies have been serving corporate America for decades; Cohen merely demands that this relationship be openly acknowledged and institutionalised.
James Woolsey’s Admission
In 2000, former CIA Director James Woolsey published an extraordinary article in the Wall Street Journal in which he openly admitted that the United States routinely spied on European corporations. The admission was not surprising in substance—by that point, allegations of US economic espionage had circulated for years—but its brazenness was striking. Woolsey did not deny the practice, minimise it, or cloak it in diplomatic euphemism. Instead, he justified it outright, presenting US surveillance of foreign firms as both necessary and morally defensible.
Woolsey’s argument rested on a simple claim: European corporations engaged in “bribery,” and therefore the United States was merely “levelling the playing field.” According to Woolsey, American firms were at a disadvantage because they supposedly adhered to higher ethical standards, while their European competitors secured contracts through illicit payments. He insisted the CIA was not stealing commercial secrets to benefit US corporations but exposing corruption abroad. This framing allowed Woolsey to recast economic espionage as a form of global public service—an anti‑corruption crusade rather than a tool of imperialist advantage.
The justification was as self‑serving as it was implausible. The notion that the CIA and NSA were acting as international guardians of business ethics strained credulity, particularly given the long history of US intelligence agencies supporting dictatorships, coups, and covert operations that had nothing to do with moral rectitude. Woolsey’s argument was a classic example of imperialist ideology: the United States presents its own predatory actions as defensive, reluctant, or altruistic, while depicting the behaviour of its rivals as inherently corrupt or illegitimate.
More importantly, Woolsey’s admission confirmed what many already suspected: the US intelligence apparatus was deeply involved in gathering proprietary information for the benefit of American corporations. His article appeared after the European Parliament’s investigation into the ECHELON network revealed that the US and its Five Eyes partners intercepted communications of European firms competing with American companies for major contracts. Woolsey’s intervention was clearly intended to defuse the political fallout by reframing economic espionage as a moral necessity rather than a violation of sovereignty and fair competition.
The brazenness of Woolsey’s argument reflected a deeper truth about US imperialism. By 2000, the fusion of state power and corporate interests was already well advanced. Intelligence agencies did not operate independently of American capitalism; they served it. Woolsey’s article made explicit what had long been implicit: the CIA’s activities were not confined to traditional national‑security concerns but extended directly into the realm of commercial competition.
His admission also exposed the hollowness of the claim—repeated endlessly by US officials—that the United States refrains from economic espionage. Woolsey did not deny the practice; he defended it. The “self‑prohibition” invoked by figures like David S. Cohen two decades later was already a fiction in 2000, and Woolsey’s article demonstrated that the US ruling class had no qualms about discarding it when politically expedient.
Woolsey’s intervention matters not only for its content but also for its timing. It appeared as globalisation accelerated, competition between American and European firms intensified, and the US began to confront the rise of China as a major industrial power. Woolsey’s argument foreshadowed the more aggressive posture the US would adopt in the decades to come, culminating in the open calls—such as Cohen’s—for the intelligence agencies to serve as direct instruments of corporate strategy.
In retrospect, Woolsey’s article marks an early shift: the intelligence apparatus transformed into a tool of economic warfare, deployed not merely to defend US interests but to secure the commercial dominance of American capitalism. It candidly admitted a practice that would soon become central to US geopolitical strategy.
The Snowden Revelations
The Snowden disclosures of 2013 provided some of the most damning and irrefutable evidence of US economic espionage to date. When former NSA contractor Edward Snowden released internal documents detailing the scope and operations of the American surveillance apparatus, the revelations shattered the carefully maintained fiction that US intelligence agencies confined themselves to “national security” concerns. Instead, the documents exposed a sprawling global surveillance system that targeted not only foreign governments and military organisations but also major corporations, trade negotiators, and industrial sectors central to other countries’ economic development.
One of the most striking examples was the NSA’s targeting of Petrobras, Brazil’s state‑owned oil company. Petrobras was not a terrorist organisation, a military threat, or a conduit for espionage. It was a commercial entity whose strategic importance lay in its control over Brazil’s vast offshore oil reserves. The NSA’s surveillance of Petrobras had no conceivable “security” justification. It was economic espionage in its purest form: stealing proprietary information from a foreign corporation to benefit US strategic and commercial interests. The operation demonstrated that the intelligence agencies were prepared to deploy their most sophisticated tools against any entity whose activities intersected with American geopolitical or economic objectives.
Even more politically explosive was the revelation that the NSA had infiltrated Huawei’s servers, the Chinese telecommunications giant. At the time, Washington was waging a propaganda campaign accusing Huawei of acting as an arm of the Chinese state, stealing intellectual property, and embedding “backdoors” in its equipment to facilitate espionage. Yet Snowden’s documents showed that the NSA was doing precisely what the US government claimed Huawei was doing: penetrating the company’s internal networks, accessing its communications, and gathering intelligence on its technological development. The hypocrisy was staggering. The WSWS documented extensively that the NSA’s operations against Huawei mirrored, almost exactly, the accusations levelled against the Chinese firm.
The Snowden files also revealed that the NSA monitored international trade negotiations, including communications between diplomats and economic ministries. These operations were not aimed at preventing terrorism or safeguarding national security. They were designed to give the United States an advantage in shaping global trade rules, securing favourable terms, and undermining other countries’ negotiating positions. In other words, the intelligence agencies were directly intervening in the global economic order on behalf of American capitalism.
Taken together, these revelations demolished the claim—repeated endlessly by US officials—that the United States refrains from economic espionage. The NSA’s targeting of Petrobras, Huawei, and trade negotiators showed that economic intelligence gathering was not an aberration but a core function of the surveillance apparatus. The distinction between “policy‑shaping intelligence” and intelligence used to benefit American corporations proved to be a fiction.
The Snowden disclosures therefore provide essential context for understanding David S. Cohen’s proposal. What Cohen advocates openly today—the formal integration of the intelligence agencies into the profit‑making operations of US corporations—was already being practised covertly a decade earlier. Snowden revealed the reality; Cohen now demands its official codification.
The Fig Leaf of “Policy‑Shaping Intelligence”
The supposed “self‑prohibition” was never more than a paper distinction—a bureaucratic fiction designed to obscure how the American intelligence apparatus has long operated. For decades, US officials have insisted that while the CIA and NSA gather information relevant to “policy formation,” they refrain from passing proprietary intelligence directly to American corporations. This claim has always been untenable. The boundary between “policy‑shaping intelligence” and intelligence used to benefit Boeing, Lockheed Martin, or Nvidia was so porous it was practically nonexistent. The distinction served a political purpose: it allowed Washington to maintain the pretence that its surveillance apparatus was guided by national‑security imperatives rather than the commercial interests of American capitalism.
Cohen now proposes to remove the fig leaf entirely. In Foreign Affairs, he argues not that the United States should begin engaging in economic espionage, but that it should openly acknowledge and formalise what it has long practised. He insists that intelligence agencies must be integrated directly into the profit‑making operations of US corporations, supplying them with proprietary information gathered abroad. In effect, Cohen demands that the CIA and NSA become institutionalised components of corporate strategy — research‑and‑development arms of firms deemed essential to the geopolitical struggle against China.
This is not a departure from past practice but the open avowal of it. The ECHELON revelations, Woolsey’s admissions, and the Snowden disclosures all showed that the US intelligence apparatus has long been used to secure commercial advantages for American firms. What is new is a senior figure in the intelligence establishment’s willingness to declare this openly, in the pages of the ruling class’s most authoritative journal. Cohen’s proposal signals that the American elite no longer feels compelled to disguise the fusion of state surveillance and corporate profit. The ideological cover is being discarded.
The significance lies in the public declaration. When a former deputy CIA director calls for the intelligence agencies to serve openly as instruments of corporate America, it indicates a shift in the political climate. The American ruling class is preparing the population for the normalisation of intelligence‑agency operations on behalf of private corporations — a hallmark of imperialist decay. In periods of capitalist crisis, the separation between state and capital collapses. The state’s coercive apparatus is mobilised directly to secure monopoly capital’s interests, and the ideological justifications that once masked this relationship fall away.
Cohen’s proposal must therefore be understood as part of a broader transformation: the militarisation of economic policy, the integration of corporate America into the machinery of war, and the erosion of democratic norms. The intelligence agencies, once nominally confined to foreign threats, are being repurposed as instruments of economic warfare. Their operations will increasingly target not only foreign competitors but domestic dissent, labour struggles, and any activity deemed inimical to the interests of “strategic” corporations.
The removal of the fig leaf marks a new stage in the crisis of American capitalism — one in which the ruling class prepares for war abroad and repression at home, and seeks to legitimise both through the language of national security.
The Fusion of Finance Capital and the State: Lenin’s Framework
Cohen’s proposal must be understood within the framework Lenin developed in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lenin’s analysis remains indispensable because it identifies capitalism’s structural tendencies at its highest stage—tendencies that do not depend on political leaders’ subjective intentions but arise organically from the concentration of capital, the domination of finance, and the global struggle for markets. In the epoch of imperialism, Lenin wrote, the fusion of finance capital with the state apparatus becomes the defining feature of economic and political life. The state ceases to function as an arbiter between competing social interests and instead becomes the direct instrument of monopoly capital. Conversely, monopoly capital becomes inseparable from the state, relying on its coercive powers—military, diplomatic, and intelligence—to secure markets, suppress rivals, and maintain profitability.
This process has reached a new stage in the United States. The integration of intelligence agencies into American corporate operations is not an aberration but the logical expression of the fusion Lenin described. The CIA and NSA, once nominally confined to foreign policy and national security, are now being openly repurposed as instruments of corporate strategy. Cohen’s proposal does not introduce a new relationship between state and capital; it merely codifies and legitimises one that has been developing for decades.
The transformation of the US state into the executive committee of finance capital is visible across every domain of policy. The Pentagon’s partnerships with Silicon Valley, the CHIPS Act’s subsidies for semiconductor firms, and the Treasury Department’s weaponisation of financial sanctions all show how the machinery of the state has been mobilised to secure American corporations’ interests. The intelligence agencies are the final component of this apparatus to be openly integrated into the corporate sphere. Their vast surveillance capabilities, once justified in the name of national security, are now being redirected toward the commercial battlefield.
Lenin emphasised that imperialism is characterised by monopoly dominance and the export of capital. In the contemporary United States, these monopolies are concentrated in sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, aerospace, and weapons manufacturing—the very industries Cohen identifies as “strategic.” These firms do not compete on market forces alone; they depend on state intervention, subsidies, and coercive power. Cohen’s proposal reflects the reality that American capitalism can no longer maintain global dominance through economic means alone. Its industrial base has eroded, its share of global manufacturing has declined, and China increasingly challenges its technological supremacy.
In this context, the fusion of state and capital intensifies. The intelligence agencies become instruments of economic warfare, gathering proprietary information abroad and delivering it directly to American firms. The state mobilises its coercive apparatus to compensate for the decline of US industrial competitiveness. Cohen’s proposal therefore marks a new stage in imperialist decay: intelligence operations become tools of corporate profit, and the boundary between state power and private capital erodes.
State Capitalism and the Strategic Industries
The Trump administration’s equity stakes in Intel and other “strategic” firms, the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act subsidies, and the Pentagon’s increasingly direct contracting with Silicon Valley have already created a form of state capitalism in the United States. These developments show that the fusion of state power and monopoly capital—which Lenin identified as the hallmark of imperialism—is not an abstract theoretical tendency but an active, accelerating process. The American state is no longer merely regulating or supporting private industry; it is becoming structurally intertwined with it. Cohen’s proposal would complete this fusion by integrating the intelligence agencies themselves into the corporate profit‑making process.
The CIA and NSA would no longer function, even nominally, as institutions concerned with foreign policy or national security. They would become instruments of corporate strategy, deployed to secure the commercial dominance of American firms in sectors deemed essential for geopolitical supremacy. Cohen’s vision is explicit: the intelligence agencies should identify vulnerabilities in foreign competitors, map supply chains for sanctions and sabotage, steal proprietary research, and provide privileged intelligence directly to US corporations. These are not hypothetical tasks; they are the operational functions of an intelligence apparatus repurposed for economic warfare.
This is not “industrial policy.” Industrial policy implies state planning, investment, and coordination to strengthen national productive capacity. Cohen’s proposal is something qualitatively different: the militarisation of the entire economy. It represents the state’s transformation into the executive committee of finance capital in its most literal form. The intelligence agencies—historically instruments of covert intervention, coups, and geopolitical manipulation—would now be openly tasked with securing the profitability of American corporations.
The implications are profound. First, the distinction between civilian and military sectors collapses. Semiconductor firms, AI companies, aerospace manufacturers, and weapons contractors become extensions of the national‑security state. Their commercial success becomes a matter of national survival, and their interests become indistinguishable from those of the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. This fusion ensures that any challenge to these corporations—whether from foreign competitors or domestic labour struggles—will be treated as a threat to national security.
Second, the intelligence agencies gain a new mandate: not merely to gather information but to shape global economic outcomes. Mapping supply chains for sabotage, identifying choke points for sanctions, and stealing proprietary research are acts of economic warfare. They undermine rival nations’ industrial development, particularly China’s. Cohen’s proposal therefore signals an escalation in the global struggle for technological supremacy, one that will intensify geopolitical tensions and accelerate the drive toward conflict.
Third, integrating intelligence agencies into corporate strategy will deepen domestic repression. Once the CIA and NSA are formally tasked with protecting the profitability of “strategic” firms, any domestic activity that threatens those profits—strikes, protests, whistleblowing—can be construed as a national‑security issue. The militarisation of the economy inevitably militarises labour relations.
Cohen’s proposal thus marks a new stage in imperialist decay: the open transformation of the intelligence apparatus into a tool of corporate profit, and the corresponding erosion of democratic norms. It is a declaration that the American ruling class intends to wage economic war abroad and suppress opposition at home, using the full coercive power of the state.
The Role of the Intelligence Apparatus
The intelligence agencies have always served the interests of the American ruling class. From their inception, their primary function has not been to defend “national security” in any abstract or neutral sense, but to protect the global interests of American capitalism. The historical record is unequivocal. The CIA’s overthrow of the Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953 was carried out at the behest of Anglo‑American oil interests. The 1954 coup in Guatemala was orchestrated to protect the United Fruit Company’s holdings. US corporations and banks drove the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile to prevent the nationalisation of key industries. Across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the CIA supported dictatorships, death squads, and military juntas whose primary function was to guarantee favourable conditions for American investment and suppress movements that threatened capitalist property relations.
These operations were not aberrations or excesses. They were the normal functioning of an intelligence apparatus designed to enforce American capital’s global hegemony. The CIA acted as the covert arm of US corporate power, eliminating governments that interfered with profit extraction and installing regimes that opened their economies to American firms. The agency’s activities were inseparable from the interests of Wall Street, the major banks, and the multinational corporations that dominated the post‑war world economy.
Cohen’s proposal does not introduce a new relationship between the intelligence agencies and corporate America. It simply formalises and modernises a relationship that has existed for decades. What was once carried out covertly—coups, sabotage, surveillance, and political manipulation—would now be openly integrated into the commercial strategies of American corporations. The intelligence apparatus becomes the direct servant of corporate America, gathering proprietary information abroad and delivering it to US firms in sectors deemed essential for geopolitical supremacy.
This marks the fusion of state and capital in its most advanced form. The CIA and NSA, historically instruments of covert intervention, would now be openly tasked with securing the profitability of American corporations. Their operations would no longer be justified through the language of national security but through the imperatives of global competition. Intelligence agencies would become tools of economic warfare, deployed to undermine foreign competitors, secure technological dominance, and shape global markets in favour of American firms.
The implications are profound. The militarisation of economic policy collapses the boundaries between foreign policy, corporate strategy, and intelligence operations. The state’s coercive apparatus is mobilised directly to secure monopoly capital’s interests. The intelligence agencies become instruments not merely of geopolitical intervention but of commercial domination. Cohen’s proposal therefore marks a new stage in imperialist decay: the intelligence apparatus’s open transformation into a tool of corporate profit, and the corresponding erosion of any remaining boundary between state power and private capital.
The Logic of Decline: American Capitalism in Crisis
Cohen’s proposal stems from the protracted decline of American capitalism. The United States can no longer compete with China on industrial production. Its share of global manufacturing has fallen precipitously, accelerating since the 1990s. Entire sectors of American industry—electronics, machine tools, shipbuilding, rare‑earth processing—have been hollowed out. Infrastructure that once symbolised US industrial might is now visibly decaying: bridges collapsing, water systems failing, rail networks antiquated. The political system, paralysed by factional conflict and dominated by oligarchic interests, cannot address any of these crises. The ruling class faces a world where its economic foundations are eroding, and its global dominance is increasingly challenged.
Unable to maintain its position through economic means, the United States increasingly relies on its remaining advantages: military power, intelligence capabilities, and financial coercion. These instruments—war, surveillance, sanctions—are the tools of an imperialist power in decline. They compensate for lost industrial supremacy by pressuring rivals geopolitically and enforcing compliance through force rather than economic strength. Cohen’s proposal must be understood as part of this broader shift: the mobilisation of the intelligence apparatus as a direct instrument of economic warfare.
Cohen’s “all tools” doctrine is the language of war preparation. It is not the rhetoric of industrial policy or economic planning, but of a ruling class preparing to confront a major rival. The sectors he identifies—semiconductors, artificial intelligence, aerospace, weapons systems—are precisely those central to the Pentagon’s planning for a conflict over Taiwan. These industries are not merely commercially significant; they are militarily decisive. Control over advanced chips, AI‑driven targeting systems, hypersonic technologies, and aerospace manufacturing will determine the outcome of any future conflict between the United States and China.
Under Cohen’s proposal, intelligence agencies would not merely gather information. They would shape the battlefield. Their operations would include mapping Chinese supply chains for sabotage, identifying technological bottlenecks for sanctions, infiltrating research institutions, and stealing proprietary data from foreign competitors. These are not defensive measures; they are offensive preparations for war. The intelligence apparatus becomes an extension of the Pentagon’s strategic planning, integrated directly into the economic and technological dimensions of military conflict.
The “all tools” doctrine reflects a fundamental transformation in US strategy. Economic competition is no longer seen as separate from military confrontation; it is treated as a component of it. The sectors Cohen highlights are already deeply intertwined with the national‑security state. Semiconductor firms receive billions in subsidies under the CHIPS Act. AI companies work directly with the Pentagon on battlefield applications. Aerospace and weapons manufacturers are embedded in the military‑industrial complex. Cohen’s proposal extends this integration to the intelligence agencies, making them active participants in the commercial struggle against China.
This militarisation of economic policy marks a new stage in imperialist decay. It signals that the American ruling class no longer believes it can out‑innovate or out‑produce its rivals. Instead, it seeks to cripple them through coercion, sabotage, and surveillance. The intelligence agencies become instruments of economic warfare, deployed to maintain US dominance in sectors essential for military supremacy.
Cohen’s proposal therefore represents not a technocratic adjustment but a strategic escalation. It declares that the United States is preparing for conflict—and that the intelligence apparatus will be mobilised to shape the economic terrain on which that conflict will be fought.
Integrating the spy apparatus with corporate America is not an isolated policy initiative but part of a broader mobilisation for confrontation with China. The United States is reorganising its entire economic structure around the requirements of geopolitical conflict. This is not simply a matter of subsidies or industrial planning; it is the transformation of the civilian economy into an adjunct of the military‑intelligence complex. The implications are global and catastrophic. A conflict between the United States and China—two nuclear‑armed powers with intertwined economies—would engulf the world and threaten humanity with annihilation.
The militarisation of the economy is already well advanced. The CHIPS Act’s subsidies for semiconductor firms are justified less on economic grounds than on national‑security imperatives. Semiconductor production is treated as a strategic military asset, essential for weapons systems, surveillance technologies, and battlefield communications. The Pentagon’s partnerships with Silicon Valley—once limited to niche projects—have expanded dramatically. Major tech firms now work directly with the Department of Defence on AI‑driven targeting systems, autonomous weapons platforms, and battlefield analytics. Artificial intelligence, once heralded as a transformative civilian technology, is being integrated into weapons systems at every level, from drone swarms to missile guidance.
Military production is expanding across the board. Aerospace firms are receiving unprecedented contracts for hypersonic weapons, next‑generation fighter jets, and missile‑defence systems. The US defence budget continues to grow, absorbing ever larger portions of national resources. In this context, Cohen’s proposal is not a departure but the next logical step: the intelligence agencies become the research‑and‑development arm of American corporations, supplying them with proprietary information gathered abroad and shaping their technological trajectories in line with military requirements.
This militarisation of the economy marks a new stage in imperialist decay. It signals that the American ruling class no longer believes it can maintain global dominance through economic strength or technological innovation alone. Instead, it seeks to weaponise every aspect of national life—industry, finance, technology, and intelligence—in preparation for conflict. The fusion of state and capital becomes total.
For years, Washington’s propaganda against Beijing has centred on allegations of Chinese “intellectual property theft.” These accusations have been used to justify the prosecution of Chinese‑American scientists, the blocklisting of Chinese firms, and an atmosphere of anti‑Chinese McCarthyism. The narrative has been relentless: China steals technology, China infiltrates research institutions, China uses its intelligence services to support commercial enterprises.
Now, in a remarkable display of imperialist cynicism, a senior figure of the US intelligence establishment demands that the United States adopt precisely the methods it denounces—only with formal legal authorisation. Cohen’s proposal is not merely hypocritical; it is revelatory. It exposes the ideological bankruptcy of American imperialism. The United States accuses others of what it does itself—and now seeks to do openly.
The hypocrisy is not incidental. It is the essence of the so‑called “rules‑based order,” a euphemism for the rule of American capital. The “rules” apply only to others. The United States exempts itself from every norm it proclaims. It violates international law with impunity, engages in economic espionage while denouncing it, and weaponises global institutions to enforce its interests.
Cohen’s proposal tears away the remaining pretence. It reveals that the “rules‑based order” is not a system of universal principles but a mechanism for maintaining US hegemony. When the United States can no longer enforce its dominance through economic strength, it resorts to coercion, surveillance, and sabotage. Intelligence agencies become instruments of commercial warfare, deployed to cripple rivals and secure American corporations’ interests.
The Working Class and the Spy State: Repression at Home
The most important implication of Cohen’s proposal concerns the working class. The surveillance apparatus he wants to unleash on foreign corporations is the same one Snowden exposed monitoring the communications of the entire American population. Once intelligence agencies are formally tasked with protecting specific corporations’ profits, the line between “foreign threat” and “domestic threat” disappears. An engineer in Shenzhen and an autoworker in Michigan become equivalent objects of surveillance if both threaten the interests of a “national security” firm.
The militarisation of industry requires militarising labour relations. Strikes, protests, and workplace organising will be treated as threats to national security. The spy apparatus will be turned inward against workers. This is not speculation; it is the logic of authoritarianism under capitalism: War abroad requires repression at home. Economic espionage abroad requires labour discipline at home. The fusion of state and capital requires suppressing democratic rights.
The working class becomes the internal enemy. Any challenge to the profitability of “strategic” corporations—whether through industrial action, whistleblowing, or political dissent—will be met with surveillance, intimidation, and state repression.
Cohen’s proposal therefore marks a new stage in the assault on democratic rights. It signals that the intelligence agencies will be mobilised not only against foreign competitors but against the working class itself. The spy state becomes the guardian of corporate profit, and the struggle for workers’ rights becomes inseparable from the struggle against imperialist war.
The Political Logic of Imperialist Decay and the Task Before the Working Class
No faction of the American political establishment opposes Cohen’s proposal. On the contrary, the ruling class’s unanimity in integrating intelligence agencies into corporate strategy is itself a symptom of the depth of the crisis confronting American capitalism. Democrats and Republicans differ only in tactics, rhetoric, and the constituencies they appeal to. On the fundamental question—the mobilisation of the coercive apparatus of the state in defence of American corporate interests—they are united. The intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street form a single, interlocking complex whose interests are inseparable. Cohen’s proposal is not controversial within this milieu; it is the logical extension of policies already underway.
The drive toward war is not the product of individual leaders or misguided policies. It stems from the contradictions of the capitalist system itself. Imperialism is not a choice but a necessity for a ruling class confronting economic decline. When profitability cannot be maintained through productive investment, technological innovation, or market expansion, it turns to coercion, sanctions, sabotage, and war. The militarisation of the economy, the fusion of state and capital, and the mobilisation of the intelligence apparatus for corporate profit are not aberrations but structural tendencies of capitalism in decay.
The United States confronts a world in which its economic foundations are eroding. China’s rise as an industrial power threatens the global dominance American capitalism has exercised since the end of the Second World War. The ruling class responds not by addressing the social and economic contradictions that have hollowed out the US economy, but by preparing for conflict. Cohen’s proposal is another step in this trajectory: transforming intelligence agencies into instruments of economic warfare, deployed to secure technological supremacy and cripple rivals.
Against this backdrop, the international working class becomes decisive. Only a working class organised across national boundaries and united on a socialist program can halt this trajectory. Not the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party, which is fully integrated into the national‑security state. Not European social democracy, which long ago abandoned any pretence of opposition to imperialism. Not Chinese nationalism, which represents the interests of a rising capitalist elite. The working class alone has no stake in imperialist rivalry and every interest in preventing a catastrophic conflict between nuclear‑armed powers.
The fight against war is inseparable from the fight against capitalism. The struggle against the militarisation of society, the fusion of state and capital, and the assault on democratic rights requires building revolutionary leadership in the working class. The intelligence agencies Cohen wants to unleash on foreign corporations will inevitably turn inward against workers. The state will treat strikes, protests, and workplace organising as threats to national security. The working class becomes the internal enemy of a state fused with corporate power.
This is not speculation; it is the logic of authoritarianism under capitalism. War abroad requires repression at home. Economic espionage abroad requires labour discipline at home. The fusion of state and capital requires suppressing democratic rights. The working class must respond with its own form of international unity, grounded not in nationalism but in socialist internationalism.
Articles and Bibliography
I. Foundational Marxist and Theoretical Works
- V.I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lenin’s analysis of monopoly capital, finance capital, and the fusion of the capitalist state with corporate interests provides the essential theoretical framework for understanding Cohen’s proposal. His identification of imperialism as a structural necessity of capitalism in decline is directly relevant to the militarisation of the US economy and intelligence apparatus.
- Leon Trotsky, The War and the International. Trotsky’s early writings on the relationship between capitalist crisis, militarism, and imperialist war illuminate the contemporary drive toward conflict with China.
- David North, The Crisis of American Democracy: North’s analysis of the breakdown of democratic institutions in the United States and the rise of authoritarian tendencies provides context for the domestic implications of intelligence‑corporate fusion.
- Nick Beams, “Globalisation and the World Economy” (WSWS): Beams’ work on the contradictions of global capitalism and the decline of US economic hegemony helps situate Cohen’s proposal within the broader crisis of American capitalism.
II. US Intelligence Operations and Economic Espionage
ECHELON and Five Eyes Surveillance
- European Parliament, “Report on the Existence of a Global System for the Interception of Private and Commercial Communications (ECHELON)” (1999–2001). The official investigation concluded that ECHELON intercepted commercial communications from European firms and passed intelligence to US corporations, confirming long‑suspected economic espionage.
- Duncan Campbell, “Inside ECHELON” (2000) Campbell’s investigative reporting provides detailed technical and political analysis of ECHELON’s capabilities and its use in commercial competition.
James Woolsey’s Admission
- James Woolsey, Wall Street Journal Op‑Ed (2000): Woolsey openly admitted that the US spies on European corporations, justifying the practice as anti‑corruption. His article is significant for its brazenness and for confirming longstanding US economic espionage.
Snowden Revelations
- Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian (2013): Reporting based on Snowden’s documents revealed NSA surveillance of Petrobras, Huawei, and international trade negotiations.
- Laura Poitras, “NSA Targets Petrobras” (2013): Poitras’ reporting showed that the NSA targeted Brazil’s state‑owned oil company, demonstrating economic motives behind surveillance.
- WSWS Coverage (2013–2014): The WSWS documented that the NSA was doing to Huawei precisely what Washington accused Huawei of doing, exposing the hypocrisy of US claims.
III. US Industrial Policy, Militarisation, and State Capitalism
- CHIPS and Science Act (2022): The legislation provides massive subsidies to semiconductor firms, justified on national‑security grounds. It marks a shift toward state‑directed industrial policy in strategic sectors.
- Department of Defence, “AI and Autonomy Integration Reports” (2020–2024): Pentagon documents outline the integration of AI into weapons systems and partnerships with Silicon Valley firms.
- Congressional Research Service, “Defence Industrial Base: Overview and Issues” (2023): Analysis of the expanding role of military production in the US economy.
- WSWS: “The Militarisation of American Industry” (multiple articles) Coverage of the Pentagon’s growing influence over technology firms and the transformation of civilian industries into military contractors.
IV. US–China Conflict and Technological Rivalry
- Foreign Affairs, David S. Cohen, “The Case for Economic Intelligence” (2024): Cohen’s article argues for integrating the CIA and NSA into corporate strategy, openly advocating economic espionage as a tool of geopolitical competition.
- Council on Foreign Relations Reports on US–China Technological Competition (2020–2024): CFR analyses emphasise semiconductors, AI, and aerospace as decisive sectors in the conflict with China.
- RAND Corporation, “War with China: Military and Industrial Scenarios” (2015–2023): RAND studies outline the centrality of technological supremacy in potential conflict scenarios over Taiwan.
V. Surveillance, Authoritarianism, and Domestic Repression
- Edward Snowden, Permanent Record (2019): Snowden’s memoir contextualises the NSA’s mass surveillance programs and their implications for democratic rights.
- ACLU Reports on NSA Surveillance (2013–2024): Documentation of domestic surveillance programs targeting workers, activists, and political dissent.
- WSWS: “The Spy State and the Working Class” (multiple articles): Analysis of how surveillance tools developed for foreign intelligence are repurposed for domestic repression.
VI. Additional Scholarly and Investigative Sources
- Tim Shorrock, Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing (2008). A detailed study of the outsourcing of intelligence functions to private corporations and the emergence of a corporate‑intelligence complex.
- Alfred McCoy, In the Shadows of the American Century (2017): McCoy examines the decline of US global power and the increasing reliance on surveillance and coercion.
- Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire (2004): Johnson’s analysis of militarism and imperial overstretch provides historical context for the militarisation of the US economy.
