In 2024, investigations by Al Jazeera and other media outlets revealed that Israeli-linked artificial intelligence systems such as Lavender and Gospel helped generate thousands of military targets in Gaza. Critics warned that warfare was entering a new era – one driven not only by soldiers and bombs, but by algorithms, data, and surveillance technology.
Then, in September 2024, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by members of Hezbollah exploded in coordinated attacks in Lebanon, widely attributed to Israeli intelligence operations that had turned ordinary communication devices into weapons.
Last year, reporting by Al Jazeera also raised concerns about the use of cloud and data infrastructure linked to major US technology companies in Israeli surveillance operations involving Palestinians.
For a growing number of scholars, economists and political thinkers, such developments reflect more than just the changing nature of conflict. They show how power in the modern world is increasingly exercised not just through military force, but through technology, finance and control over information.
That argument has revived broader debates around decolonisation. Proponents of “decolonial theory” argue that colonial-era systems of power and hierarchy never fully disappeared. Instead, they evolved, embedding themselves in global financial systems, technology platforms, media networks and even the production of knowledge itself.
“A generation may have grown up believing they had never experienced colonialism or exploitation,” Esra Albayrak, board chair of the NUN Foundation for Education and Culture and daughter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told Al Jazeera. “Yet, mentally, they may still be living under colonial influence.”
The war in Gaza marked a turning point, Albayrak says, shining a spotlight on how international principles are not applied equally. Global institutions have so far failed to stop what many countries and rights groups have described as genocide against Palestinians.
She argues that a handful of technology companies are emerging as new, invisible centres of power, shaping how information is produced, circulated and consumed in the digital age. She describes the digital sphere as the realm of what she calls “future colonialism”, warning that AI systems trained largely on Western-centric data risk reinforcing existing global inequalities.
Walter D Mignolo, professor at Duke University, argues that while “formal colonialism” may have largely ended, systems of Western dominance continue through economics, culture, technology and knowledge production. He said societies must find a way to “re-exist” by rebuilding intellectual and cultural autonomy outside dominant global frameworks.
The March 2026 Global Debt Report by the OECD reveals that 44 countries face severe debt burdens, often aggravated by global conflicts, forcing some governments to spend more on interest payments than on health or education.
British political economist Ann Pettifor told Al Jazeera that modern forms of domination are now increasingly embedded not in empires or nation-states, but in financial systems operating beyond democratic oversight. She points to the growing influence of “shadow” banking networks and giant asset managers such as BlackRock.
Much of the global financial architecture now functions largely outside the regulatory control of governments, she says, including that of Western states themselves. “This is not a state colonising other states. This is the financial system colonising the whole world, including my country and the US,” Pettifor said.
As wars become increasingly influenced by AI, digital infrastructure and financial dependency, debates around colonisation are focusing less on territorial control and more on who influences energy prices, lending systems, access to technology and the flow of information across borders, observers say.
Albayrak draws a parallel between today’s debates around technology and global power and Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden”, arguing that traces of “mastery complex” still survive today, though in different forms – not necessarily through military occupation, but through technological, financial and informational influence. She argues that what the world really needs is a global order built not on hierarchy, but on shared responsibility.
Source: www.aljazeera.com