Descriptive Analysis & Prescriptive Policy

ASI, the governance principle of altruistic self-interest, offers a way to identify, examine, and enact effective policy on the contemporary geopolitical chessboard. That is, is it in the modern states self-interest to altruistically regard the self-interests of other states given the comprehensive interdependency, the complexity of modernity? Do we stop competing and start cooperating, not because competition doesn’t provide us with measurable results, but because harms outweigh goods, and ends don’t justify means? It is to be perfectly candid just plain dumb to continue behaving in a certain way if you intrinsically know that it is unsustainable and dangerous? One of the most galling aspects of the various threads of our current AI denouement is the wholesale cultural projection that the technology itself is inherently dangerous, which it is. But this is nothing compared to the inherent danger of the irresponsibility of competing humans attempting to master it. If you feel captured by the apparent suicidal tendencies of our current engagement with computational intelligence, or the enigmatic mythos with which it is presented, a mere pawn in the games of corporations, or just tired of big money boosterism, then it’s time to press the refresh button. Time to wake up and inhabit the narrative; time to get political. ASI’s descriptive virtue is to identify the reciprocal goods already present within globally interdependent relations; its prescriptive purpose is to make those goods a deliberate basis for policy.

The Hormuz Oil Crissis

China’s response to the 2026 oil crisis as a result of the US/Israel war with Iran provides a recent case through which to consider how pragmatic, logical, morally consequential decisions are made using the governance principle of ASI. China’s reduction in oil imports during the US/Israel war with Iran reflected the contingent reality of disrupted shipping, higher prices and changes in domestic demand. China’s accumulated reserves, diversified supplies and electrified transport gave it greater capacity to absorb the shortage. Reduced refinery activity and restrictions on fuel exports also affected its purchases. This preparedness allowed China to reduce its demand for internationally available oil while other economies struggled to secure supplies. [1, 2]. The ASI interpretation concerns what altruistic self-interested motivation was behind China’s adjustments. That made their benevolent act toward a geopolitical rival nominally good governance. By competing for fewer scarce oil cargoes, China reduced pressure on the wider market. Preserving the economic viability of its trading partners (altruism), a policy decision that also protected demand for Chinese exports (self-interest). Where the objective governance interests of apparently opposed states became cooperatively implicated with each other. China did not need to regard the West as a friend, or need to embrace any ideological differences, for America’s continued prosperity to matter to Chinese prosperity. [1, 2]

The moral significance of such conduct does not depend upon proving benevolent motivation. ASI is a principle of governance, not a test of moral purity. Yet cooperation between self-interested parties can produce identifiable moral goods: less deprivation, greater economic continuity and reduced systemic risk. Its logical morality lies in recognizing and acting upon that interdependence. As perhaps with anything in life geopolitical decision making benefits from having more than one good reason to do something. Having demonstrated good seemingly benevolent governance, in alleviating the immediate consequences of the Strait of Hormuz oil crisis, by increasing global supply, China was also able to identify and promote several other downstream realities. Shortsighted rash US foreign policy, coopted further by Israel, provided the ideal scenario for the rational acceptance of emerging oil trading relationships involving China, Russia and Iran. Raising important questions regarding the necessary stability of the global oil market that invite the prospect of greater independence from the US petro dollar system.

International Resources

Oil remains one of the most systemically consequential internationally traded commodities. Production, refining and distribution sustain transport, industry and the movement of essential goods. Every country has an interest in a resilient energy system. Any country intentionally or otherwise intent on disrupting that resilience will find itself quickly isolated internationally, despite the closeness of any historical ties. Diversified routes, usable reserves, coordinated adjustment and reduced dependence on petroleum can protect that system more effectively than competitive hoarding during a shortage. [2, 4] The same reasoning applies to monetary and logistical plurality. The United States exercises exceptional influence through dollar finance, sanctions and market access; this is substantial structural power, rather than absolute control over world oil. Alternative settlement channels can provide redundancy when existing channels are disrupted. They may also encourage restraint by making unilateral coercion less predictably decisive. Such restraint can benefit Americans as well as their competitors. That is what Chinese policy as exemplified, by adopting the principle of ASI, demonstrates that the US no longer operates in a unipolar world, and that the recognition of this is an identifiable good for the American people and the global authority of the United States itself. This alone might Make America Great Again.

ASI & Diplomatic Goods

What else does the opportunity of ASI policy present to China here. Perhaps such resilience during the Hormuz disruption does not necessarily-categorically, support-establish, that a blockade through the Strait of Malacca would be ineffective, or that China could sustain a prolonged war over Taiwan. [2, 5]. But it does give China’s protagonists pause for thought if thinking that supposed resource dominance means that they can act rashly on the world stage without thinking about the consequences. As a governance principle ASI has no ideological preferences, like a fundamental property in physics it just works away in the background. What it demonstrates is that government, the ideological investments that we choose to fight over, rather than help each other with (?), are but a subset of governance itself. Which is why we should never confuse global government with global governance.

There’s not as country on the entire planet, that in fully occupying the mandate to act in its allegedly best self-interest has not produced significant self-harm. Psychologically speaking we are undoubtedly in the scientifically proven province of asserting that people are implicitly biased. We can effortlessly extend this manifestly warped universal behavior to that of countries. This is no more clearly apparent than when trying to either get someone to address that they are, in a particular instance, categorically wrong; or indeed having realized that; actually admit it. For China adopting the ASI governance route arguably opened up the possibility of atoning for the consequences of Covid-19. That is their response to the Hormuz crisis can be considered as having a reputational dimension. That following the pandemic, China has reason to demonstrate responsible international statesmanship. Although the COVID-19 outbreak occurred in Wuhan; the precise route by which the virus entered the human population remains unresolved. WHO’s 2025 assessment found the available evidence favored zoonotic spillover, while identifying significant missing information.[3] Categorically proving the origin of the disease should not in any way stop China from atoning for the significant global harms—the loss of life and monetary debt—that the pandemic caused. Stabilizing another global crisis could be interpreted as restorative statesmanship in this regard.

Multipolar Interdependent Reality

Recognizing the emergent multipolar world is a requirement of adaptive governance, rather than an endorsement of any emergent power. This is an ideal not a Greek problem. The proposal to recognize alternative oil-shipping networks follows the same logic. Bringing the trade into accountable international arrangements could reduce the risks associated with shadow fleets, but recognition alone would not make unsafe vessels safe. Transparent ownership, inspection, insurance and environmental liability would remain essential. The objective would be legitimate diversity within common standards, with disputes over sanctions addressed through lawful international processes. [6]

In a radically interdependent world no one state can adequately secure its population while disregarding the legitimate security interests and development of others. That principle applies to American action against Iran, Iranian interference with civilian shipping, and the possibility of China taking military action against Taiwan. Yet the intelligibility of reciprocal self-interest does not itself constrain governments. Regime survival, prestige and inherited territorial claims with their attendant aims can be mistaken for the interests of citizens, when in fact they are just the overdetermined proclamations of nation statehood. When responding to these acculturated habits—not just a problem now for China, but systematically a problem for post-war America. Applied to Taiwan, this requires China to consider the disciplined non-exercise of power; as, paradoxically, a mature expression of that power. A timely lesson their chief protagonist would do well to heed. An apparent military advantage does not establish that coercion would serve China’s citizens well, still less the Taiwanese people. Strategic forbearance could preserve peace long enough for economic, technological and generational change to ameliorate the dispute itself. A global network of Cybernomos Institutes could act as a constitutional hedge against that particular misalignment of objectives; and there will be many more like it, as states transition into becoming de facto technological republics. Independent assessments, protected dissent, reciprocal scrutiny and public explanations of rejected policy could make the formal governance principle of ASI at an institutional level consequential.

Institutional Virtue

If computational intelligence produces the economic advantages that are predicted, and if the governance of that abundance is fairly distributed, then there are very good reasons to be optimistic about the future. Nevertheless the underlying danger is that twenty-first-century computational intelligence will amplify nineteenth-century territorial imperatives through twentieth-century military institutions. AI-generated abundance might weaken the capitalist–communist/left–right axis of division formed under conditions of scarcity, but it would not abolish questions of ownership, distribution and authority. Nor would abundance automatically extinguish nationalism or conflict. The preeminent purpose of Cybernomos would be to steer countries through this dangerous interregnum: to keep technological power answerable to biological Life; and to prevent inherited rivalries from capturing the benefits of change. The relative calm of the promised land is a governing horizon to be pursued through moral and logical pragmatism; the work undertaken not to be an assumption of a guaranteed destination.

This is where the coherent descriptive analysis of ASI becomes prescriptive policy. The proposed Cybernomos Institute’s would necessarily pursue the political philosophical implications of ASI toward the Universal Global Governance Objective—UGGO: namely the security and development of every sovereign biological individual—SBI. This is how you hedge for humanity against ubiquitous computational intelligence.

References

[1] Center for Strategic and International Studies, China Power. ‘How Is the Iran War Impacting China’s Economy?’ 30 April 2026. Source

[2] Center for Strategic and International Studies. ‘Six Charts to Explain the Global Energy Crisis.’ 17 September 2026. Source

[3] World Health Organization. ‘WHO Scientific advisory group issues report on origins of COVID-19.’ 27 June 2025. See also the linked SAGO independent assessment. Source

[4] International Energy Agency. Oil 2025: Analysis and Forecast to 2030. Paris: IEA, 2025, executive summary. Source

[5] International Monetary Fund. External Sector Report 2025, chapter 2, ‘International Monetary System: Currencies in a Changing World.’ Washington, DC: IMF, 2025. Source

[6] International Maritime Organization. Resolution A.1192(33), ‘Urging Member States and All Relevant Stakeholders to Promote Actions to Prevent Illegal Operations in the Maritime Sector by the Dark Fleet or Shadow Fleet.’ Adopted 6 December 2023, especially paragraphs 3–7. Source