Connected Choices: How the Internet Is Challenging Sovereign Decisions

Note

This article appears in the American Foreign Policy Interests' Special Issue on Cybersecurity, Sovereignty, and U.S. Foreign Policy. For more information and to view the table of contents, please visit: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/uafp20/36/5#.VFk7oMwo6os

ABSTRACT

Modern societies are in the middle of a strategic, multidimensional competition for money, power, and control over all aspects of the Internet and the Internet economy. This article discusses the increasing pace of discord and the competing interests that are unfolding in the current debate concerning the control and governance of the Internet and its infrastructure. Some countries are more prepared for and committed to winning tactical battles than are others on the road to asserting themselves as an Internet power. Some are acutely aware of what is at stake; the question is whether they will be the master or the victim of these multilayered power struggles as subtle and not-so-subtle connected choices are being made. Understanding this debate requires an appreciation of the entangled economic, technical, regulatory, political, and social interests implicated by the Internet. Those states that are prepared for and understand the many facets of the Internet will likely end up on top.