A Monroe Doctrine for the Internet 708
InklingBooks writes "An article in Foreign Affairs suggests that in a tersely worded statement the United States has issued a 'Monroe Doctrine' for the Internet. The Monroe Doctrine was a unilateral declaration by the U.S. that it would not permit European powers to establish new colonies in the Western Hemisphere." From the article: "Everyone understands that the Internet is crucial for the functioning of modern economies, societies, and even governments, and everyone has an interest in seeing that it is secure and reliable. But at the same time, many governments are bothered that such a vital resource exists outside their control and, even worse, that it is under the thumb of an already dominant United States. Washington's answer to these concerns -- the Commerce Department's four terse paragraphs, released at the end of June, announcing that the United States plans to retain control of the Internet indefinitely -- was intended as a sort of Monroe Doctrine for our times. It was received abroad with just the anger one would expect, setting the stage for further controversy."
Re:Not a very good analogy (Score:1, Informative)
It was clear when they support the British in the Folkland/Malvinas War.
Re:How... (Score:2, Informative)
Vint Cerf on Internet governance (Score:3, Informative)
Re:even as a european... (Score:5, Informative)
The UN is actually quite effective when it comes to global things that few people object to the presence of, only possibly the implementation of (for example, aid programs for children - or, in our case, domain name services). It's only when it comes to issues that people feel seriously infringe on their national sovereignty (such as peacemaking, arms reduction, etc) that the UN loses its bite.
Re:Damn it (Score:3, Informative)
What you're describing there is totalitarianism. Ideally communism is where no one is better than anyone and everyone gets the same thing.
The Internet is a US invention after all... (Score:1, Informative)
Not to make a history lesson out of this post, but go wiki The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Then research the ARPANET, and find out which country it originated in. Also make sure you find out in which nation universities like MIT, CalTech, Purdue, Stanford, University of Michigan, !insert INTERNET_CONTRIBUTING_UNIVERSITY here! are located.
Then go google Marc Andreessen and find out what he did. While you're at it, google Robert M. Metcalfe and see what he did for networks in general. How about that guy they named Moore's Law after? Pay particular attention to which country these people call home.
After you've done that little bit of background reading, see what you can find about fibreoptic networks, the telecommunications industry and how they made the Internet possible. Weren't those founding telecom companies based in the US?? Go lookup stock tickers for CSCO, SUNW, YAHOO, TWX (formerly AOL), LU, EBAY (ad nauseum). Find out which country they incorporated in first.
Finally, for bonus points, go read up on all that stuff that makes the Internet go. You know all the acronyms -- TCP/IP, DNS, SMTP, HTTP, RIP, and so forth. Make sure you look hard at the UNIX operating system and follow its roots back to when it was owned by AT&T, and focus on which country's people wrote all that software for the operating systems and protocols that make Internet communication possible.
This isn't misguided nationalism or patriotic pride. We built the damn Internet! We innovated technology in the high-tech space which makes what we have today even possible. Ergo, we control most of it. After we got it out of it's infancy and into the public space other countries started to add to what we built and made innovations and inventions of their own. But we laid the groundwork, the foundation, the framework.
So the UN can go back to its oil-for-food scandals, mismanagement of international crisis, and complete ineptitude and incompetence, and we'll get back to building the next great world-changing technologies.
Re:Damn it (Score:3, Informative)
Japan? Communist? The Japanese have a collectivist culture, but they definately aren't communist, or even leftist for that matter. Japan's economics are quite right-wing now of days, and in fact, the current administration of Koizumi [wikipedia.org]there is trying to privatize Japan's post office and to significantly reduce business subsidies, which are both against the beliefs of leftism.
Japan's people are collectivist, but Japan's government doesn't impose collectivism on its people. There is a big difference between the two.
Re:But then how will they get any support? (Score:4, Informative)
The problem the US has isn't with alternate roots, it's with the fact that the EU and others seem to think they have a right to run the roots in the US. No, sorry, that's not the case. The wonderful thing about the Internet is nobody runs it. People run parts of it, but nobody controls the whole things. All the US government has said is it's not going to force ICANN to give control over to the UN. Nothing is stopping the UN or EU from making their own roots.
Re:Europe (Score:2, Informative)
The D-day invasion, that has been promised for 3 years but always ignored, was done eventually, but only because the anglo-saxons were afraid USSR would take all of Europe after the mighty "Bagration" offensive started in spring 1944. It was 5x the size of D-day but few westerners know about that.
The only thing america and britain really did was to firebomb cities day and night, killing civilians, including 135.000 people in Drezden. It did nothing to shorten the war, because all industry was hidden in the caves and bunkers. It only infuriated the german population and made them even stronger adhere to Hitler.
You know why the japenese surrendered? Not becase of the A-bombs, but because on the 9th of August 1945 the USSR entered the war. Within 48 hours they destroyed the imperial Kvantung Army of 600.000 soldiers entirely and that was the end of the japanese military.
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Informative)
Well, on paper, the ICANN is already a multinational body. The problem is with practice here.