[Air-L] Coming soon - to each nation near you, its own internet

[Steve Cavrak]

Following our discussion of the "non-American" internet, twitter limiting the scope of research, university presses and scholarly publication, and ebook readings, Google felt encouraged to send me an alert to the following guest editorial from the Bangkok Post on a proposed Balkanized Internet for the future ... 


Coming soon - to each nation, its own internet
Philip J Cunningham
Bangkok Post
Published: 12/03/2011 at 12:00 AM
http://j.mp/hHMDoX 
aka
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/226318/coming-soon---to-each-nation-its-own-internet

During this era of incessant online babble, blogs, tweets and cacophonous concatenations, the internet has become a virtual Tower of Babel, an ambitious, overloaded unitary structure breaking at the seams. It's only a matter of time before it crumbles.

That, in a nutshell, is the view put forward by a group of US military thinkers in the latest issue of Strategic Studies Quarterly, who see the breaking up and "Balkanisation of the Internet" as natural as it is inevitable, and not without public benefit, assuming that the 'Net reorganises along traditional, nationalistic lines.

…

Inspired by the folk wisdom that good fences make good neighbours, there is a school of thought in the US military that posits a not-so-distant future in which the worldwide web will be divided up along national lines.

The Rise of a Cybered Westphalian Age, authored by Chris C Demchak and Peter Dombrowski for the spring 2011 issue of the Strategic Studies Quarterly argues that the internet at present is too open and too unguarded. Cyberspace, when compared to the contours of natural space, can be understood as an under-regulated domain replete with badlands and bandits, a frontier to be tamed and subdivided.

…


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Here's the Journal's TOC for this issue. Each of the articles is available as a downloadable PDF; comments are invited via email. 

SSQ
Strategic Studies Quarterly
Spring 2011
Air University
Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base Montgomery, Alabama
http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/

Commentary

The Future of Things “Cyber”
Gen Michael V. Hayden, USAF, Retired

Part I

Feature Article

An Air Force Strategic Vision for 2020-2030
Gen John A. Shaud, USAF, Retired
Adam B. Lowther

Perspectives

Rise of a Cybered Westphalian Age
Chris C. Demchak
Peter Dombrowski

Retaliatory Deterrence in Cyberspace
Eric Sterner

Perspectives for Cyber Strategists on Law for Cyberwar
Maj Gen Charles J. Dunlap Jr., USAF, Retired

World Gone Cyber MAD: How “Mutually Assured Debilitation”
Is the Best Hope for Cyber Deterrence 
Matthew D. Crosston

Nuclear Crisis Management and “Cyberwar”:
Phishing for Trouble?
Stephen J. Cimbala

Cyberwar as a Confidence Game
Martin C. Libicki

Book Reviews

Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar
Martin C. Libicki
Reviewed by: COL Jeffrey L. Caton, USA, Retired

Cyberpower and National Security
Edited by: Franklin D. Kramer, Stuart H. Starr, and Larry K. Wentz 
Reviewed by: Col Rizwan Ali, USAF

The Essential Herman Kahn: In Defense of Thinking
Edited by: Paul Dragos Aligica and Kenneth R. Weinstein
Reviewed by: Col Joe McCue, USAF, Retired