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A Monroe Doctrine for the Internet
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."
America does only apply Monroe Doctrine when they want.
It was clear when they support the British in the Folkland/Malvinas War.
This is so funny. Please make other jokes like that I'm laughing.
I interviewed Vint Cerf, who yesterday coincidentally was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, about U.S. control of the Net earlier in the week.
A lot of people picture UN-run organizations as being something like congress directly running an aid organization. That's not how it works. In general, the UN as a whole or part appoints the leader of a UN-run organization, and that leader is in charge of the management. Few would claim that, say, UNICEF is some sort of organization in which the Chinese ambassador steps in to try and stop aid to Indian children, or whatnot (the sort of things that people here are picturing would happen in UN control of DNS). In reality, the UN would pick a department head, they manage the organization. The only influence that the UN itself would have would be on changing who heads the organization.
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.
"He's a god; it'll take more than one shot." â" Lady Eboshi, Mononoke Hime
No, it's not communism. Communism is a top down approach to control where a central authority dictates what everyone does. Communism isn't about happy people working together for a better tomorrow, despite what you might have been taught.
What you're describing there is totalitarianism. Ideally communism is where no one is better than anyone and everyone gets the same thing.
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.
The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes
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 Koizumithere 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.
Of course not all Americans are ignornat, not all Europeans are arrogant either, however you are certianly an arrogant European, and it's one of the most annoying types, hence your comment that being ignorant embodies the American spirit. You are also fairly ignorant, if you think the US will in any way stop alternate root servers, you have your head in the sand. Have a look at the Wikipedia page on the topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root. The are a number of well known alternate root services. Some just mirror the ICANN zone, some do their own thing. Some even conflict with ICANN zones (like New.net).
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.
You are ignorant. The nazi German empire was not defeated by the USA. It was stopped, driven back and eventually destroyed by the Soviet Union and its Red Army. They were the ones fighting their way from Moscow to Berlin on foot and track at a price of tremendous human sacrifice. Some 80% of all WWII fighting was on the eastern front. Even without the anglo-saxons, the USSR would reach Calais by autumn 1946 in the worst case, the strategic planning maps signed by marshal Zhukov clearly show that.
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.
There is not shame in passing the Internet over to a multi-national body.
Well, on paper, the ICANN is already a multinational body. The problem is with practice here.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.