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."

Comments

Re:even as a european...

[Rei]

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.