StrategyUnit

I’ve been following the ICANN issue pretty closely but there’s not too much to say until the scheduled UN meeting next month. (Check out previous posting on this blog “Will the Internet Remain Truly Global“and Battle for the Internet - Update 1.)

But, I did come across a great article by Kenneth Cukier of the Economist in the November/December 2003 Foreign Affairs that is worth reading for a thorough overview of what is going happening regarding the UN and ICANN.

Here is a great excerpt of a historical comparison to the Cold War, US maneuverings and how the current US system, while should be continued for now, isn’t sustainable in the long term:

[The] very countries that most restrict the Internet within their borders are the ones calling loudest for greater control. As other countries sharpen their diplomatic knives for the final round of the summit in Tunis in November, the dispute is echoing an earlier battle at Unesco in the 1980s over the so-called New World Information and Communication Order, which led the United States and the United Kingdom to pull out of the organization. Then, it was the Soviet Union,its satellites, and the developing world that called for controlling media activities and funding the development of media resources in developing countries; today, some of those same nations seek power over the Internet, as well as financial aid to overcome the digital divide. (Emphais mine)

Washington’s new position shrewdly mixes a few carrots in along with the big stick. It formally acknowledges that countries have “sovereignty concerns” about their national two-letter address domains — a mealy-mouthed nod toward granting countries control over them, which is only appropriate. Although this will invite problems, such as with Taiwan’s “.tw,” these can be sidestepped — just as the allocation of telephone “country codes” to territories does not confer diplomatic recognition, neither does the allocation of country domains need to. Washington also supports the continued discussion of broader Internet governance issues in multiple forums, which could restrain the creation of a cumbersome and monolithic Global Internet Policy Council (which was among the UN working group’s proposals). It may also keep politicians from trespassing on ICANN’s more purely technical areas, which could harm the network.

Nevertheless, although the new U.S. position may be the least bad alternative in the short term, it will almost certainly be unsustainable over the longer term. For the moment, there is little other governments can do to rebel. Unless they feel their concerns are being addressed, however, they are likely to try to set up a parallel naming and addressing system to compete with ICANN-sanctioned domains. Technology abhors homogeneity; differing technical standards are the norm rather than the exception. The ongoing scuffle over the creation of Galileo, Europe’s challenge to Washington’s Global Positioning System, is one example; the battle over third-generation mobile-phone standards is another. The danger, however, is that two different addressing systems on the Internet may not interoperate perfectly. If it wants to preserve and extend the benefits the Internet currently brings, Washington will have to come up with some way of sharing control with other countries without jeopardizing the network’s stability or discouraging free speech and technical innovation.

Ultimately, what is playing out is a clash of perspectives. The U.S. government saw the creation of ICANN as the voluntary relinquishing of a critical source of power in the digital age; others saw it as a clever way for Washington to maintain its hegemony by placing Internet governance in the U.S. private sector. Foreign critics think a shift to multilateral intergovernmental control would mark a step toward enlightened global democracy; Washington thinks it would constitute a step back in time, toward state-regulated telecommunications. Whether and how these perspectives are bridged will determine the future of a global resource that nearly all of us have come to take for granted.

Read the whole thing (free for limited length of time) at the Foreign Affairs web site.

This is continuing with yesterday’s post “Great Game Revisited (again) and the Green Revolution“.

On the Caucasus
Any attention the U.S. press pays attention to the southern Russia is only limited to Afghanistan and more to Central Asia, with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan. But not enough attention is paid to the deteriorating situation in the Caucasus and the dangerous consequences that it may represent.

As I’ve written in a recent post, the scale (over 200+), composition (local) and targets (security installations) of the Nalchik Raid in southern Russia represents a huge blow to Russia’s control over its troubled Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya. Indeed, while Putin and the Russian elites fret over the Color Revolution (Orange, Tulip, Rose) that has reverberated throughout the former Soviet Space, a Green Revolution is increasingly destabilize southern Russia thanks partly to Russia’s own ineptness:

Accepting that post-Soviet revolutions are not organized from outside but driven by public anger against corrupt authoritarian regimes is all but impossible for Putin and his courtiers. It would inevitably lead to the conclusion that the street battles in Nalchik were not a terrorist attack but an outburst of accumulated rage caused by police brutality and officially sanctioned persecution of Muslims (Vremya novostei, October 14). (Jamestown Foundation, emphasis mine)

Drawing from the Nalchik Raid, Andrei Smirnov at Jamestown gravely stated regarding the state of security in the Caucasus:

The Nalchik attack showed that the rebels in the North Caucasus maintain sufficient military capabilities to attack and temporarily hold one of the largest cities in the North Caucasus and could have enough capability to seize control of a whole region in the near future. The attack on Nalchik sent a clear warning to Putin and his team that they are outgunned in the Caucasus. (Jamestown Foundation, empahsis mine)

To add to that, the Nalchik Raid demonstrates that the Islamofacist have the intiative. They can choose when and where to attack, putting the Russian security forces on the defensive.

The Kremlin and the local governments inaptness in the Caucasus combined with the situation in Chechnya Conflict risk spilling an arc of fire across the region - where the vacuum of Russian power and legitimacy would lead to the raise and spread of radical Islam, as a significant movement.

Once reaching a sizable movement any turn to suppress them violent by Russian forces would be seen, not only as harsh and repressive, but also taking on the same tinge of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. That would be the tipping point, where the Caucasus would be lost to everything, but the radical extremist.

It would lead to the creation of a region far worse than Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, closer to Russia (obviously), closer to Europe and closer to the enormous energy resources and pipeline infrastructure in the region and in close-by Central Asia.