A Poor Strategic Decision

 This week the United States made a decision completely at odds with the nation’s long term strategic planning. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the Crimea and the missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370 largely overshadowed the decision by the U.S. Commerce Department to relinquish its last official oversight of the internet. This authority has been held, via a contract, with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN intends to turn it over management of the internet to a “global governance body”, whose form and function have not yet been determined. The United States has always been committed to the concept of free trade, and since 1945 has been the principal shield of maritime and aviation trade routes. The cyber-trade routes that course through the internet have become as important to the strategic and economic health and well-being of the U.S. as the physical air and sea routes of commerce. Complete U.S. divestment from oversight of internet domain naming conventions is a serious strategic mistake. Similar global systems created in the past were never completely abandoned as the U.S. intends to act in regard to the internet. Better options for continued U.S. monitoring and support exist. The U.S. Commerce Department is making a serious mistake in turning over this vital aspect of internet oversight to a not yet fully organized “global governance” entity.

      The United States essentially “created” the internet over the course of several decades as a method for exchanging information between distant academics working on the same projects. Since its humble beginnings the internet has morphed into a communications, business, entertainment and information source “light years” beyond its origins. The privatization of this vast system from strict U.S. government control to international governance began early in the internet’s history with the 1998 creation of ICANN to oversee many internet activities formerly performed by the United States government. The follow-on 2006 agreement established full ICANN internet management with limited monitoring from U.S. government authority. Both agreements were in keeping with the very generous U.S. intent to make the internet available to all peoples without restriction. Unfortunately, complaints related to reported internet spying from U.S. intelligence agencies, or budget cuts have prompted the current U.S. administration to accelerate its abandonment of all internet oversight by September 2015. This is a serious strategic mistake. While this action may seem perfectly reasonable now, history shows that such large-scale abandonments often lead to poor future outcomes for the nation that gives up a key strategic system. Better examples of access for all with continued U.S. oversight exist as models for the internet.

          

There are good historical examples of governments creating large-scale economic and communication systems, and then making them available to a global customer base. Great Britain funded the a vast system of submarine cables in the late 19^th and early 20^th century in order to provide secure communications throughout its Empire. Although this system, the All Red Line,  was later expanded to include cables funded or owned by other nations, Great Britain frequently eavesdropped on communications in defense of its own national interests. Thanks to their retention of this capability, the British were able to inform the United States that the German Empire planned to give Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to the Mexican government if it declared war on the U.S. Had the British not retained this capability, this message, the Zimmerman telegram, might have gone unnoticed. More recently the United States opened use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) to a wide civilian and international user base while retaining its ability to use the system for national security applications. 

    

     Finally, the United States has greatly benefitted from the current configuration of the internet. By retaining (through ICANN), the ability to influence what top level domains (.com, .net, .gov, .mil etc) are approved, the U.S. continued a near three century hold by the English language on international system nomenclature. The best early navigation charts were provided by the British Admiralty, whose wide ranging exploration efforts charted the world’s oceans, starting with the voyages of Captain James Cook in the late 1700’s. Thanks to their efforts and Royal Navy's control of the world’s oceans, English was and remains the language of Marine communication throughout the world. U.S. and British sponsorship of pioneering aviation activities and commercial air routes before and just after World War 2 made English the first language of world air travel. The internet, also born under U.S. auspices, has retained an English base in its domain structure. There are already concerns that opening upper level domains to wide international control will create a fragmented internet that will no longer be “world wide”. English speaking internet users could quickly find themselves marginalized on the net if there is an explosion of domain names with Cyrillic or Hanzi characters that are inaccessible by English speakers.

     Criticism of U.S. intelligence community surveillance activities may be pushing this decision faster than is prudent. It might be useful to remind such critics that every nation with the ability to do so conducts espionage activities. Commercial entities and private individuals sift the web for email, purchase, and consumer data on individuals and groups. As for the great critics of U.S. security efforts, Edward Snowden hides under the auspices of former KGB officer and Europe’s number one authoritarian thug, Vladimir Putin, who is hardly an advocate of human rights. Wikileaks hero Julian Assange too has benefited from Russian associations. His 2012 television and internet talk show, “World Tomorrow” was created and produced by state-controlled Russia TV, a company founded by Vladimir Putin’s former media minister Mikhail Yuriyevich Lesin.

    The U.S. cannot afford to completely divorce itself from its creation. Time and again, “international governance”, whether through the United Nations or other international body, leads to  inefficient and corrupt management. The U.S. transfer of authority and responsibility for internet management to ICANN since 1998 has been a well planned process. Cutting all ability to oversee and affect a system created by the United States government and used so extensively by U.S. citizens in the public and private spheres, is a serious error in strategic judgment. The U.S. should suspend a complete severing of ability to monitor and oversee ICANN until Congress can adequately investigate the second and third order effects on U.S. security, the U.S. business and financial community and on ordinary U.S. citizens’ ability to use the internet.