National Internet Defense - Small States on the Skirmish Line

Abstract

Despite the global and borderless nature of the Internet’s underlying protocols and driving philosophy, there are significant ways in which it remains substantively territorial. Nations have policies and laws that govern and attempt to defend "their Internet". This is far less palpable than a nation’s physical territory or even than "its air" or "its water". Cyberspace is still a much wilder frontier, hard to define and measure. Where its effects are noted and measurable, all too often they are hard to attribute to responsible parties.