Query: geopolitics of cyberspace

title: The geopolitics of internet control: censorship, sovereignty, and cyberspace
abstract: What is the impact of the internet on state sovereignty, and in particular on states' ability to control information flows across their borders? Whereas once the internet was presumed to be a borderless world of free flowing information, today countries and corporations alike are carving it up in a bewildering array of filtered segments, often with major unintended consequences. The motivations for these practices range widely, from concerns over national security, cultural sensitivities, and protection of social values, to rent seeking and the protection of economic monopolies. Whereas once it was conventional wisdom to believe that the internet's technological infrastructure was immune to control, today states and corporations are applying an ever increasing level of skill and technological sophistication to precisely that mission. The result is that rather than being a single seamless environment, the internet a user connects to and experiences in Canada is far different than an internet a user experiences in Iran, China, or Belarus. This chapter provides an overview of the geopolitics of internet control, and in particular state efforts to control information flows across borders, with comparative data from over 22 countries.

title: Understanding Cyberspace with Geopolitics
abstract: The exponential growth of the Internet has revolutionized our way of life, transformed our economy, and tremendously expanded our means of communication. But it has also led to a proliferation of conflicts about important issues such as control and regulation of the Internet, the use of networks in political conflicts, military and economic warfare, intelligence work, the exercise of soft power, and respect for privacy and other civil liberties. Cyberspace has therefore become the object of power rivalries between stakeholders, a scene of confrontation, and a highly powerful tool in geopolitical conflicts. For a long time, these issues remained within the purview of a small community of experts with a scientific and technological background. Today, governments, corporations, civil society, and the military need to better understand these challenges because with the massive development of the Internet and its omnipresence in our daily lives, many technical decisions have now become political and strategic. Geopolitics is an essential tool for analyzing such challenges.

title: Towards an understanding of the geopolitics of cyberspace: Learning, re learning and un learning
abstract: Spiegel classifies the world's states as high tech, nationalistic, or transitional in character, along with some fluidity. His thesis is that 'traditional geography' has declined in importance in international politics and has been replaced by information and communications technologies (ICT) He seems unaware of recent developments in political geography, especially to the manner in which geographers consider space, cyberspace and ICT. Territory is one element of political space; others include identities, networks, regionalism, transboundary processes and non state actors in regional and global politics.

title: Geopolitics, Grand Strategy and the Bush Doctrine
abstract: Geopolitics is about the largest scale geographical specification of political matters. Geopolitical reasoning provides the spatial framings within which grand strategy is constructed. The Bush doctrine, elaborated in response to the events of September 11th 2001 and its formulation of a "Global War on Terror" draws heavily on antecedent formulations from both the first Bush administration and the Project for a New American Century. But in doing so it both misconstrues the nature of the events of September 11th and attempts a grand strategy that is flawed. It is flawed both because of its failure to understand the geography of terror and, given the Bush administration's flat denials that America is an empire, a reluctance to learn lessons from imperial history and adopt appropriate strategies and force structures to accomplish its ostensible goals. Simon Dalby is Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa where he teaches courses on environment and geopolitics. He holds a Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and is author of Creating the Second Cold War (Pinter and Guilford, 1990) and Environmental Security (University of Minnesota Press, 2002) He is co editor of The Geopolitics Reader (Routledge, 1998, 2006) and Rethinking Geopolitics (Routledge 1998)

title: RPDF 3.3: A Presentation on the Geopolitics of Cyberspace
abstract: "The Geopolitics of Cyberspace: A Diplomatic Perspective" explores whether there is a geopolitics of cyberspace, how this might impact on the behaviour of state and non state actors, and the implications for a diplomacy of cyberspace. In these supplementary materials author Shaun Riordan sets out the key points, in particular the application of geopolitics and critical geopolitics to cyberspace, how these analytical tools can help better understand the behaviour of key state and non state actors and the implications for diplomacy and foreign policy.

title: Developing Cyberspace Competencies for Air Force Professional Military Education
abstract: In December, 2005, the USAF added cyberspace as a domain of operations to its mission statement "fly and fight in air, space and cyberspace" In November, 2006, the CSAF announced the designation of 8th Air Force as the Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER) and charged 8AF with developing a plan for organizing, training and equipping a cyber force. Further, the Chief signaled his intent to redefine airpower" by focusing on integrating USAF capabilities in air, space, and cyberspace. These events necessitate a cultural change that will impact all AF members. All airmen (to include guard, reserve and civilians) must understand the cyberspace domain and how the US uses it to protect national power and deliver sovereign options for the Commander in Chief.

title: Geopolitics in the nineties: one flag, many meanings
abstract: This article provides an overview of recent publications on geopolitics. The diversity is overwhelming. Publications are therefore divided into four 'schools' neo classical geopolitics, subversive geopolitics, non geopolitics and critical geopolitics. These four schools are distinguished on two dimensions. The first is the distance to the object under study (practical/applied versus academic/reflective) The second refers to the position towards the state system (states as the principal geopolitical actors versus attention for other political actors and interests) Despite their differences, the four types of studies share a growing interest in geoeconomics.

title: Geopolitics and the post colonial rethinking North South relations
abstract: For a Post Colonial Geopolitics.2 Emerging Empire and the Civilizing Powers of Intervention.Part II: Waves of Western Theory.3 Modernizing the Other and the Three Worlds of Development.4 The Rise of Neo Liberalism and the Expansion of Western Power.Part III: Archipelagos of Critical Thinking.5 Societies of Insurgent Theory: the Dependentistas Write Back.6 Exploring Other Zones of Difference: from the post modern to the post colonial.Part IV: Geopolitics in a Globalizing World.7 Post Colonial Questions for Global Times.8 'Another World is Possible' on social movements, the Zapatistas and the dynamics of 'globalization from below'.9  Beyond the Imperiality of Knowledge.Notes.

title: Segueways into Cyberspace: Multiple Geographies of the Digital Divide
abstract: Despite stereotypes that cyberspace spells the 'end of geography' and promises universal, democratic entree to the electronic highways of the world economy, access to the Internet is highly unevenly distributed both socially and spatially. In this paper I examine the geopolitics of Internet access and its implications. I open by situating electronic communications within contemporary social theory, emphasizing cyberspace as a contested terrain of competing discourses. Second, international discrepancies in access are illustrated, dramatizing the ways in which the Internet enhances the advantages enjoyed by a global elite consisting largely of white, male professionals. Third, I turn to discrepancies in Internet access within the United States, including class, racial, gender, and spatial disparities. I seek to demonstrate that geography still matters; the Internet creates and reflects a distinct spatial structure interlaced with, and often reinforcing, existing relations of wealth and power.

title: Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm!
abstract: The twin phenomena of immediacy and of instantaneity are presently one of the most pressing problems confronting political and military strategists alike. Real time now prevails above both real space and the geosphere. The primacy of real time, of immediacy, over and above space and surface is a fait accompli and has inaugural value (ushers a new epoch) Something nicely conjured up in a (French) advertisement praising cellular phones with the words: "Planet Earth has never been this small" This is a very dramatic moment in our relation with the world and for our vision of the world.