Book Review: Geopolitics at the Internet’s Core — Why Internet Protocol Is Now a Battleground for Global Power

What if the quiet, technical plumbing of the Internet—things like IP addresses, routing tables, and protocol specs—were actually front lines in global politics? If that sounds dramatic, consider the headlines you’ve seen: proposals to “redesign the Internet,” calls to disconnect a country from the global network, warnings about who “controls” the Internet. Geopolitics at the Internet’s Core, by Fiona M. Alexander, Laura DeNardis, and Nanette S. Levinson, argues that these flashpoints share a common denominator: the Internet Protocol (IP) ecosystem.

This isn’t a book about gadgets or apps. It’s about how a technical system designed to move packets from A to B has become a proxy for political and economic power. And it’s essential reading if you want to understand why choices about standards, address allocation, and routing policies now shape the balance of power online—and off.

In this review, I’ll unpack the book’s central ideas, highlight what makes it timely and important, and share practical takeaways for policymakers, technologists, and business leaders navigating today’s fractured digital landscape.

Quick context: What exactly is “the Internet’s core”?

At the heart of the Internet is the Internet Protocol—rules for addressing and routing data so it arrives where it should. If you’ve ever seen an IP address (like 203.0.113.7 or an IPv6 address like 2001:db8::/32), you’ve brushed up against this system. IP makes global connectivity possible by providing:

• Unique addresses to identify devices and networks
• A packet-switching method to move data across diverse networks
• A routing logic to find the best (or available) path

The original specification is in RFC 791, with modern networking increasingly relying on IPv6 (RFC 8200). These aren’t just technical documents—they’re building blocks for how the world communicates, trades, and negotiates power.

So when a government, standards body, or tech company seeks to alter the way IP addresses are allocated, how packets are routed, or which standards are adopted, they potentially shift leverage across borders and markets. That’s why the authors call IP “a flashpoint mediating broader conflicts” across cultural and historical contexts.

What the book covers (and why it matters now)

Geopolitics at the Internet’s Core examines how IP has become entangled with public interest issues: security, sovereignty, human rights, competition, and national strategy. It dissects the “IP ecosystem,” which isn’t just a protocol stack—it’s a blend of:

• Abstract specifications (the standards)
• Virtual resources (address blocks, routing policies)
• Tangible infrastructure (routers, cables, data centers)
• Function-specific systems (autonomous systems, peering fabrics)
• Institutions and rules (standards bodies, registries, treaties, law)

By illuminating who influences each layer—and how—this book shows why technical infrastructure decisions can tilt geopolitical outcomes. Here’s why that matters: when you grasp these levers, you can better interpret today’s Internet governance controversies and anticipate where they’re headed.

A few real-world trigger points the book situates in context

• “Redesigning the Internet”: Proposals under the banner of “New IP” raised global debate about who sets the future of network architectures. The Internet Society’s analysis explains why many in the community saw these as attempts to centralize control.
• “Disconnecting a country”: In 2022, Ukraine asked whether Russia could be removed from core Internet functions. The response underscored mission limits and the importance of a single, interoperable Internet. See ICANN’s statement.
• “Surrendering the Internet”: In 2016, stewardship of key Internet number and naming functions transitioned from U.S. oversight to a global multistakeholder model. For context, read ICANN’s IANA stewardship transition overview.

Each episode reveals how technical functions—addresses, routing, standards—sit at the nexus of diplomacy, economics, and national interest.

The authors’ thesis in plain English

The book argues that IP is no longer just a neutral utility. It’s a space where states, companies, and civil society contest power. Because modern economies, militaries, and societies hinge on reliable, global routing, control over IP-related functions becomes leverage. Who sets the rules? Who allocates the numbers? Who can filter or favor routes? The answers shape everything from cybersecurity to trade policy.

The authors don’t suggest tearing down the open, interoperable Internet. Instead, they show how the mix of technical decisions and governance arrangements can either reinforce or erode that principle—and how choices today will set the path for decades.

Key idea: Eight IP-related levers of power

Without spoiling the book’s structure, the authors identify eight levers through which power manifests in the IP ecosystem. While the book unpacks each in depth, they center on areas like:

1) Standards-setting and protocol design – Who defines and deploys protocols? Influence in bodies like the IETF and ITU can tilt outcomes toward openness or centralization. – Design choices can embed values—resilience, privacy, surveillance capability—into infrastructure.

2) Number resource allocation and stewardship – IP address governance flows through global and regional institutions: ICANN/IANA, the Number Resource Organization, and the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). – Scarcity dynamics (especially IPv4 exhaustion) create economic and policy tensions. See RIPE NCC on IPv4 exhaustion.

3) Routing control and interconnection policy – Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) determines how networks reach each other. Operators can filter, prefer, or block routes—intentionally or by mistake. – Security mechanisms like RPKI can prevent route hijacks, but adoption is uneven. Learn more from the RIPE NCC RPKI overview and Cloudflare’s explainer on BGP.

4) Infrastructure chokepoints and equipment – Control over undersea cables, IXPs, and core routing gear translates into leverage. Standards and certification regimes can privilege certain vendors or geographies.

5) National regulation and “digital sovereignty” – Laws and decrees can shape IP routing and peering. Sanctions, data localization, and national security rules often ripple down into technical operations at AS-level.

6) Platform and cloud consolidation – Hyperscalers, CDNs, and large platforms concentrate address space and traffic engineering power. Their policies can change the effective topology of the Internet.

7) Measurement, attribution, and transparency – The ability to see how the Internet behaves—outages, filtering, hijacks—creates informational power. Those who can measure can govern.

8) Security norms and operational best practices – Voluntary commitments like MANRS (routing security) and push for IPv6 adoption create de facto standards that shape the risk landscape.

The list is not about villainizing any actor. It’s about seeing how power actually works in a complex, interdependent system. Once you see these levers, you can map who pulls them—and why.

Where the book shines

• Clear translation of technical complexity: The authors explain IP, routing, and governance without dumbing it down. If you’ve ever felt lost between “policy speak” and “network speak,” this bridge is invaluable.
• Case-driven analysis: Real controversies—like the IANA transition or the “New IP” debates—are used to build durable insights, not just hot takes.
• Balanced governance lens: Rather than state-centric or purely technical narratives, the book considers multistakeholder governance, market power, and civil society interests together.
• Global perspective: It situates Western, Chinese, and other regional approaches in their historical and cultural contexts, showing why ideas like “digital sovereignty” gain traction.

What you’ll learn (and how to use it)

By the end, you’ll understand:

• How standards bodies, registries, and operators share (and contest) authority
• What “address scarcity” does to markets and policy
• Why IPv6 adoption is not just a tech upgrade, but a governance decision
• How routing security (RPKI, filtering) intersects with national security and commerce
• Where proposals to centralize or redesign Internet functions come from—and what’s at stake

If you work in policy, security, networking, or the C‑suite, consider these practical uses:

• Risk assessment: Map your dependencies on address allocations, RPKI validation, peering partners, and cloud providers.
• Strategy development: Decide where you participate—IETF, RIR meetings, national consultations—so your interests are represented.
• Compliance and resilience: Track how sanctions, localization, or new telecom rules affect your routing and address plans.
• Architecture choices: Prioritize IPv6, BGP security controls, and redundant interconnection to reduce geopolitical risk exposure.

The politics in the plumbing: Why IP is a flashpoint

Let me explain why the authors argue the Internet Protocol is political now:

• IP allocates a scarce global resource. IPv4 addresses ran out at the top level years ago; the resulting address transfer markets and NAT workarounds create both technical constraints and geopolitical stakes. IPv6 alleviates scarcity, but adoption is uneven. See ARIN’s IPv6 resources.
• Routing is programmable policy. BGP lets operators express business and policy preferences. In practice, this can implement national strategies, content controls, or resilience priorities.
• Standards encode values. Choices about encryption, traffic management, and addressing structure have human rights and economic consequences. Participation—who shows up to write the standards—matters.
• Institutions hold legitimacy. Bodies like ICANN, the IETF, and the Internet Society derive authority from norms of openness and multistakeholderism. Challenges to that legitimacy are inherently political.

In short, IP is the stage on which broader debates about power, sovereignty, and rights are playing out.

Case studies that stick

Without giving away the book’s narrative flow, three episodes provide a throughline for understanding today’s arguments:

• 
  

  The IANA transition: Moving stewardship from U.S. oversight to a global model was framed by some as “surrendering the Internet.” The reality was painstaking institutionalization of distributed governance. It’s a lesson in how checks and balances can be engineered into infrastructure. Background here: IANA stewardship transition.

  
  
• 
  

  Ukraine’s appeal to disconnect Russia: The ask collided with the design principle of a single, interoperable Internet and the limited mission of technical bodies. It raised hard questions about whether and how geopolitical sanctions should manifest at the core. See ICANN’s mission statement amid the crisis.

  
  
• 
  

  “New IP” proposals: Controversies over network architecture changes underscored the tension between innovation, control, and openness. Read the Internet Society’s position for context on why many engineers pushed back.

  
  

Each case reinforces the book’s central point: Governance choices at the protocol layer reverberate into economics, security, and human rights.

What’s new here for experts?

If you follow Internet governance, you might think you’ve heard versions of this story. The value-add of Geopolitics at the Internet’s Core is its integration:

• It treats IP not as a narrow engineering problem but as a system of power, bringing the conceptual rigor of political economy into protocol analysis.
• It traces how national strategies play out across standards venues, procurement, and regulatory instruments—without reducing everything to state action.
• It looks forward, offering scenarios and “levers” that help readers anticipate, not just react to, the next controversy.

For practitioners, the book doubles as a governance field guide—who does what, how decisions get made, where influence is exercised.

Where you might want more

No book can cover it all. A few areas some readers may wish for deeper treatment:

• Operational tradeoffs: More nuts-and-bolts on how RPKI, filtering policies, and IPv6 address planning impact day‑to‑day network operations.
• Private sector concentration: A deeper dive into how hyperscale clouds’ address and routing decisions reshape global topology and governance de facto.
• Global South operational case studies: More granular examples of how address scarcity and peering economics play out in emerging markets.

To be clear, these aren’t gaps so much as invitations for further research and dialogue the book usefully catalyzes.

Practical checklist: Reducing your exposure to IP geopolitics

You can’t depoliticize IP, but you can make smarter technical and governance choices. Consider this starter checklist:

• Map dependencies
• Identify which RIR allocated your address space and your ASNs.
• Catalog upstream providers, IXPs, and critical interconnects.
• 
  

  Track cloud and CDN partners that originate or announce your routes.

  
  
• 
  

  Harden routing

  
  
• Implement RPKI signing for your prefixes; validate inbound routes.
• Join initiatives like MANRS to align with best practices.
• 
  

  Monitor for route leaks/hijacks; establish escalation playbooks.

  
  
• 
  

  Advance IPv6

  
  
• Build an IPv6 plan with clear milestones and business drivers.
• 
  

  Avoid IPv4 transfer-market lock‑in and reduce NAT complexity.

  
  
• 
  

  Engage in governance

  
  
• Participate in IETF working groups relevant to your stack.
• Show up at your RIR meetings (ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC, AFRINIC, LACNIC).
• 
  

  Share measurement data to improve transparency and research.

  
  
• 
  

  Scenario-plan for policy shifts

  
  
• Model impacts of sanctions or localization rules on routing and peering.
• Stress-test for cable cuts or regional traffic re‑routing.

Small steps here compound into strategic resilience.

How this connects to today’s headlines

• Fragmentation vs. interoperability: As states pursue “digital sovereignty,” routing policies and address governance will test whether the Internet remains globally interoperable.
• Security by default: Expect more pressure for baseline adoption of routing security (RPKI, filtering) in critical infrastructure and the vendor ecosystem.
• Address economics: IPv4 scarcity will keep fueling transfer markets; IPv6 maturity will determine how much that matters.
• Standards competition: The battlefield will remain active in standards venues—technical features that appear purely operational may carry governance implications.

If you want a reliable compass for these issues, the book is it.

The verdict: Essential for anyone who cares about Internet governance, security, or strategy

Geopolitics at the Internet’s Core is a timely, authoritative map of the terrain where technical design meets national interest. It’s rigorous without being abstruse, critical without being cynical. Most importantly, it equips readers to see beyond the surface of tech headlines to the governance structures and power dynamics underneath.

Who should read it? – Policymakers and diplomats shaping national digital strategies – Network engineers and security leaders responsible for routing and resilience – Tech executives and investors exposed to infrastructure risk – Researchers and students in international relations, law, and STS

If you’ve ever wondered how a protocol spec turns into geopolitical leverage, this is your book.

FAQs: People also ask

Q: What does “geopolitics of the Internet Protocol” mean? A: It refers to how power dynamics among states, companies, and institutions play out through technical decisions about IP addressing, routing, and standards. Control over these functions can influence security, commerce, and speech.

Q: Why is IPv6 part of the geopolitics conversation? A: IPv6 reduces address scarcity, which affects markets and policy leverage linked to IPv4. Uneven IPv6 adoption can create dependencies and chokepoints—making it a governance issue as much as a technical one. See RFC 8200 for the specification.

Q: Can a country be “disconnected” from the Internet at the IP level? A: There’s no single “off switch.” While networks can block routes or services, and sanctions can constrain interconnection, the institutions managing core functions (like ICANN) have limited, mission‑specific mandates and prioritize a single, global Internet. See ICANN’s 2022 statement.

Q: What is RPKI and why is it political? A: RPKI is a cryptographic system that helps prevent BGP route hijacking by validating which networks can announce which prefixes. Its adoption involves operational decisions, vendor support, and sometimes regulatory pressure—blending technical and policy concerns. Learn more at RIPE NCC’s RPKI page.

Q: Who controls IP addresses globally? A: Address stewardship flows from IANA (under ICANN) to the five Regional Internet Registries coordinated by the Number Resource Organization. Policies are community‑developed in each region.

Q: What was the IANA stewardship transition? A: In 2016, oversight of key Internet number and naming functions moved from U.S. government stewardship to the global multistakeholder community, formalizing distributed governance while maintaining continuity. Overview here: IANA transition.

Q: What is “New IP” and why did it cause controversy? A: “New IP” refers to proposals debated in standards venues that many viewed as enabling more centralized network control. Critics argued it threatened the open, interoperable Internet model. See the Internet Society’s analysis.

Q: How can organizations reduce geopolitical risk in networking? A: Adopt IPv6, implement RPKI, diversify interconnections, participate in governance bodies, and scenario‑plan for policy shifts. Joining initiatives like MANRS helps align with best practices.

Final takeaway

Geopolitics at the Internet’s Core delivers a clear, compelling argument: the Internet Protocol isn’t just an engineering artifact—it’s a field of power. If you build, regulate, or rely on digital infrastructure, you need to understand the levers at play. Start by mapping your dependencies, harden your routing, and get a seat at the standards and policy tables.

If this review helped clarify the stakes, stick around for more deep dives on Internet governance and infrastructure strategy—or subscribe to get future analyses straight to your inbox.

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