الشبكة اليمنية للعلوم والبيئة (يمن ساينس) موقع يهتم بأخبار العلوم والتكنولوجيا والصحة والبيئة والسكان
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By: Abdulrahman Abotaleb
When undersea cables off the coast of Jeddah were severed recently, slowing Microsoft services across the region, it was tempting to dismiss the disruption as a technical mishap. Yet these recurring outages—from the Red Sea to the Baltic—underscore a deeper reality: the internet is not a weightless cloud floating above politics but a fragile mesh of physical arteries and digital platforms, increasingly shaped by the rivalries of great powers.
ICANN Neutralization
For much of its early history, the debate over control of the internet centered on ICANN, the California-based body managing the domain name system and IP addresses. Washington’s contractual oversight of ICANN gave the United States a symbolic “veto” over the core directory of the global network. After Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations about mass surveillance, trust eroded further. Countries such as Brazil, Germany, and China pressed for oversight to be transferred to the United Nations or the International Telecommunication Union. By 2016, the Obama administration recognized that clinging to this arrangement risked splintering the network altogether. Ceding direct authority over ICANN was thus less a concession than an insurance policy: a calculated step to preserve the internet’s integrity as a single, global system.
Digital Cold War
Yet relinquishing ICANN oversight did not end the geopolitical contest; it merely shifted the battlefield. At the infrastructure layer, submarine cables—carrying over 97% of international traffic—have become strategic chokepoints. The United States, through hyperscale companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta, now invests billions in new routes across the Atlantic, Africa, and Latin America. China, meanwhile, pushes its Digital Silk Road, funding projects like the PEACE cable linking Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Solomon Islands cable dispute showed how undersea infrastructure is no longer just about connectivity but about power: China’s bid met swift Australian intervention, turning a telecom project into a geopolitical flashpoint. Europe, unwilling to remain a passive arena, is pursuing “digital sovereignty” by supporting alternative links and stricter regulation. Russia has sought Arctic pathways while facing allegations of cable sabotage in the Baltic, and Ukraine’s wartime reliance on Starlink revealed how private corporations can become indispensable actors in national resilience.
At the application layer, the struggle is even more visible. Beijing has entrenched its Great Firewall, banned iPhones among senior officials, and nurtured domestic alternatives to Western platforms. Washington has responded with sanctions on Huawei, attempts to ban TikTok, and the “Clean Network” initiative under former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Brussels has chosen a different path, using regulation—the GDPR and Digital Markets Act—to rein in American tech giants while protecting European data. Each approach reflects a distinct blend of economic ambition, security concern, and political philosophy.
No Winner in Fragmentation!
But if the United States, China, Europe, and Russia pursue different strategies, they share one paradox: none truly desires a fully fragmented internet. Washington would lose the data flows that underpin its economic and intelligence supremacy. Beijing would see its global ambitions curtailed behind its own firewall. Europe risks perpetual dependence if the network splits into rival spheres, and Moscow’s technological isolation has already come at a heavy cost. Above all, the greatest losers would be ordinary users and the global economy, both of which depend on interoperability and openness.
MENA, the Weakest Link
The Middle East and North Africa highlight this vulnerability starkly. The region hosts some of the world’s most critical choke points—Egypt and the Red Sea routes carry much of Asia–Europe traffic, yet it exerts little influence over how the global internet is governed. Outages off Alexandria in 2008, repeated cable cuts in the Red Sea in 2020-2025, Sudan’s politically imposed blackouts, Iran’s insular “national internet”, Yemen’s wartime disruptions, and persistent platform censorship in the Gulf all paint the same picture: societies bearing the costs of fragility without the means to shape the future.
Uncertain Future
The risk today is not the total “splintering” of the internet but something subtler and more insidious: a layered fragmentation. One internet in appearance, but divided in practice between those who own the undersea cables, those who dominate the cloud and data centers, and those who control the apps through which billions live their digital lives.
The question is not whether the internet will fracture but whether the world can prevent it from hardening into rival digital blocs that mirror the geopolitical divides of our age. What began as a network designed to transcend borders may yet become the most accurate reflection of them.
Internet Diplomacy
Confronting this layered fragmentation requires more than technical fixes; it calls for a deliberate diplomatic effort to manage the internet as shared global infrastructure. In this context, the need for internet diplomacy has never been greater. Just as international treaties have safeguarded shipping lanes and outer space, today the global community must develop multilateral agreements to protect undersea cables, secure data flows, and ensure digital infrastructure remains neutral. Such diplomacy must also bring private corporations and civil society to the table alongside governments. Without it, the internet risks drifting from an open commons for knowledge and exchange into yet another battlefield of geopolitical rivalries.
