On February 7, 2011, CNN.com posted an article by Spencer Ackerman of WIRED, which highlighted the potential tools at the United States' disposal in the event of another Egypt-like Internet shutdown.
Aside from politely asking a nation's ruler to restore connectivity, "the American military does have a second set of options, if it ever wants to force connectivity on a country against its ruler's wishes." Yet there remain several issues to be worked out before such options could be deployed; one such issue is the legality of such action. The article quotes John Arquilla, "a leading military futurist," who warns that forced connectivity "could be considered an act of war."
Although many of the devices and methods are classified, the article does highlight a few of the American military's capabilities – which if ever necessary – could be slightly modified to restore Internet access to "a restive populace cut off from the outside world." The Commando Solo, currently a broadcasting center for the U.S. Air Force with applications for psychological operations, could be revamped to restore Wi-Fi access to any bandwidth-denied area it flies over.
The range of capabilities, which span from slow-flying drones providing 3G coverage to a "few-kilometer[-wide]" radius on the ground, to low-tech smuggled Thuraya satellite phones, are all intended to give policymakers in Washington a range of options besides doing nothing and ordering in the Marines.
The as-yet-unclear legality of such operations may be why we haven't seen the U.S. deploy these tools in the past. As Arquilla points out "'[t]his is far less an engineering problem and far more a political one.'"
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The full article, with more detail on the U.S. military's capabilities, is available at the link provided above, or here.
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