The majority of the root name server operators are based in the United States of America. Couldn the US government force them to make any changes it wants?
In principle I suppose the US government could do that. It is difficult to argue with one’s government if the government is determined about something. However I consider this a highly unlikely scenario for several reasons of which I will just give the ones I find most convincing: Firstly, any unilateral action like this, even by the US government, would mean that the DNS namespace fragments at that very instance. Other governments will decide that they do not like the changes imposed by the US and as a consequence some names will either not be visible everywhere on the Internet anymore or, worse, they may start to mean different things. In this situation everyone loses. So as long as all players remain rational, they will not go in this direction. But then there is the story of the goose that laid the golden egg. Secondly, it would be much easier for the US government to influence the editing process by the IANA. This method would even keep working after deployment of DNSSEC while for
