IPv6, To Lead, or To Be Lead?

From a holistic perspective, as far as IPv6 is concerned, it eventually comes down to this very simple question: To lead or to be lead?

Do we want to continue to lead the rest of the world in terms of supporting the future development and growth of the Internet and the related technological innovations in the era of IoT, or do we want to let the rest of the world to not only take over the discussions on the future governance of the Internet from the policy perspective, but also take the lead in adopting and deploying IPv6 so that they could gain more real world experience and technical knowhow in securely deploying and protecting the IPv6 networking infrastructure?

It might already be a foregone conclusion that we have lost the fight in the cyber warfare against the bad actors in the IPv4 stack, but we may still have a fighting chance to win the war in the IPv6 stack. This may be the only chance that we have in order to gain the upper hand to fight against the bad actors in the era of IoT and the next generation of the Internet, especially when considering the fact that we can immediately achieve more than 50% reduction of the cyber security threats and attacks the moment we can turn off the IPv4 stack completely from the current networking infrastructure.

I think the answer to the question is very simple: we MUST lead, in order to survive in the cyber warfare in the days to come.

Disclaimer: The views presented are only personal opinions and they do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government.