Published October 9, 2026 | Version 1.2
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When the cloud catches fire

Authors/Creators

  • 1. Cahiers de technopolitique

Description

On 1 and 2 March 2026, Iranian drones struck two Amazon Web Services data centres in the United Arab Emirates and damaged a third in Bahrain, disrupting more than 109 AWS services in the UAE region alone. This note argues that this was not a cybersecurity incident but a doctrinal shift: for the first time, according to several analysts, a state deliberately targeted commercial data centres in wartime by conventional military means, to the point of rendering some of them unrecoverable.

English version, translated by the author, of Cahiers de technopolitique no. 1 (French original, version 1.5: 10.5281/zenodo.23270770). Quotations from English-language sources are given in their original wording. Full text in open access: https://technopolitique.eu/cahiers/n1/en/.

Notes

English version of Cahiers de technopolitique no. 1. The French original (10.5281/zenodo.23206998, version 1.3) is the reference text. Version 1.1 of 7 October 2026: four inconsistencies inherited from the French original corrected (Red Sea cables, date of the 1-2 March 2026 scenario, CAS-IX exchange point, source verification period). The previous version remains available, but this one is authoritative. Version 1.2 of 9 October 2026: the table "Towards a stratification of infrastructure according to risk", missing from versions 1.0 and 1.1, is restored in English from the French original (version 1.5), aligned with the verified text, with two unsourced statements toned down. The argument is unchanged. The previous version remains available, but this one is authoritative.

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Additional details

Is identical to
https://technopolitique.eu/cahiers/n1/en/ (URL)
Is part of
https://technopolitique.eu/cahiers/ (URL)
3131-7979 (ISSN)
Is variant form of
10.5281/zenodo.23270770 (DOI)
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