is there any scoring of internet freedoms based upon the number of routes in and out of a country? the same means by which a country controls its own people through this method can certainly be used against the same by both forces inside and out. certainly economic war could be fought just by shutting down access for countries which only have one or two nodes to the outside world.
the international community could also simply put in place rules that a countries leadership can have no more access to the internet than its populace and cutting off that populace would invoke limits on the leadership if not economic sanctions
Some countries do it by obvious means and others hide behind friendly sounding "protecting the integrity of" laws but the results end up the same. the government keeps its rights and access but everyone else is cuffed
It is not so much the number of connections that a country has to the internet but the number of connections that a country internal to itself. Consider two countries:
Country A has an IXP (Internet Exchange Point) within its borders. Thus, if it cuts external connections, Country A still has working network connections between hosts within its borders.
Country B has most of its internal communications routed through IXPs in neighboring countries. When it cuts those external connections, it cuts connections between hosts within its own borders.
All other things being equal Country B will bare a much higher cost to cutting the internet than Country A because at least people in Country A can access websites inside their country.
Given this, consider the national security implications of Amazon AWS.
the international community could also simply put in place rules that a countries leadership can have no more access to the internet than its populace and cutting off that populace would invoke limits on the leadership if not economic sanctions
Some countries do it by obvious means and others hide behind friendly sounding "protecting the integrity of" laws but the results end up the same. the government keeps its rights and access but everyone else is cuffed