All policing is to a certain degree by consent, even in dictatorships which only use democratic as a fig-leaf. International law likewise.

Just as the criminal justice system is a deterrent against crime despite imperfections, so are treaties, international courts, sanctions, and warfare.

> I am thinking it will not be the NSA data centre's in Utah, or any data centres owned by nuclear armed states.

For now, this would indeed seem unlikely. But so did the fall of the British Empire and later the Soviet Union before they happened.