Thanks, pjc50, for the helpful reference. This is the author of the book here. Your instincts are sharp. As it happens, I deal with exactly your last argument in the book, so let me gently suggest that if in fact there were "no way" for anything but central control, this book would not exist because there would be no story to tell. However, it does, and the three-decade Soviet story told here, whose protagonist is a leading theorized of in fact decentralized power, might deserve another glance...
For a while (in the 70s and 80s) there were two competing, state-sponsored networks in France: Minitel, based on x25 and made by French telcos, and Cyclades, based on datagrams and made by French CS research labs. The telcos lobbied the government to cut funding for Cyclades, which they saw as a competitor, and it eventually happened (under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, probably neither Pompidou nor de Gaulle would have made that mistake).
There is a very good book (in French) about that story, called La France en réseaux, by Valérie Schafer. It is one of my favorite tech history books. I will certainly read yours and hope it is as good!
However, I saw it is only available as hardcover. Any chance you can make it available for Kindle?
