Since the dawn of the Age of Discovery in the late 15th century, Europe’s regional international system began its transformation into a global one, a process that was completed by the middle of the 19th century. Any kind of system requires an internal network that connects its various elements. Due to geography of our planet’s surface and practical realities of transportation, the network tying together the global political and economic system runs in large part across the ocean. This explains the association of any nation’s global geopolitical preeminence with its control of the seas.
Critical importance of maritime supremacy resulted in it being a central issue in the great power competition. Modern China’s maritime rise, combined with the United States, Japan and India seeing it as a threat to their national interests, means that presently we are observing the beginning of a new sequel of the great maritime game.
{mosads}In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spain and Portugal had a head start in their maritime expansion, resulting in their early preeminence in the seas. The Iberian nations gradually lost their maritime edge, however, and were overtaken by the Netherlands, England and France in the 17th century. By the 18th century, only Britain and France were contending for maritime dominance, fighting a series of exhausting wars. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain was triumphant and enjoyed uncontested supremacy in the sea.
Since the well-being of most developed states depended, as it does today, on their free access to the maritime lanes of transportation, Britain’s dominant maritime position gave it enormous leverage over other powers in the 19th century. The period is often called Pax Britannica, and the name is well-deserved. By the end of the century, however, economies of other powers such as the United States and Germany caught up with the British one, and their navies were not far behind.
Germany explicitly challenged the naval status quo, and a new maritime great game developed by early 20th century, eventually emerging into World War I. While Germany was crushed in that conflict, the British naval supremacy and, with it, Pax Britannica, were over nevertheless. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 that gave the United States, Britain and Japan the ratio of 5:5:3 for the number of principal warships they were allowed to possess reflected the new naval balance of power.
The United States emerged as a new global economic powerhouse in the interwar period, but remained relatively passive on international stage. The spectacular crash of the Versailles system and the start of World War II awakened America to the critical necessity of its active engagement with the international system. During and after the war, the United States translated its economic power into control over the world ocean, creating an unrivaled navy and gaining a global network of bases and friendly ports required to support it. Ever since, America’s unassailable economic and naval position has been the cornerstone of its international preeminence and the world order that comes with it.
This position is unassailable no more. For the first time in a century, a power has emerged that is genuinely capable of ending the global preeminence of the United States. The 20th century Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union were military powers of immense strength, but they could never hope to overtake the United States economically, unless, of course, they took over huge parts of Eurasia, which America did not allow them to do during World War II and the Cold War. Modern China, on the other hand, has, within its existing borders, an intrinsic potential to leave the United States behind. In fact, gross domestic product growth forecasts maintain that China will overtake America economically in the first half of the 21st century.
Similarly to the denouement of Pax Britannica, the change in the maritime balance comes soon after the change in the economic one. In terms of the navy itself, China is still very far behind America, although the Chinese are diligently working on changing this state of affairs in the long term. But China has already achieved serious progress in developing other capabilities, such as anti-ship ballistic missiles, as well as cyber and anti-satellite weapons that might limit America’s current naval superiority in a potential war. At the same time, China seeks to gain control over the strategically vital South-East China Sea through territorial claims, and to secure friendly ports in the Indian Ocean by developing relations with some of its littoral states.
America clearly sees these Chinese strategies as a threat. So do India and Japan, for whom safety of their maritime routes is critical, and who can live with America’s naval supremacy but aren’t sure they would be able to live with China’s reign. During their respective periods of maritime dominance, Britain and America have been able determine innumerable crucial global developments.
In this sense, the ability to control the world’s unifying maritime network means the ability to shape the future. Therefore, the stakes in this new maritime great game are exceedingly high. Like its historical predecessors, it is likely to prove to be one of history’s most decisive affairs, probably defining the 21st century to a far greater degree than any other geopolitical issue.
David Batashvili is an international relations analyst. He previously worked at the National Security Council of the nation of Georgia and is currently with Civil Georgia. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidBatashvili.